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The Sabbath and shopping

Lord Sacks, the chief rabbi of Great Britain, calls the consumerist society “the most efficient mechanism ever devised for the creation and distribution of unhappiness.” More: He went on: ”What does a consumer ethic do? It makes you aware all the time of the things you don’t have instead of thanking God for all the […]

Lord Sacks, the chief rabbi of Great Britain, calls the consumerist society “the most efficient mechanism ever devised for the creation and distribution of unhappiness.” More:

He went on: ”What does a consumer ethic do? It makes you aware all the time of the things you don’t have instead of thanking God for all the things you do have.

”If in a consumer society, through all the advertising and subtly seductive approaches to it, you’ve got an iPhone but you haven’t got a fourth generation one, the consumer society is in fact the most efficient mechanism ever devised for the creation and distribution of unhappiness.”

The newspaper that reported this, the Sydney Morning Herald, observes that Lord Sacks is one of the first religious leaders to go beyond condemning bankers and politicians for their role in the financial crisis, and to criticize ordinary people for their disordered materialistic habits. More:

In an attempt to highlight the link between faith and happiness, Lord Sacks pointed out that on the Jewish day of rest, the Shabbat, the devout spend time with their families rather than spending money.

Lord Sacks, who has represented Britain’s 300,000 Jews since 1991, said: ”The answer to the consumer society is the world of faith, which the Jews call the world of Shabbat, where you can’t shop and you can’t spend and you spend your time with things that matter, with family. Unless we get back to these values we will succeed in making our children and grandchildren ever unhappier.”

 

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