The religion of money

Yuppies, you’re also fanatics, slaves to money and status. You despise people who have chosen to live modestly for reasons of ideology

Tali Farkash|Published: 04.26.07 , 17:08

The place: Ramot Menashe Park. The time: During the intermediate days of Passover. Everyone were in the parks and nature reserves over the holiday. I saw them on the banks of the wadis, walking through the groves, and at the improvised picnics. The citizens of our country could be found everywhere where there is water and greenery. Everyone except the modern slaves.

All kinds of people, or perhaps most kinds, shed their usual clothing and changed into T-shirts and shorts. Kibbutzniks, atheists, and religious Jews who abandoned their yeshiva studies for the month because of the holiday and the beauty of the outdoors, sat together in paddling pools, without regard to religion, enjoying not only nature, but also the feeling of togetherness.

Destroying nature (Photo: Galit Kosovsky)

But as every field knows, there is no rose without thorns. This time those thorns were the 4x4s that scarred the magnificent flowers with their wheels. The drivers were recently released on probation from a high tech institute, and for some of them, at least, a hike meant you must systematically ruin the area for all who come after you—run over every cyclamen, destroy every anemone. Walk instead of riding? Only at the mall. Avoid running over a mongoose? Heaven forbid, what difference does it make? They’ve already seen the landscape behind them, so it isn’t a problem to destroy it.

Money, money, and more momey

At this point you are probably checking out the top of the column to make sure you haven’t accidentally stumbled upon a tree-huggers’ site. So allow me to set you straight. Though I have a great deal of respect for their work, I did not go to the recent “Let the Animals Live” demonstration, and I haven’t yet joined Greenpeace. My problem with the jeeps and other status cars, besides their desire to look down their noses at everyone else, is that the values they represent are money, money, and more money.

They call people who are not prepared to enslave themselves 80 hours a week “achievement challenged,” but when asked why they work so hard they mumble something about new living room furniture or getting a better position at work, which would completely eliminate the few hours of free time they still have.

They call the religious “fanatics who live at the expense of the state,” without, of course, checking what these people live on (the amount that they themselves give to their kids for allowance), and the fact that in most of their homes there is at least one significant provider. Their approach to economics is to despise people who have made an ideological choice to live modestly, whether they are the stricly-Orthodox or members of an ecological village.

Give up nature

So guys, I’m sorry to tell you, but you’re also fanatics. You also have a rigid hierarchy of values, the “religion of money,” whose happy winners can expect a villa in Caesaria and champagne for breakfast. It’s hard to say and harder to internalize: you are slaves to money and status.

Stick to your favorite café (Photo: Amir Cohen)

People, emotions, and spiritual life are measured by the representative exchange rate of the stock exchange. It’s awful to see how the “ideology of money,” which has replaced the pioneering spirit and the spirit of simplicity of the early days of the state, has even affected the holidays. The family Seder has been replaced by a fancy, five-star hotel in Turkey or Italy, and from there the sky’s the limit.

So here’s a suggestion: Those of you who worship money should give up your trips into nature in your sterile, airconditioned jeep. Use your car wisely, in a way more suited to its original purpose—to park on the sidewalk across from your favorite café.

And what will you say at work, the real focus of your life? Find a new hobby within the bounds of known territory. There must be some expensive trend you haven’t yet discovered, or an exotic destination you haven’t yet been to. Leave us, the simple folks, with the basic pleasure of a bit of greenery.

Because sharing a cup of freshly-picked rosemary tea with the family of a mechanic from Ashdod and local kibbutzniks is just my cup of tea.