The best return on investment

The last few months, everyone I know has been experiencing a lot of big challenges.

Weird illnesses, emotional difficulties, relationship problems, financial issues – you name it.

As the world of lies is literally crumbling before our eyes, I’ve been feeling confused about how I’m meant to be reacting to it all. 

All the uncertainty about what is really going on is not so easy to navigate, day-to-day.

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Let’s take one example: money.

Am I meant to carry on with the paradigm of believing that I should be saving money for my retirement (over and above a pension, which we’re doing as kind of the minimal hishtadlut that is currently required, to not just be a crazy person who relies on open miracles)?

Or, saving a few thousand shekels every year in the hopes that at some point, the ‘inflation fairy’ will wave her magic wand and turn it into the three million shekels required to buy an apartment in Jerusalem (before I croak… Talk about relying on open miracles…)

Or – am I just meant to be giving as much money as I can to charity, as the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbenu and the Rav emphasise?

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Let’s pause to say that BH, me and my husband give the full whack we can to charity, halachically, and especially, the authentic tzedaka causes associated with the Rav and Shuvu Banim.

And I can honestly say, it’s the best ‘return on investment’ in the world.

I see it in little things, like the fact that so much of our furniture, our household goods, seem to last forever, in good condition and operating fine. My printer is eight years old… My sofa was 23 years old, until I finally decided it’s time for a change, last month… Our bed cost 400 nis from Ikea seven years ago, and still looks great and is going strong…

It’s small stuff like that, in the gashmius world, that actually makes all the difference to the bank balance, cumulatively.

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And then, there is the stuff that doesn’t happen, because the tzedeka we pay cancels out the din.

Who knows what, lo alenu, stuff like root canals, serious illnesses, accidents, unemployment, huge debts, car crashes, fires, floods etc.

Again, all this is in the gashmius world.

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And then, there is the stuff that doesn’t happen in the spiritual realm, too, lo alenu, like horrible shalom bayit, kids going off the derech, not having sheket nafshi, mental illnesses like crippling anxiety, rage fits…

All that fun stuff.

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And then, there’s the obvious brachot you get, like being able, somehow, to afford to live in Jerusalem.

And to make shabbos happily, in a warm, dry place that’s walkable to the Rav.

And to enjoy spending time with your family. (Mostly…)

And every now and then, to spend a couple of days in Eilat.

And to often wake up kind of excited, about what you can do today.

All this stuff is not to be taken for granted, at all, and I honestly believe that giving the full halachic requirement of 10-20% of our income to tzedaka has led to so many open and hidden blessings, there is simply no insurance policy in the world, no savings plan, no investment, that can come close to matching it.

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At the same time.

Shouldn’t we be trying to save a bit more for our retirement?

That’s what started nudging me, last year.

I mean, only idiots ‘rely on open miracles’ for their parnassa…Don’t they?

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Long story very short, we tried the experiment to have a savings plan last year, and for a billion and one different reasons, mostly out of our control, it didn’t work very well.

Down to small things like our bank being ‘unable’ to find the account we had to pay into every month, even though it’s run by a huge investment company and apparently a million other people had no problem transferring to them directly.

By contrast, my husband had to sit on the phone for an hour with the personal banker each time we wanted to pay in – and after three months, he had enough of doing that.

(I don’t blame him… Bankers in Israel are another big test. Almost as bad as Shufersal.)

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So, 2026 rolled around, and we got into a big argument about savings.

Very long story short, I thought maybe we should try again, and he was dead set against it.

Saving a few grush every month is going to make no difference to us being able to buy a place in Jerusalem, long term, he told me.

I’d rather give any spare cash to tzedaka.

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On the one hand, this sounds totally crazy. On the other hand, it also sounds very realistic.

We probably need another million shekels to buy something affordably in Jerusalem right now. Saving that up will take us 28 years, and take us close to our 80s.

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But I was still worrying that perhaps we are acting like irresponsible crazy people – until my husband brought back a small booklet of prayers from the Rav, entitled:

Prayers for abundant wealth.

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Here’s the prayer that really spoke to me (I’ll scan the Hebrew below this post.)

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To merit to give out bounties of charity and not too worry about money from one day to the next and to merit new sustenance every second.

Master of the world, who can do anything, grant me the merit to give out charity in large amounts, and I should never be stingy again, and I shouldn’t save from day to day.

And remove from me the desire for money, and that I should no longer believe in money.

Rather, I should believe with complete faith that every moment You provide completely new sustenance and there is no connection between one moment to the next and no connection between one day to the next.

And by virtue of my meriting this level, bring upon me the 37 myriads of lights that were taken from Chava and the infinite light and the light of the seven days.

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Well, that answered that question, then.

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Two months ago, someone from the Rav’s community called me, to see if we could help donate for a barmitzvah for the son of a talmid chacham who really does learn Torah for many hours every day.

They have nothing spare to put together a barmitzvah.

Initially, that horrible, self-righteous and arrogant ‘judgment’ mode switched on in my head, and I didn’t feel like helping out.

But I wasn’t sure that was the right thing, honestly.

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After I got these prayers and read them a couple of days ago, and came to my new understanding about ‘saving money’, the woman called me back.

The barmitzvah is in a month, and they have nothing.

I had a small amount in ‘savings’ this month, that was just going to sit in the account, accruing 0.0000000007% of one shekel in interest, over a year.

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I decided to make the better investment (with my husband’s agreement. I called him first.)

Give me a week, we’ll send something over.

(That family still need more help, btw, so if you have a few shekels or dollars spare, be in touch and I’ll hook you up to their informal fundraiser woman.)

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As to the house in Jerusalem?

If and when God decrees that we should own our own house in Jerusalem, BH, it will happen.

And if that decree is not in God’s plan, we can’t force the issue anyway.

We actually live here, anyway, so day-to-day, it’s not a big deal, it’s not really changing anything huge in my life that I rent and don’t own, except, I have less anxiety when I start noticing the walls peeling from damp after it rains.

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To be clear: I am not some big tzaddeket, who doesn’t like to shop, eat out or go on holiday.

I do all those things, sometimes excessively.

But even by ‘real world metrics’ (whatever that real world is actually meant to be, in our crazy days) – investing in tzedaka instead of letting the money moulder in savings, while we scrimp and save every penny – is the best return on investment you can make.

You don’t have to take my word for it, of course.

You can just try it for yourself.

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PS: One more thing: I noticed that the people who really managed to make aliya, the ones I know personally, all of them were big baalei tzedaka. 

The stingy people who were obsessed with their stock portfolios are still there, and still obsessed with their stock portfolios.

Just an interesting observation, on how tzedaka can open so many doors, in some unexpected ways that are above nature.

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