On The Money

The lines have been drawn in the sand and the stakes are getting higher.

There are two schools of thought here:

#1 True, this is a financial crisis, but the government is intact and bank accounts are insured and the bail-out bill will pass Congress and the stock market will recover and all will be well with the world.

#2 This financial crisis is the beginning of the end. Hashem is destroying money - our modern day idol. It may not be a coincidence that money is sometimes referred to as "The Almighty Dollar". Thinking of the concept of idol worship, doesn't that expression now ring in your ear a little differently??

There's a part of me that would like to be lulled into theory #1, but theory #2 makes so much more sense to me.

We are being swallowed by materialism. One way to read the recent disruptions, and the ones to come, is that Hashem is making it very clear that He can destroy the idol which we worship in a Wall Street minute.

More than one person has gently suggested that, if I was not currently unemployed (ironically, an outcome of the recent financial squeeze), I wouldn't be spending so much time thinking about this issue and seeing Moshiach around every corner. I countered that maybe I've not found a new job yet, davka, so I'm free to think about these things.

Call me crazy, but I really feel the geula coming.