We all want to live well. We pray that our children will never lack the things they need and will be able to enjoy at least some of what they want. At the beginning of each Jewish year, we wish each other health and happiness, blessing and wealth, but we also know that wealth is not enough for a good life. In the Jewish tradition, there is nothing wrong with being wealthy. For Jews, the spiritual and ethical issues surrounding money focus on how one acquires wealth and what one does with it, and not with wealth itself.
Financial well being, just like any other material blessing, has no intrinsic value.
How we use it determines its value and measures our character, and to use it correctly, we need wisdom. The book of Exodus contrasts the proper and improper use of our monetary blessings by placing the story of the Golden Calf, the story of our ancestors' idolatrous rebellion against God, in the midst of its description of the building of the Mishkan, God's holy Tabernacle. The construction of both, the Golden Calf and the Mishkan, required the generous gifts of the Jewish people, but one, the Golden Calf, became a powerful metaphor of base materialism and the other, the Tabernacle, became an enduring sacred symbol of spiritual strength, insight and wisdom. It is alright to pray for wealth but there are better things to desire. This understanding is underscored in a brief discussion from the Talmud inspired by the description of the Mishkan in this week's Torah portion, Terumah.