Protected Wealth!

In the conclusion of the fourth Aliyah, we read about the Preistly Blessings. It begins as follows יברכך ה' וישמרך- May Hashem bless you and guard you.

Rashi explains this to mean “May Hashem bless your possesions and protect them from being taken from you”

Many people make it big and lose it all. Money can be a curse. However Hashem protects our possesions. 

Here is an article of one of the many lottery winners who had a horrible life:

William Post III: "Nobody Realizes the Nightmares"

If you had less than $3 in your bank account, would you buy a lottery ticket? Maybe not, but William Post, III, known to his friends as Bud, went a step further than that. He pawned one of his few possessions for $40, then spent the entire amount on lottery tickets.

Foolish or not, his gamble paid off. One of those tickets won him $16.2 million from the Pennsylvania lottery.

You might think the man who had been little more than a drifter would have an easy life from the moment he won on. But the truth was that after cashing in his win, Post's life took a sharp turn for the worse.

"Everybody dreams of winning money, but nobody realizes the nightmares that come out of the woodwork, or the problems," he said.

How could that happen?

Post spent his money wildly. The majority of the first yearly installment of his winnings, which totaled over $400,000, was spent in the first two weeks. After a year, he was half a million dollars in debt.

His girlfriend sued him, claiming they had agreed to share the money if he won. When she won her court claim, he couldn't pay, so his lottery payouts were frozen.

He had to declare bankruptcy, and he only managed to hold onto about $2.6 million, which he immediately spent.

He was arrested for assault after firing a shotgun at a man who was pestering him for money.

Even worse, his brother hired a hitman to kill him and his wife so that he would inherit the money (he was on wife number six at that point).

Thirteen years later, this lottery curse victim died alone and penniless, living off of welfare payments.

May we all be blessed with protected wealth, Amen!