My students sometimes ask why we are not allowed to lend money to a Jew with interest. They appreciate the idea that doing so creates a more humane society but if that’s the case they want to know then why are we allowed to lend to a non-Jew with interest? Isn’t that racist?

Money is a fascinating phenomenon. In and of itself it has absolutely no value. One can’t eat it wear it or heat one’s house with it. After World War II people who had stashed hordes of paper money in their cellars and attics discovered that all that paper was worth less than an onion peel. The only value money has is in its use as a tool to acquire something of value.

And yet the halachah asks us to treat money differently than any of our other belongings. Everything else we own we are allowed to rent out for profit. If I own a fleet of cars I am perfectly entitled to charge money for their use for a few hours or days. I can also charge for my time and expertise. The one and only thing I can’t lend out for profit is money. If I lend you money despite the fact that as everyone knows money always has the possibility of begetting more money I cannot take interest.

If the reason that the Torah forbids lending with interest is to encourage a more humane society why not forbid the renting out of any of my belongings? Theoretically I should just lend out my car for free allow people to stay at my guest house for free give legal and medical services for free and on and on. Why is it that the only thing I can’t “rent out” is my money?

A value beyond money

A couple walks out of the hospital with a newborn baby in their arms. You approach them and say “I know you’ve always wanted a million dollars. Give me your new baby and I’ll give you a million dollars.”

What would their reaction be? The vast majority of sane people would laugh in your face. Even if they have spent years trying to acquire a million dollars it’s clear that the value of their baby not only exceeds a million dollars but that talk of the baby’s value in relation to the value of a million dollars borders on the absurd.

Two things of value: love and money. People will invest huge amounts of time and energy for both and yet the value of one entirely and completely cancels out the value of the other. What is the difference between them?

The Torah tells us about the commandment for each member of Klal Yisrael to give a half-shekel coin during the census. “Zeh yitnu l’kol haoveir al hapikudim machatzis hashekel b’shekel hakodesh – This they shall give for all who are counted half a shekel of the holy shekel.”

The Midrash learns from a close reading of the word zeh that Hashem showed Moshe a coin of fire from under His Throne of Glory and told him that the half-shekel that the people give should correspond to this coin of fire.

A coin of fire is a very powerful symbol. Fire negates and destroys everything it comes in contact with. And how can you have a coin made of fire when a coin by its very nature is meant to be passed from hand to hand; its ability to be transferred what gives it its purpose. A coin of fire seems an oxymoron: a coin represents the concept of value and fire wipes out everything of value.

A coin of fire is a metaphor for a measure of value that completely transcends any other value. To each person it comes in contact with the coin of fire reinforces the concept that every value is totally negated by this coin of ultimate value.

And what is that ultimate value?

The heart’s the bottom line

Love on a human level is both a metaphor and a means of reaching the highest level of love and unity that can be achieved: the unity between ourselves and our Creator. It is also a concept that needs no justification. We could try to explain that the reason we love our children is because we gave birth to them and they are a part of us or because of a natural parental instinct. We could attempt to explain why we love our spouses along the same lines but ultimately it would be like trying to smell a rose with our ears.

We love because we love. Love just is. It defies explanation. It doesn’t need a purpose or a reason. Trying to explain why you love is giving something transcendent an ulterior motive and ultimately changing it to a business transaction of sorts.

When we say in our prayers “Ein k’erkecha Hashem Elokeinu b’olam hazeh – There is no one who can compare to You Hashem our G-d in This World ” we are asserting that there is nothing in This World that can be used as a measuring tool for the value of our relationship with G-d. Just like using money to measure our love for our child or spouse revolts us with its absurdity so too a relationship with Him is the coin of fire that wipes out all other values.

Holding the World in our Hands

When we hold money in our hands finger the crisp new bills or fill up our wallets and our bank accounts we feel good. We feel powerful. What is it that we love about money? It is not as people think because we want to amass more things. We love money because it gives us limitless possibilities. The world stands wide open before the man with money in his bank account.

We can’t eat money or wear money but with money we hold in our hands pure (green) potential. The whole world and all its pleasure is in our grasp. The sky is the limit as to what we can do with money. That wad of bills is in its essence a piece of tangible desire. It’s a chunk of wanting. It takes the desire for more and puts it into some paper and coins. And therein lies its power.

Rav Tzadok HaKohein points out a difference between the human world and the animal world. An animal left to its own devices rarely becomes fat. It eats what it needs to and when it is satisfied it stops eating. Humans on the other hand have the capacity to be almost comatose on the couch after a big meal unable to move from gorging and yet when the chocolate cream pie is brought out we hear emanating from the depths of the couch a little voice saying “Well maybe just one little piece.”

Where does that come from this desire for just a little bit more? Why are we so driven for just one more piece of cake one more academic degree one more trip one more experience?

You give a cow its hay and it never looks over to the cow in the stall next door to see if its hay is crunchier or tastier. It has its hay. It eats it. And yet which human doesn’t compare and contrast his portion of whatever it may be with that of the next guy?

Rav Tzadok says this uniquely human tendency touches at the very basis of what a person is. A human being who has a soul that must connect to the eternal needs to never be satiated. Yearning and longing is his natural state.

“My soul longs for You [Hashem]; my flesh yearns for You.” We will always strive for more because like the legendary princess being courted by the farm boy nothing this world has to give will ever satisfy us on a deep and internal level. The metaphoric simple necklace that the farm boy offers to the princess accustomed to diamonds and emeralds and rubies is cast to the ground.

V’hanefesh lo timalei — the soul will never be satisfied with This-Worldly offerings. The scorn of the loving parent for the million dollars is mirrored by the soul. Nothing This World has to offer — not its physical pleasures and not even its excitement adventure fun and challenges — can completely satisfy the spiritual connoisseur the soul. The Jewish soul the princess always remains in a state of hunger.

So we who have a desire for more hold chunks of tangible desire in our hands in the form of money. And G-d says: Don’t debase this desire. Don’t take the very thing that represents yearning and longing for more (kesef from the word kisufin desire) and use it just to acquire more of the same. This yearning this kisuf comes from the very deepest place inside of you. You can use your fleet of cars to make money you can rent out your house and your time but the money itself the very symbol of yearning for value — don’t use it just to acquire more of the same. Remember the coin of fire.

If you need to do business you can use a heter iska; Torah living encourages economic initiatives but when your brother asks you for money don’t charge interest. Let his request be a way to express your love for each other. Let it remind you of love’s ultimate value. Let it remind you of where our hunger for more should really lead.

This is why taking interest from a non-Jew is permitted. Torah life is supposed to be conducive to healthy wholesome and economically feasible living. To forbid a Jew to lend money with interest to a non-Jew when there would be no reciprocity and no way to enforce reciprocity would be unfair and economically unfeasible. And from an economic perspective there is nothing intrinsically wrong with lending money with interest just as there is nothing wrong with renting out any of my other belongings.

Yet by not taking interest from my brother who like me was taken out of Egypt and like me was charged with the mission of reminding the world where yearning should lead and is willing to put the value of relationship over the value of money we both have an opportunity to reinforce the concept of the coin of fire to remember the value that supersedes and transcends all other values.

$$no indent$$Miriam Kosman is a lecturer for Nefesh Yehudi an outreach organization that teaches Torah to secular Israeli university students. This article is based on the Torah of Rav Moshe Shapiro shlita and represents the author’s understanding of his ideas.