I asked a friend this morning how much free time he had. He started by saying it depends on the day, then he stopped and said, "I almost forgot to whom I was talking. I have no free time. Yesterday, as part of the process of writing the TftD about opportunity cost, explicit and implicit, I was discussing the concept with a chavrusa. He disagreed with my approach and challenged me with:
Yet you are insisting on always using the term that highlights the loss of alternative spending.
In fact, yes; that is precisely what I am doing. Before I retired, for example, I had a discussion with my wife. After all, her day wasn't going to change. My day, though, was getting a major makeover. The cost of that decision was very real. I was the main breadwinner of the family. Upon retirement, my income would go from a very comfortable sum to zero. I have an obligation to provide for my wife. This is not just a verbal commitment; the obligations I have are in a black on white document -- her כתובה -- signed by me and also two witnesses who testified to the fact that I chose to abide by the -- frankly, rather demanding -- terms of the contract.
Obviously, we decided I should retire. What was the basis for that decision? Opportunity cost. I was then spending eight to ten hours (with commute) a day, five days a week not learning Torah, not doing chesed. Of course, we needed to do the appropriate histadlus to provide for our physical well-being. In consultation with our financial advisor and R' Fuerst, we determined that we could no longer afford for me to work.
Chazal tell us that at the end of our lives, we experience a דין וחשבון/reckoning and accounting for every sin we committed. The Vilna Gaon explains the terms (which at first glance seem repetitive). The דין/reckoning is the cost of the sin itself. That's the easy part. The חשבון/accounting is what we could have been doing with that time. Yikes; to put it mildly.
So 100$ spent on a blender is 100$ not given to charity, not spent on food, not spent on clothing. An hour watching a movie and an hour not learning, an hour not doing chesed, an hour not sleeping. One may very well need that blender, but that decision should only be made after considering the benefit it will bring to one's life versus the benefit of the other ways that money could have been spent. That hour watching a movie might very well be the right way do spend that hour, but that decision should only be made after contemplating the other ways that hour could be used and its benefit versus theirs. There is no disposable income, there is no free time. If you are spending it on one thing, you have perforce lost the opportunity to spend it on something else.
Let me end with a fascinating Ohr Chaim on parashas Teruma (which may or may not be this week's parasha, depending on when you are reading this). The parasha begins with listing the materials needed for the Mishkan: gold, silver, copper, etc. Do you see that pattern there? They are listed in order of value. Next comes various kinds of wool, then dyed animal skins, oil, spices, and finally the jewels for the breastplate of the Kohen Gadol. Wait! The jewels were much, much more expensive than anything else on that list! Why are they at the end? The Ohr Chaim explains that the jewels came from heaven and the princes just picked them up. There was almost no effort expended in acquiring them. The very powerful lesson is that market value is not correlated with value we bring as seen by HaShem.
So remember: You don't have disposable income. Every dollar spent on that is a dollar not spent on a myriad of other things. There is no free time. Every moment spent doing that is a moment spent not doing any one of a myriad of other activities. Finally, when you are making a reckoning of how to spend that dollar and that moment, be sure to use the value it will have in that final accounting that we all will give.
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