Exclusive bytes from the Kosher Money podcast

IF you’re running a company or a household, a business or a family budget, an organization or an event, you’re thinking about numbers. If you’re raising children or capital, funds or consciousness, you’re thinking about numbers. And along with those numbers, you’re likely thinking about values, because our spending is directly linked to our principles.

Last year’s “Yiddishe Gelt” supplement, distributed as part of Mishpacha’s Mega-Succos package, took a close, hard look at frum financial realities. The feedback reverberated for months, along with requests for more material that directly addresses our community’s material wealth in tandem with its financial struggles.

So when we were offered the opportunity to partner with the team at Kosher Money/Living Smarter Jewish/Living Lchaim, we grabbed the chance. The popular podcast, with its range of guests and engaging interviews, is part of the wider strategy of LSJ, which aims to equip individuals and families with the tools to approach their own financial futures in a thoughtful and practical manner.

Here at Mishpacha, we feel privileged to serve as a forum for discussion on topics affecting the community, and to provide a platform for both entertainment and education. This new column will feature highlights of the KM podcast episodes, as well as additional material exclusive to Mishpacha: bonus questions addressed to the interviewees, with concrete advice and tips presented in a dynamic, interactive format.

We want to hear from you! Send us your thoughts, feedback, and questions for the experts, and let us know what you want to hear.

Step by Step

While Living Smarter Jewish can be seen as an effort by the OU to improve the material well-being of our community, it is far more than that.

Fundamental to our mission as Jews is to Live Smart. “Take care to keep (the mitzvos) for they are your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the peoples who will hear all these decrees and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’ ” (Devarim 4:6).

Our overall goal as bnei Torah is to reflect wisdom in the way we live our lives. Indeed, the Rambam (Hilchos Dei’os perek 5) frames his teachings regarding lifestyle and fiscal responsibility as the hallmarks of the wise and of talmidei chachamim. Greater people make wiser and more thoughtful financial decisions.

Living Smarter Jewish does not claim to be an instantaneous solution to the challenge of the affordability of frum life. Rather it’s a step in a gradual educational process. Most critically, the goal of tackling this challenge is not something that can be accomplished by one organization or project. A core element of the OU’s LSJ strategy is to raise the level of awareness and conversation about financially smarter living across the community, engaging our community’s most effective conversation starters in this endeavor, to ultimately propel the discussion futher beyond anything that we could do alone.

Eli Langer and Yaakov Langer of the Kosher Money podcast have been critical leaders and partners in advancing this goal, and we are thrilled to increase the scope of the discussion by partnering with Kosher Money and Mishpacha magazine to launch these columns. We hope they will serve both the goals of making our lives easier and making us greater and wiser people, elevating us individually and as a community, such that our lives and choices reflect the Torah’s wisdom and values.

Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of the OU, is passionate about increasing financial education in our community, and an avid supporter of LSJ, an OU initiative.

‘Money Talks’ is produced in conjunction with Living Smarter Jewish (LSJ) and Living Lchaim.

LSJ initiatives include free personal finance coaching, education geared toward young couples, referrals to financial planners, curriculum development for high schools and young adults, and video education library. 

To request help, please email: info@livingsmarterjewish.org

Living Lchaim is a podcast network dedicated to producing shows that enhance the lives of Orthodox Jews across the world. The Kosher Money podcast, created in partnership with LSJ, hosts lively dialogue around frum financial realities, facilitating awareness and educated decision-making.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 946)