Fiat currency and idolatry are outgrowths of the same error. What is that error? Believing that a substitute for something is the real thing. Idolatry did not begin as someone suddenly believing that a stone statue is actually god. That would be ridiculous. It evolved slowly, through layers of derivative errors. The Rambam explains how this happened in the first two halachos of Hilchos Avoda Zara, the laws surrounding idolatry. He writes:

בימי אנוש טעו בני האדם טעות גדול ונבערה עצת חכמי אותו הדור ואנוש עצמו מן הטועים היה. וזו היתה טעותם. אמרו הואיל והאלהים ברא כוכבים אלו וגלגלים להנהיג את העולם ונתנם במרום וחלק להם כבוד והם שמשים המשמשים לפניו ראויין הם לשבחם ולפארם ולחלוק להם כבוד. וזהו רצון האל ברוך הוא לגדל ולכבד מי שגדלו וכבדו. כמו שהמלך רוצה לכבד העומדים לפניו וזהו כבודו של מלך. כיון שעלה דבר זה על לבם התחילו לבנות לכוכבים היכלות ולהקריב להן קרבנות ולשבחם ולפארם בדברים ולהשתחוות למולם כדי להשיג רצון הבורא בדעתם הרעה. וזה היה עיקר עבודת כוכבים. וכך היו אומרים עובדיה היודעים עיקרה. לא שהן אומרים שאין שם אלוה אלא כוכב זה. הוא שירמיהו אומר מי לא ייראך מלך הגוים כי לך יאתה כי בכל חכמי הגוים ובכל מלכותם מאין כמוך ובאחת יבערו ויכסלו מוסר הבלים עץ הוא. כלומר הכל יודעים שאתה הוא לבדך אבל טעותם וכסילותם שמדמים שזה ההבל רצונך הוא:

In the days of Enosh, mankind committed a big error and the sages of that time and Enosh himself committed this error. This was their error. They said that since God created the stars and the spheres to direct the world from on high, and gave them honor and they, the spheres, served Him, that people should serve them, too. And that this is the will of God to serve and respect those things that serve and respect God, just as any king would want respect for his closest servants. Because this occurred to them, they started building temples and sacrificing to them in order to appease God in their false ideas. This is the essence of idolatry. It’s not that they believed that idols or stars were actually god, but their error was in thinking that God willed that they worship intermediaries.

ואחר שארכו הימים עמדו בבני האדם נביאי שקר ואמרו שהאל צוה ואמר להם עבדו כוכב פלוני או כל הכוכבים והקריבו לו ונסכו לו כך וכך ובנו לו היכל ועשו צורתו כדי להשתחוות לו כל העם הנשים והקטנים ושאר עמי הארץ. ומודיע להם צורה שבדה מלבו ואומר זו היא צורת הכוכב פלוני שהודיעוהו בנבואתו. והתחילו על דרך זו לעשות צורות בהיכלות ותחת האילנות ובראשי ההרים ועל הגבעות ומתקבצין ומשתחוים להם ואומרים לכל העם שזו הצורה מטיבה ומריעה וראוי לעובדה וליראה ממנה. וכהניהם אומרים להם שבעבודה זו תרבו ותצליחו ועשו כך וכך ואל תעשו כך וכך. והתחילו כוזבים אחרים לעמוד ולומר שהכוכב עצמו או הגלגל או המלאך דבר עמהם ואמר להם עבדוני בכך וכך והודיע להם דרך עבודתו ועשו כך ואל תעשו כך. ופשט דבר זה בכל העולם לעבוד את הצורות בעבודות משונות זו מזו ולהקריב להם ולהשתחוות. וכיון שארכו הימים נשתכח השם הנכבד והנורא מפי כל היקום ומדעתם ולא הכירוהו ונמצאו כל עם הארץ הנשים והקטנים אינם יודעים אלא הצורה של עץ ושל אבן וההיכל של אבנים שנתחנכו מקטנותם להשתחוות לה ולעבדה ולהשבע בשמה. והחכמים שהיו בהם כגון כהניהם וכיוצא בהן מדמין שאין שם אלוה אלא הכוכבים והגלגלים שנעשו הצורות האלו בגללם ולדמותן אבל צור העולמים לא היה שום אדם שהיה מכירו ולא יודעו אלא יחידים בעולם כגון חנוך ומתושלח נח שם ועבר. ועל דרך זה היה העולם הולך ומתגלגל עד שנולד עמודו של עולם והוא אברהם אבינו:

As time went on, false prophets arose that said that god told them to worship such and such a star or all the stars or to sacrifice and pour libations in such and such a way, and they made a form representing the star so that all the people could bow down to the form. The false prophet would describe a form that he made up and would say, “this is the form of the start that spoke to me in my prophecy.” In this way they would make forms in their temples and under their trees and on their hills and bow down to them and the people would say that this form can do good or bad to you and you should worship it and fear it. And the priests would invent a way of worshiping that they said was the right way. This spread throughout the world to worship different forms and sacrifice and bow to them. As time went by, the whole world forgot about the one true and awesome God and they no longer knew Him. They all only knew the representative forms of wood or stone and the temples of stone that they were taught about as children, to bow down to and swear by. And their sages thought that there was no god but the stars and the spheres represented by the idol forms. This is how the world deteriorated until our father Abraham, the pillar of the world, arrived.

And so we learn from the Rambam that idolatry is really the worship of divinity substitutes.

What is fiat money? How was it born? It was born as a money substitute. When the first paper monies were used, they were nothing but receipts for real money, which was gold and silver. Nobody believed they were real money. But then as people got used to using the paper money substitute, they forgot what real money was. And they built temples to the paper money substitutes called central banks, inflated these substitutes over the real money supply to spend them and extract value from them, stealing the purchasing power of others. And they constructed convoluted theories and rituals about how and when to increase the money supply based on complicated econometric equations that made absolutely no sense.

And the people got used to using these manipulated inflated money substitutes as money and completely forgot what real money was. They began to believe that the substitutes were money itself and that the temples to the money substitutes, the central banks, and their priesthood the central bankers, knew exactly what they were doing and their ritualistic worship with econometric equations were wise and would make the money substitutes work well. But nobody realized that the fiat money they were using was actually still only a substitute for real money, and that its value and usability depended ultimately on its continued exchangeability for real money, for gold and silver. The people began to mock real money gold, calling it a “barbarous relic” and a “doorstop” and disparaged its usefulness.

And then people decided that they could even make their own money called bitcoin, whose value would hang entirely on the genius and hubris of man, but they did not realize that bitcoin was only a substitute itself for a money substitute, and ultimately depended on the substitute’s (dollar’s) exchangeability for real money, gold.

But they will figure it out once, at the end, their money substitutes no longer work, their bubbles blown up from the inflation of the money supply implode, and the bitcoin substitutes for those money substitutes fall to zero as well, and everyone will have to reject their idolatrous money substitutes and substitutes for those substitutes, and return to money itself, gold and silver directly, or the division of labor will break down.

Today, August 11, 2021. I went to the gym this morning. I live in Israel. I do not have a green pass. Technically, I am not allowed in to the gym. As I walk there, I’m thinking what to do if police prevent me from going. Do I go in anyway or back out, jump the fence and work out?

It turned out not to be an issue. Nobody was at the front desk so I just walked in, did my work out, and left.

I walk home, and when I turn the corner to my street, I’m reading The Tower of Basel so I’m not looking up. I hear my wife scream my name and immediately my blood pressure shoots up. She’s unloading groceries with my two oldest daughters, 11 and 9.

Apparently, as I was working out at the gym, my wife was having a workout of the mind and soul at the supermarket.

“Rafi, they called the police on me!”

“What, is everything OK? Does this have a happy ending?”

I immediately want to know if this is a good or bad story. I have been constantly on edge for about 18 months now, and I am in no condition to handle any sort of suspense at all.

“Everything’s fine,” says my wife. I breathe a sigh of relief.

“So what happened?!”

A bit of background. My wife and I made a pact a while back. We would not put on masks anymore for any reason. Not to keep a job, not to placate the police, nothing. (The last time I put one on was for an interview to get a weapons license 3 months ago, and I had to annul vows for that.) Why are we so adamant? Because it is time to set an example, and so we are. Neither I nor my wife have ever gotten a ticket for not wearing a mask. I’ve been threatened, even booked and detained by police, but never ticketed.

She begins the story. She’s heading into the grocery store with our two oldest daughters. The guard stops her at the entrance and tells her she can’t come in without a mask. She says yes, she can, and that she does not have to wear a mask. She simply walks past the guard. The guard follows her inside and continues to harass her. She just continues shopping, with an asinine back-and-forth about what the “law is”.

“Show me your exemption,” says the guard.

“I don’t have to show you anything,” she insists. And keeps shopping. My daughters are witnessing all of this, also unmasked.  

As this is going on, the manager of the store comes out and takes my wife’s side, which was nice. “If she says she doesn’t have to wear a mask, then she doesn’t have to wear a mask! Enough already!”

The guard slinks off. Meanwhile, random masked grocery shoppers continue to harass my wife in front of my kids. She ignores them all and keeps shopping.

Then, she gets to the self-checkout counter and starts scanning her stuff. She swipes her credit card, the machine says there’s a problem (what a coincidence) and to call a clerk to help. A clerk comes, and she says, “Sorry, this checkout isn’t working. You’ll have to start over. And the police are coming. You have to put on a mask.”

“No, I don’t,” says my wife.

Then the store intercom starts blaring. “The police are on their way. Everyone must make sure their mask covers both nose and mouth.”

My wife just stands there, with my daughters. She can’t leave, because payment hasn’t gone through. She suspects someone shut down the machine to pin her there as the police were coming. Plus, my oldest just happened to have a bee sting on her foot from the day before that was swelling up again and needed to be iced, but my wife did not want to use that excuse to leave, because it would look cowardly. It is time to stand up. So she just stood there calmly, unmasked.

Police arrive outside the supermarket, taking pictures. They do not come in.

Still waiting, she’s the only person unmasked in the entire store. The checkout machine comes back to life. A new screen pops up on for a manager to swipe a card again. My wife calls the manager over, she swipes the card. The machine now says to swipe the credit card again. She does. Receipt comes out this time, finished.

She’s now walking out of the store, my oldest’s foot in a lot of pain. She gets past the guard again, and she simply walks past three policemen standing there. As she passes them, the guard says, “That’s her that’s her!” to the cops. But my wife just keeps walking to the car, two daughters in tow. They help her load the car, and she drives off home.

That’s it. That’s the whole story. This is all one big bluff. Our enemies are empty shells. Evil is emptiness.

Show no fear. Stare the bastards down. Keep your calm. They’re nothing.

I would bet that nobody in my entire city has the sheer courage of my wife. I am blessed with the most amazing woman in the world.

US markets are tanking on the continued oil rout. I have re-added positions in Chevron and a position in the QQQ Nasdaq ETF. See the menu bar for details.

I have added a position to the model portfolio. See the updated page here.

What if I say I’m not like the others?

What if I say I’m just another one of your plays?

You’re the pretender

What if I say I will never surrender?

It means a lot of things to a lot of people. Insert your meaning.

Good Shabbos.