Breishit, Chap. 23, & 24:2
Purchasing and Investing
This week I gave back a car I had been leasing for four years. It was the first car I have driven that I really “loved”! The experience led me to reflect on ownership.
The Hebrew word ba’al means “owner”. Ba’al also means “master”. Ownership describes a static relationship between a person and an object and is achieved through legal transaction. Mastery describes a dynamic relationship achieved through focused attention and disciplined effort. Normally one owns things but one masters skills and ideas. Ownership is a manifestation of material status; mastery manifests personal stature.
Teaching my son to drive the last few weeks taught me so much more than I taught him! He was focused on ownership: he wanted to possess a license, one day to possess a car. I was teaching him to master the art of driving, to master his car rather than to own it. Mastery is about the control of ones own power and respect for the vulnerability of others. Mastery of a car is not the thrill of racing it down a freeway; it is the skill of side parking in a space barely the length of the car itself. Mastery of driving is being able to let another person in front of one without feeling resentful. Mastery is attentiveness to every detail around you and the ability to respond to it quickly. Mastery is not only avoiding road rage but also reducing the rage of others by showing them consideration and offering them a smile even when you are in a hurry too.
One can own without mastering, and one can master without owning. In fact, masters do not need ownership for their own sense of wellbeing. A person can own a valuable musical instrument without mastering it. One can own an impressive library of sefarim (books) without having mastered any of them. Those objects reflect their owners’ status but say nothing of their stature. Artists who inspire souls with the sounds they elicit from an instrument, and scholars who illuminate the lives of others with their wisdom, do not need ownership to achieve mastery.
The Torah’s idea of ownership is not limited to transactional ownership. The transaction, or kinyan, symbolizes not only the transfer of rights from one individual to another, but more importantly the transfer of responsibility. A person’s ownership is judged not only by the technicalities of transaction, but equally by the quality of his mastery of the things he owns and his level of responsibility for them. Later in the Torah, Ya’acov is praised for putting himself in danger to retrieve small belongings that on his journey home he had left on the other side of a stream. We do not merely purchase the things we own, we invest in them. We don’t only own them; we should be masters of them too.
Ownership and Mastery: Having and Being
From the first chapter of our Parsha the Gemara[1] learns that a man can “acquire” his wife by “financial transaction”. (i.e., Giving the bride a gold ring under the chupah, signifies his willingness to invest in her wellbeing at his own cost.) A husband, like an owner, is called herba’al. Here even more so than in other cases, although the relationship between a man and his wife is initiated with a financial transaction, that transaction is not intended to introduce a sterile and patronizing relationship of ownership, but an excitingly dynamic relationship of mastery.
Just as the musician does not need to own the instrument with which he creates music, so men who know how to master their wives do not need to own them[2]. Mastering a woman means understanding her needs and being able to anticipate them and respond to them. Mastering a woman, is knowing how to inspire her, excite her, calm her, delight her, and make her feel secure and adored; it is knowing how to make music with her. In such a relationship there is no need for control and ownership, and certainly no tolerance for emotional or physical abusiveness. A ba’al who masters does not need ownership to feel secure within himself. Ownership and its attendant status symbols are the props of people who are not yet accomplished masters of themselves and the things they own. Ownership is about having; mastery is about being.
Eliezer: Mastery without Ownership:
There is a specific word in Hebrew for one who has mastery but not ownership. The word is mosheil (ruler). A ruler can provide for the wellbeing of his people, but he does not own them. He can attend to their needs, develop their potential and serve them as their leader, but he doesn’t own them. Rulers (or CEO’s) who confuse the responsibility of ruling, with the rights of ownership, cross the ethical boundary of sound governance and begin a quick descent down the slippery slope of ethical decline.
Ekiezer, Avraham’s faithful servant, is referred to as a mosheil: Avraham demonstrates infinite trust in his servant Eliezer, by giving him the power of attorney to marry a wife to Yitzchak. He does so because Eliezer is already “zekan beito, hamosheil bechol asher lo” (the sage of his household; ruler of all that is his)[3]. Had Eliezer wished to abuse his privileged position in Avraham’s household he had ample opportunity to do so before. Eliezer has proved his trustworthiness. He is master of Avraham’s household, but owns no part in it. Eliezer the paradox: at once both slave and master.
The Klei Yakar adds a glorious dimension to the Torah’s description of Eliezer as mosheil bechol asher lo. It means, he says, not that Eliezer ruled over everything that Avraham possessed, but rather that he ruled over everything he himself possessed. You see, not all owners are masters! Some people own their wealth but have not mastered it. In fact in many cases, people are themselves mastered by the wealth they own! Their wealth drives their values, chooses their friends and communities, and dictates the usage of their time. So, the spectrum extends from those who master but do not need to own, to those who own and master, through to those who own but do not master – finally to those who are mastered by what they own. Not Eliezer, he mastered everything he owned: mosheil bekol asher lo. That is why Avraham trusted him boundlessly. Trustworthiness vests with people who are owned by no one and by nothing, people who are masters of what they own.
There is much to be learnt from the paradox of Eliezer being both slave and master. In essence, his relationship to the things he owned is the model for ours. We do not have true ownership of anything.LeHashem Ha’aretz Umelo’oh (Earth and all that is in it, belongs to Hashem). So when we use the term “owner”, ba’al, we intend it as Eliezer did. We own nothing as he owned nothing. We are servants as he was a servant. But, just as he mastered all of which he was a steward, so we master all that is in our possession and are mastered by none, for LeHashem Ha’aretz Umelo’oh.
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