ReJewvination#VI “Aligning Means with Meaning

ReJEWvination© VI ‘The INventory’ #4

“Aligning Means With Meaning”

(Jewish Personal Financial Life Planning)

(disclaimer: I was a fee only personal financial planner & author retired from practice since the late ‘90’s)

Objectives of this optional 6 week workshop course:

Aligning means with meaning.

Healing personal financial anxiety

Putting money in its place to align, transcend and connect to one’s assignment/significance.

Having enough for what one was meant to do, meant tobe: enough to live on and enough to live for.

Prerequisites at instructor’s discretion

Completion of Soul Resume©, Ethical Will & Why I Am A Jew

Completion of pre-work as assigned prior to workshop.

 What The Course IS NOT

Stock jockeying: which one, what kind of stock, bond etc.

No products or services may be sold or offered by the instructor.

 What The Course IS

Triangulation: aligning of Judaic values, individual meaning, and personal financial resources (aligning means with meaning)

Retrofitting assets (personal financial and otherwise) to personal objectives and underlying “payoffs” (financial and otherwise).

Aligning means with meaning in one’s life.

Week 1 Shaddai: More vs Enough and Abundance

Trowel and Error

Dry land absorbs water. If the earth is already saturated,

additional water turns it into mud.

’                                               Moshe of Mekarov

At the very beginning of my workshops when I was a fee-only personal financial life planner, I conducted a very simple demonstration. These are the necessary props include:

A willing volunteer

Two fistfuls of dirt

Sprinkling can

Towel

Trowel

The demonstration proceeded as follows:

1. I’d ask the volunteer to put out both hands. Into each I put a good-sized dry lump of dirt with the trowel.
2. Into the lump in one hand, I sprinkle water until it is absorbed.
3. I continue to sprinkle water until it became mud.
4. Not satisfied, I continued sprinkling water until the mud itself is liquid, running through the volunteer’s fingers.
5. Being a kind and gentle person, I’d offer a towel to clean off the first hand.
6. Next, I would sprinkle water onto the lump of dirt in the second volunteer’s hand, stopping as soon as the water’s absorbed without the dirt becoming mud or dripping.

I’d then turn to the stunned and largely mute audience and ask, “What is the moral of this demonstration?” That moral, I finally would tell them, is about more vs enough: more, better, now has a way of becoming less, worse, and later, slipping through one’s fingers.

The less-on via trowel and error is that of MORE vs ENOUGH.

Week 2 Determining Prioritized Financial Goals and Data

Week 3 Goals vs Underlying Payoffs

Week 4 Managing Enough–Managing Goals not Managing Assets

One who grabs too much, grabs nothing

Sukkah 5a

Week 5 Goal Planning

Week 6 Puttin’ in and Takin’ Out