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Thought for the Day: Cost of Living


Suppose someone gave you $10,000 each and every day. A wealthy benefactor who asks for nothing in return. I would think that at the very least, one ought to feel and expression his appreciation. But this benefactor doesn't even expect that in exchange for your daily allowance. Pretty good deal, don't you think? Now, if he stops giving you that allowance one day, could you possibly have any complaints? Does it enter your mind to have complaints?

What about if you were rude to his children, took his stuff without asking and used it for things he didn't like. And he *still* kept giving you the allowance? Maybe after a few years he drops the allowance to $9,500 per day. Not out of spite, but just in hopes you will stop the damage... and, of course, that $500 a day doesn't come close to covering the expenses to clean up after your messes.

Now you are thinking, "No one is going to give me $10,000 a day; no one is even going to give me $10 a day for nothing, so what's the point of all this!" Well... here is a partial list of what you get each and every day from HaShem for free:

Dialysis60,000$/yr; 5,000$/month, 120$/day
Insulin1,200$/yr; 100$/month; 3.30$/day
Oxygen3,600$/yr; 300$/month; 10$/day
Heart/Lung Machine1,000$/day
ICU (for 24/7 monitoring of vital systems and immediate response)2,000$/day
White blood cell treatment100,000$/yr; 8,040$/month; 260$/day
Red blood cells (direct costs)500$/unit => 1250$/month (6/yr, 5/tran; 12 m/y); 40$/day
Blood management200,000/yr; 18,000/m; 600$/day

This is a laughably deficient list; and it does not even begin to address the capital costs of the original equipment. So, HaShem gives you, each and every day, much more than $10,000 worth of goods and services. And provided you with the equipment (heart, lungs, kidneys, eyes, hands, brain, etc) with nothing down and nothing to pay.

How would you like to have to justify the His current investment in you in order to continue the daily allotment? Let's forget the current debt; could any of us even justify tomorrow's allotment? To tell the truth, I don't even want to think about it. It is ludicrous to even consider having to justify HaShem's continued investment in me. There is no justification possible. We live and exist on Chesed and Rachamim.

Less than one month from today, on Rosh HaShanna, we are going to be judged as to what the next year should hold for us. Before we start asking why bad things happened to us (some days we only got $9,990 worth of services), or why worse things happened to people we know (they only got $9,500 worth of services each day)... long before we can start asking why good people deserved the bad things that happened to them... we should really ask why we deserved all the overwhelming amount of good things that happened to us.

May we all be inscribed into the Book of Eternal Life
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Yehudi said…
Fantastic post! I have never seen it broken-down like this. I will be placing a link from my site to yours....L'Shana Tova!
9:12 PM
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