We Are All Part Of A Universal Mutual Fund

Social Responsibility

A feature of modern life is the practice of purchasing insurance against a variety of unforeseeable circumstances. When a person takes out an insurance policy, he or she is, in effect, joining a group of people who have agreed to be responsible for each other's misfortunes. Should one of them suffer a loss, God forbid, he is compensated from funds generated by the premiums paid by all.

The lesson to be derived is obvious: if such a consensus can be achieved regarding material concerns, how much more so should it be applied to our moral and spiritual selves. We should all consider ourselves part of a universal mutual fund: if a fellow human being lacks something, be it food and shelter or knowledge and guidance, even if he is halfway across the globe and one has never heard his name or that of the city in which he resides, it is the responsibility of each and every one of us to satisfy his need. [M.M Schneerson]

A Destiny In Which Steve Jobs Played A Principal Role

Steve Jobs: Change We Learned To Believe In

iTechnology And  A Better World

By Tzvi Freeman

One day in 1979, 24-year-old Steve Jobs walked into Xerox PARC and saw the first GUI—a computer interface with a mouse, designed to work the way people work. As Steve Wozniak describes the scene, Jobs was jumping up and down like a small child, demanding “Why aren’t you doing anything with this? This is the greatest thing! This is revolutionary!”

The executives responded that the world wasn’t ready for this. My bet is that a lot of them were pretty scared by it. What’s the point of being a techie, after all, if everyone can do it? But Jobs grabbed whoever he could from the PARC team and built the Macintosh.

If he hadn’t, I would never have been able to become a writer—being rather dyslexic and uncoordinated. I wouldn’t be able to hold a job—because I can’t sit in an office behind a desk for more than an hour. In fact, I have no clue where I would be—other than a real lousy, clumsy cog in IBM’s wheel.

I used to joke that Apple was my second religion. Then Apple got too popular, and I was never one for being part of a mass movement. Nevertheless, I believe in Apple, because I share Steve Job’s vision. And I believe the course of history was changed through him for the better—real, real better.

When Steve Jobs started Apple at 19, this world was the world of IBM, General Motors, Exxon, Dow Chemicals and Encyclopedia Britannica. Today, make that Google, Apple, eBay, FaceBook and Wikipedia. Jobs promise was that 1984 would not be an Orwellian techno-1984 that would reduce us to uniformed humanoids, and he made good on that promise.

What has changed? Everything changed. The world has been turned on its head.

There was once a world where you had to memorize a manual to use a word processor—the same one just about everyone used. Where you had to take someone from the IT department out to lunch just to get basic stats about the company you managed. Where you had to hire a computer expert to get simple tasks done much as we hire accountants to take care of our income tax statements today (and I hope, not for much longer).

Today, we live in an iWorld. If I don’t like the encyclopedia entry, I modify it. If I’m fed up with working at a desk, I check my iPhone map for the closest park and go work there. Technology is here to serve me. I don’t need to conform to it, I don’t need to be manipulated by it, I barely need to spend time learning it—because it learns me.

So some of you are asking, "What is so beautiful, so messianic, about an iWorld?"
And my personal answer: the iWorld is the destiny of humankind and its saving grace.

It is the belief that a human being is not a cog in the wheel of a great machine, but the inherent master of all machines. It has enabled us to create a world where everybody knows when justice has been perverted and can scream about it to the whole world loud and clear. It is the power by which totalitarian regimes have fallen and will continue to fall, by granting everyone access to knowledge, which is power. And behind it all stands a tacit conviction that every human being contains something of the Divine, and therefore should be master of his or her world and destiny.

In Jewish terms—at least, the way I experienced the evolution of the past thirty-something years: The iWorld is the world of Moses, a world where every man, woman and child is a member of the covenant, and must therefore know the laws and teachings for themselves. And what Big Machine Inc. et al were interested in building was more like the world of Egypt's pharaoh and its priestly caste, of those who inform you “we have all the knowledge and we’ll let you know when you need to know.”

Around 500 years ago, Western Civilization began moving rapidly towards towards its destiny, towards that iWorld. In the last 50 years, we’ve been rapidly shifting gears upward. Up and away from a world where human beings are tightly squeezed through homogenization filters so they’ll fit into the system, into a world designed to fit the human being. Into a world where knowledge is free, opportunities for expression and creativity lie literally at your fingertips, every voice is heard and almost anything becomes possible even for the most handicapped child.

The world has its destiny, produced and directed by the Master of all destiny. A destiny in which Steve Jobs played a principal role. Sure, his role was nothing more than a provider of tools—it's up to us to use them to create that world for which we yearn.

Wall Street - A Crisis Of Values

The ancients looked up at the heavens and saw the stars in their constellations. They honored them as stewards of divine energy and life, as the embodiment of all forces of nature and the origin of human passions. They abandoned the Master for the servant, for in truth there is only One and all else is but a tool in His hand.

Modern man looks down to the headlines of the finance page and sees there all the forces that will make or break his career, his retirement plans, his success as a human being. He too is a fool, for in truth there is only One and all else is but a tool in His hand. [M.M. Schneerson]

From Wall Street To Main Street

God throws things at us, totally confusing and mixing up our order and plans for our lives, and our sense of security as well. And our job, I feel, after the initial overwhelming upset, is to set to work organizing and setting the mess right again.

So how are we to deal with an overwhelming financial crisis?

The Rebbe often told people that wealth is a test – a test because it is often harder to keep focused while comfortable. Somehow, our inner wiring is such that when faced with crises we find ourselves searching for God, spirituality and meaning.

But, he would tell people, that test is the challenge of our generation. Our job is to have wealth, lots of real, touch-with-your-hands-and-feel-it money and to turn that into a good thing, to use the money for Godliness.

When faced with any question, we are taught to look inside the Torah and see what it tells us. Torah, our Sages have taught us, is from the Hebrew word hora'ah, lesson. The Torah is, essentially, a guidebook and lesson for us, for all times and for every situation.

When the Torah teaches the law of tithing, it says  "and you shall surely give a tenth of your earnings to charity". The commentaries explain that the double language of "and you shall surely give a tenth of your earnings to charity", which can be viewed as a strengthening of terms, hence the phrase "and you shall surely", has another meaning as well.  "you shall tithe", comes from the same root as , "you shall be wealthy". The verse is also saying "tithe" and  "you will become wealthy".

In other words, when we give charity, God gives us the ability to do so in abundance. Of this promise – that when you give charity, God will repay you many times over God says:  "test me in this". Try it, He is telling us, give some charity and you will see that you will make the money back, and then some.

As counter-rational and unbelievable as this piece of advice is, going against every grain of logic in our minds, I have seen some really special people who actually follow this advice. [Aliza Silberstein]

The crisis in the Western world is not financial, but a crisis of values.

A culture that conditions people to believe happiness will come from possessions rather than relationships is bound to collapse. Without spirituality and faith, materialism corrupts the mind and soul.

The best investment a person can make is to look far beyond the materialism and invest in their relationships, families, communities and human connections, business values and ethical dealings. 

Our real security comes from within, in feeling and trusting God’s presence in our life. 

Focus on nurturing your connection to nature, the universe, a deity, and whatever lies beyond here and now.

Who is truly happy? One who is content with their lot. One never knows what life will bring and how things will wrap themselves up in the end.

The great use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it. The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving.