Kosher Money Podcast: Does God Want You to Be Rich?

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Does God want you to be rich? Rabbi Dr. Ari Lamm argues the Torah answers with a surprising yes, not because money itself is holy, but because creation, growth, and economic dynamism are the primary expressions of being made in God’s image.

💡 ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Wealth creation is not a necessary evil but a positive good, the problem is not having money, but assigning greater moral worth to those who have it.

📖 SUMMARY

This episode of the Kosher Money Podcast takes a question that makes most religious people uncomfortable and sits with it: does God actually want you to be wealthy? Rabbi Dr. Ari Lamm, a Torah scholar and host of the Good Faith Effort podcast, makes the case that the Torah’s answer is not just yes, but that the question itself reveals a blind spot in how we read scripture.

Lamm opens with a sharp observation: most Jewish books about money focus entirely on prohibitions, what you cannot do, what interest you cannot charge, what weights you must use honestly. The word “growth” is almost entirely absent from these conversations. This, he argues, misses the Torah’s deeper vision. Economic growth is one of the greatest forces for human flourishing ever discovered, and the Torah has more to say about it than people realize.

The Garden of Eden Was Never the Goal

The central argument is a reading of Genesis that I had never heard before. The Garden of Eden is usually understood as a paradise we were expelled from. Lamm reframes it as infancy. God put humans in a place where food grew for free and there was only one rule, and then God sent them out. Not just as punishment, but as a necessary part of growing up.

The key is a Hebrew textual detail. Genesis 2 tells us plants had not yet grown because there was no rain and “there was no human being yet to work the ground.” Before the Fall, before the serpent, before any sin, God’s original plan included humans working, creating, building. Lamm contrasts the two verbs used when Adam and Eve are sent out: garash (banishment, punishment) and shalach (sending on a mission). Both happen at once. Eden was always meant to be outgrown.

Abraham the Entrepreneur

Lamm traces the word rechush (property/wealth) through the Torah. A third of its appearances in Genesis are in the story of Abraham alone. Abraham’s entire arc is structured around wealth: where it comes from, how you get it, what you do with it, and how to lose it. He journeys from the effortless plenty of Mesopotamia (the literal setting of Eden) to the precarious hill country of Canaan. His father Terach stopped halfway, Abraham finished the journey.

The contrast with his nephew Lot is the key. Both become wealthy. Lot chooses the Jordan plain, the land “like the Garden of Eden,” easy and lush. Abraham settles in the hills, where survival requires wit, effort, and reliance on God. Lot’s wealth leads him to Sodom. Abraham’s wealth funds a home built on kindness and welcome.

Trust, Not Conspiracy

On the perennial question of “Jewish wealth,” Lamm dismisses the conspiracy theories and offers a simpler explanation: high trust built on shared values. Jews have done business with each other successfully for millennia not because of some secret cabal but because they share thick moral education, a sense of peoplehood, and a system of trust that lowers transaction costs. His advice for any community that wants the same results: invest in moral education, ritual, belonging, and high-trust institutions.

The Real Danger of Wealth

Lamm does not romanticize money. The Torah’s warning against kings having too many horses is not about limiting possessions, it is about preventing class division. In ancient armies, cavalry created an aristocratic class. The Israelite army had no cavalry because it was an army of equals. Wealth creation is only good if its ultimate justification is human equality (all people made in God’s image), and class divisions that assign greater moral worth to the wealthy are a sign that the soul is rotting.

The episode closes with a story about Lamm’s grandfather writing a four-page handwritten eulogy for a young girl’s pet bird. That quiet, unseen act of kindness, Lamm says, is worth more than every accolade or dollar ever accumulated. At the end of the day, we measure things in closeness to God, not in net worth.

🔍 INSIGHTS

  • The Torah’s view on money is overwhelmingly positive, focused not just on prohibitions but on a vision for economic growth. The word “growth” is almost entirely absent from modern Jewish writing about finance, a major blind spot.
  • Eden was always meant to be outgrown. Genesis 2 frames human beings as workers of the ground before the Fall. The expulsion was both punishment and mission, God sending humanity to grow up.
  • Abraham is the original entrepreneur. His wealth journey is the structural backbone of his story. He takes risks, moves to uncertain territory, and builds something new. His nephew Lot takes the easy path and ends up destroyed.
  • Jewish wealth comes from high trust, not conspiracy. Shared values, thick moral education, and a strong sense of peoplehood create the conditions for successful economic cooperation across generations.
  • The real danger of wealth is class division, not wealth itself. The Torah’s ban on cavalry in the Israelite army was about preventing an aristocratic class from forming. When wealth creates inequality of moral worth, the soul rots.
  • The quiet acts are worth the most. The episode’s closing story, a handwritten eulogy for a girl’s pet bird, reframes the entire conversation. Wealth is a means. What matters is what you do with your attention and your heart.

💬 QUOTES

  1. “The beautiful thing about the Bible is that it begins with a garden and it ends with a city.” - Peter Thiel (quoted by Lamm)

  2. “Belonging to a family just because you were lucky enough to win the genetic lottery isn’t enough. You actually have to stand for something. And if you don’t stand for something, you’re imperiling the entire project.”

  3. “There’s no secret Jew juice that we put in the water. We don’t have cabal meetings where we decide what the interest rates are going to be for the next quarter. It’s just that we’ve built a really thick system of values that we all buy into and we all trust.”

  4. “If the whole justification for economic growth is precisely the argument for human equality, all of us in the image of God, then we can’t use wealth creation to create a society in which we’re going to become unequal.”

  5. “When we assign greater moral value to the people who have than to the people who don’t have, then our souls are rotting.”

  6. “What do we admire about poverty? It’s not the poverty. It’s the sacrifice. It’s the ability to hold firm to a value system and a mission statement and a sense of godliness despite the circumstances.”

  7. “At the end of the day, all the accolades mean nothing compared to a young girl who’s in mourning over something special that she lost. Taking the time to write that letter is more important than everything else combined.”

📚 REFERENCES

Key References in the Podcast

  • Rabbi Norman Lamm: Lamm’s grandfather, one of the great American Jewish theologians. Author of the essay “The Religious Implications of Extraterrestrial Life”
  • Michael Eisenberg: leading Israeli VC, pointed out the word rechush pattern in Abraham’s story
  • Peter Thiel: VC and author, quoted on the garden-to-city arc of the Bible
  • Tyler Cowen: economist at George Mason University, creator of the “cronia plant” thought experiment
  • Katherine Boyle: partner at a16z, compared the best entrepreneurs to biblical prophets
  • Natan Sharansky: Soviet dissident and Israeli politician, mentioned for his chess skills and moral courage
  • Enes Kanter Freedom: NBA player and Turkish dissident, mentioned for his friendship with Lamm

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