Jewish Money Matters episode 389, minisode Reframing Retirement.
You're listening to Jewish Money Matters, the podcast
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Jewish Money Matters. I'm Yael Trush, and I'm
so glad you're here. Hey, guys. This is
Yael. Welcome to Jewish Money Matters. Welcome to
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enjoy this minisode.
You're listening to Jewish Mind Matters. I'm Yeltra,
your host. Welcome to the show. We're starting
the week off with a minisode on a
topic that not too many like to talk
about, retirement. And I don't blame them. It's
kind of scary. But we're not getting into
the weeds of retirement per se today.
In fact, if you wanna get into the
weeds of it, I suggest you tune into
episode 305
with Emily Guy Birkin. We did an entire
episode just in retirement tackling
your questions on the topic or, you know,
the audience's questions, and you're more than welcome
to send me more. I'm gonna put the
link to that episode on the show notes.
But today, we're zooming out for a few
minutes and reframing the concept of retirement, this
idea, something that we probably should do before
we even start talking about retirement,
which, like I said, for some for some
people, it is an anxiety laden topic, then
we first need to make sure that we're
very clear
on the Jewish
on work and making livelihood as this is
going to inform how we view and approach
retirement, hopefully, in a healthier,
less anxiety inducing way. Take a listen. The
Jewish view on
retirement.
And I guess before I talk about retirement
per se, we should take a zoom out,
take a step back, and think about the
Jewish perspective on work and making a livelihood.
This is very, very important before we even
talk about the word retirement. Right? So let's
do it very, very briefly.
Society turn turns to look at work
as a necessary evil, something that we have
to do because
we have to make a living. By the
way, we Jews don't use such a word.
We there's no such thing as making a
living. We make a livelihood. We make a
parnessa. We don't make a living.
Right? So we understand that
in Judaism, we understand that every part of
our life is purposeful,
including our career.
Our work and our financial successes
are much more than necessary evils.
Right?
They're
they're not something that we do because
they're a means to obtaining,
a livelihood
so that then we can do other more
elevated
pursuits or achievements.
No. No. No. No. No. In fact,
they, in and of itself,
work
our.
It has an inherent value and purpose.
And by the way, this is irrespective
of the person's line of work. Okay?
So we have to we have to understand,
okay, how do Jews think about work? Okay?
And and and we we have to remember
that the ultimate purpose of our
existence, our being here in this world, is
to make this world
into a
dwelling place for God, a habitable place, this
physical for the divine, this physical reality transparent
to
inner the inner divinity that it holds, right,
to make the world shine
with the holiness of Hashem. That's that's our
mission, and if every every each and every
one of us does it in an individual
way. Right? And what is the most profound
way
that we do this? It's by engaging in
the world.
Yeah? We're when we are part of the
material,
and sometimes we can even say crass world,
like, it is. Right? What are we doing?
We're able to bring God into this mundane
reality that seems antithetical to godliness. Right?
And achieve the peak achievement of a Jew
which is making a Dhiabit Avrahamim until we
this is done so so much that we
achieve Moshiach, right, we get there. Right? We're
creating a home for God in this world.
So now,
we understand even when we look at our
work
time or space, if you wanna call it,
we know that God structured
our natural reality in a way that actually
reflects that. Most of our time is spent
on mundane activities.
Right? Most of and and even in our
week, we understand that we work 6 days
and then we're there's one day that's Shabbos.
Even our day, we're engaged in Torah study
and in prayer for a portion of our
day, and the majority of the day is
again immersed in this mundane
activities of being in the world, okay? Why?
Because again, this is part and parcel of
what God wants, our purpose in creation,
okay?
So that is our approach. Now most people,
the way they see it is, well, you
know, they have to work to make a
livelihood.
Right?
It's a means to that end. It doesn't
have an inherent purpose in and of itself
the way we look at it, And they
struck most people will say, well, you know
what? My whole career trajectory
is actually formed around
my retirement plan. Right?
This point where I can be financially
secure
for the rest of my life. Financial secure
actually should have air quotes here.
Right?
For the rest of my life without working,
and it seemingly makes sense to then, you
know, retire and enjoy
life. Go play golf.
Now, is that the Jewish approach?
Absolutely not. There is not not
there isn't such a concept in Judaism.
We don't retire.
We don't get to a place where now
we can stop being productive and we go
play golf or go travel.
There's no retirement
in Judaism.
Okay?
Our involvement in the world, our mission to
perfect the world does not end at 65.
Yeah? We know that. Right? But sometimes we
need to hear it. Okay?
So
because, again, a person in business, in the
workspace,
right,
their role is to use their position to
bring holiness, to bring Torah values into the
workplace, to inspire other people, to be better.
Right? To provide charity from all that income
that we're generating. Right?
Right? So so
this this has to be very clear. So
now with that
framework, right, to understand, like, oh my god
goodness. If, like,
working and wealth
is not
just about personal
comfort, but it's actually part and parcel of
my personal mission of of my mission as
a Jew and my duty and obligation and
responsibility. Am I married as a Jew to
help others to perfect this world? Well, how
can we retire?
To retire is like turning our back on
Hashem's
God purpose that he gave us. Right? So
now now that we have that, now we
can actually delve into the topic of retirement,
and maybe we can define it a little
bit better. Right? As a time where
I'm not gonna stop working,
but when perhaps,
you know, it's not that I'm gonna stop
working, but maybe my productive endeavors
might shift.
Some might intensify.
Right?
Whereas
with some others, the degree to which I'm
involved in them might decrease. Maybe I do
more pro bono work. Maybe I volunteer more.
Maybe
I don't have,
maybe I take on businesses or communal projects
that maybe before I didn't have the flexibility
to to take on. Right? And and I'd
like to, like, even speak about it already,
introduce some personal finance
language to it. We could say that
in retirement according to our definition, you know,
there might be
a reallocation.
Right? There might be a diversification.
There might be some rebalancing,
but withdrawal?
We're not withdrawing.
Right?
A Jew is never doesn't withdraw from his
productive endeavors till a 120
or till Moshiach comes and may that
whichever one comes sooner, but may Moshiach come
come even earlier. Right? So now let's actually
get into it. Okay?
So one of the things I'm gonna say,
I use these funny words already, like, with
the personal finance and and lingo, but I'll
tell you, like, one of the things that
holds
us back a lot from understanding this topic
is that the financial services industry is notorious
for
having this language
barrier, and it can be a little bit
frustrating. But I wanna tell you right now,
if you're gonna really
be an active manager of this resource that
God is giving you so that you can
fulfill your mission of perfecting the world and
making a dwelling place for Hashem in the
world, right, one of those resources and a
very important one is money, then you have
to
learn the lingo.
You have to work within the within this
this paradigm of nature, and don't let it
stop you. Don't let all the, you know,
the buzzwords stop you. This is actually not
rocket science,
but it's just familiarity.
Okay? And in general, and I'm gonna make
a big note towards the end of our
our talk here today about financial
planners, financial advisors. Okay? But in general,
I want you to be sure that if
people make you feel intimidated,
then they are not the person you wanna
work with. Okay? So if somebody's talking to
you and it's going over your head, and
it's all this jargon that's coming out that
you're not getting any clarity,
and it's it's making you seem like, okay,
well, they understand better, they know better. Right?
No. Okay? You wanna work with someone
who wants you to understand. This is very,
very important. I'll say something now that I
say every time I talk about these type
of personal finance topics. I want to remind
you that no one, no one is going
to care more about
is gonna care more about your money
than you. No one is gonna care about
your money more than you do. That's just
a fact. Okay? And it's important that you
do care about it because again, it's such
an important means for you to fulfill your
purpose in the world as a Jewish person.
Okay? Thanks for tuning in, everyone. If you
have a retirement specific question, please send it
in via email or DM me on Instagram
or LinkedIn. My email is yael@yaltrush.com.
I'll be happy to answer it on Friday.
In the meantime, do take a listen to
episode 300 and 5, which is all about
retirement.
We also have a lot of Ask Ale
episodes that there's intermingled questions on retirement, but
that one's pretty specific just on retirement.
And then another thing is if you think
you're ready to have these types of deeper
conversations and wanna have real hand holding and
coaching as you plan for retirement
or as you work towards your savings and
investment goals and even your business growth goals,
then my Momentum membership might actually be for
you. We can talk about it. You can
DM me on Instagram for the application, or
you can drop me an email with the
subject line momentum. Yeah. L@yaltrush.com,
and I'll quickly
send you the application. And that is, again,
if you're curious about how to work with
me in the most high touch way that
I have available right now, I'll send you
the details on the application for you to
see if it's a good fit. And, also,
concluding the retirement conversation, I would love to
know
where you are in terms of retirement. Is
it something that you're already investing for? Is
it something that scares you? Are you totally
ignoring it? Do you wanna learn more? Let
me know. I'd really love to know. As
always, DM me on Instagram or LinkedIn or
email yael@yaltrash.com.
Have a great day.
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