Who Is Rich?
The Teaching
Ben Zoma said, “Who is wise? He who learns from all men, … Who is mighty? He who controls his passions, … Who is rich? He who rejoices in his portion, as it is said, ‘When thou eatest the labor of thine hands, happy art thou, and it shall be well with thee’; happy art thou in this world, and it shall be well with thee in the world to come.”
— Pirkei Avot 4:1, trans. Joseph I. Gorfinkle
Commentary
Ben Zoma asks four questions: who is wise, who is mighty, who is rich, who is honoured. Each answer moves the measure from outside a person to inside them. The wise learn from everyone. The mighty master themselves. The rich are not those with the most. They are those who rejoice in their portion.
“Portion” is the word to watch. A portion is a share, measured and given. It is not the whole and not the most. To rejoice in it is not resignation and not a vow of poverty: the verse it cites is about eating the work of your own hands. It means seeing what you have while you have it, which is exactly what the mind left to itself stops doing.
Themes
Connections 6
Arose apart
No known transmission between Judaism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Travelled
Stoicism reached Judaism by 50 BCE. Stoic ideas appear in the Wisdom of Solomon (1st c. BCE) and 4 Maccabees, and Philo of Alexandria used the Stoic Logos.
Travelled
Judaism reached Christianity by 30 CE. Christianity began as a movement within Judaism.
Arose apart
Both took shape before Judaism and Sufism were in documented contact (from 650 CE).
Where This Appears
Sources
gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8548 (ch. IV, §1).