We usually think of money as something very practical, concrete, and secular; we earn it, save it, spend it, and crunch the numbers behind it. But money is never just about money: it reflects our values, our priorities — and even our spiritual life.
My guest today, Tom Levinson, knows this well. He’s a financial advisor who studied religion at Harvard Divinity School and thought about becoming a rabbi. Now, he helps people navigate not just their portfolios, but the deeper questions that come with them.
In today’s conversation, Tom shares the greater meaning around money, what the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions say about it, and how financial practices like budgeting can be spiritual disciplines.
Resources Related to the Podcast
- All That’s Holy: A Young Guy, an Old Car, and the Search for God in America by Tom Levinson
- AoM Article: The Spiritual Disciplines — Simplicity
- AoM Podcast #363: Budgeting Doesn’t Have to Suck
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Transcript
Brett McKay:
Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the AoM podcast. We usually think of money as something very practical, concrete, and secular. We earn it, save it, spend it, and crunch the numbers behind it. But money is never just about money reflects our values, our priorities, and even our spiritual life. My guest today, Tom Levinson, knows this well. He’s a financial advisor who studied religion at Harvard Divinity School and thought about becoming a rabbi. Now, he helps people navigate not just their portfolios, but the deeper questions that come with them. In today’s conversation, Tom shares the greater meaning around money, what the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions say about it, and how financial practices like budgeting can be spiritual disciplines. After the show’s over, check out our show notes at aom.is/meaningandmoney.
All right, Tom Levinson, welcome to the show
Tom Levinson:
Brett. Thanks so much. Happy to be here.
Brett McKay:
So you’ve got an interesting background. You are a financial advisor, but during your academic life, you studied religion. You even got your master’s in Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School. Why did you study religion? Did you come from a religious family?
Tom Levinson:
No, I did not. I am a very unlikely religion nerd. I grew up in New York City. My family growing up was not interested in religion at all. I would even say, not that my family was antagonistic to religion, but people were areligious and they didn’t feel like there was any relevance in our religious and spiritual traditions. So I celebrated a Bar mitzvah that was a little bit of a rite of passage for kids growing up in New York at the time. And then I just assumed I would say goodbye to religious life once I was done with my Bar mitzvah party, and that would be that. And the Lord works in mysterious ways because I ended up taking a class, a religion class in my 12th grade year of high school, and it was basically a sort of comparative religion and history of religion class. And the teacher was a wonderful guy who was a seminary graduate and just loved talking about and chopping it up about religion and spirituality. And I found myself getting really energized by the subject matter and whether he was talking about the Buddha or whether he was talking about the pilgrimage to Mecca or whether he was talking about the life of Jesus, I was like, wow, there is a lot here. And I had overlooked so much of it. So that was really the beginning of my finding a lot of delight and pleasure and even wonder in learning about different religious traditions.
Brett McKay:
When you were at Harvard Divinity School, did you think about pursuing a religious vocation?
Tom Levinson:
You know what, I was open to it, but I wasn’t sure. I think by the end of my time in Div school, I was thinking pretty seriously about becoming a rabbi. And that didn’t happen for a number of reasons, but the learning I was doing, the relationships I was building and the kind of inspiration I was finding definitely had me leaning toward a life and life choices where religion was going to be really important in just the way I moved through the world.
Brett McKay:
So you did some interesting things while you were at Harvard Divinity School, including leading a discussion group at a pretty tough prison. Why did you get involved with that?
Tom Levinson:
Yeah, I went down every Thursday night to a maximum obscurity prison in Bridgewater, Mass, and I had gone to divinity school, really excited and energized to learn about religion. And I found that what I was learning in the classroom while interesting and sometimes illuminating, what I really was hungry for was learning more about why do people believe, what makes people believe? And really curious about the kind of diversity and variety of religious experiences. And I found this volunteer opportunity, and I have to say that became my most important classroom when I was at Harvard Divinity School was the time I spent in this study group. The group was led by somebody who’d been imprisoned for 20 plus years, and he was not a religious person per se, but he was a deeply thoughtful, philosophically inclined person. And so one of the things we would do is he would bring reading material in and a lot of what he was gravitating toward was stoics and how do you make sense of the world as it is and how do you continue to engage it productively and thoughtfully? And so there were men in that group who were Muslim, there were men in that group who were Christian, there were men in that group who were agnostics. But I found a sense of just deep meaning and community in the conversations we had. So it was an eye-opening and illuminating experience.
Brett McKay:
What did you learn about spirituality from that experience that’s shaped the way you think about spirituality?
Tom Levinson:
Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m a big, big fan and student of the great 20th century Jewish writer and teacher and sage Martin Buber. And one of Buber’s most famous works is a book called I and Thou. I and Thou is really a meditation on where do we find the divine. Part of Buber’s thinking and hypothesis was that we find the divine in the space between each other and dialogue is a place, dialogue between and among people is a place where we can have deep and searching spiritual encounters. And that was really something I took away. I mean, I’d had this kind of hypothesis that conversation about religion and spirituality would be personally enriching, but I didn’t realize that I would find the spirit in those in-between spaces. And that has really informed so much of my spiritual practice and religious life moving forward.
Brett McKay:
Another project you worked on while you were in Divinity School is a book that you wrote. It’s called All That’s Holy, A Young Guy, an Old Car, and the Search for God in America. And the book is based on a road trip you took around the country to talk to regular everyday people in America about spirituality. Why did you decide to do this project?
Tom Levinson:
Well, I got the idea while I was in divinity school, and when I graduated, I set out on the road to do this and it was like a brainstorm and it was a flash of what I took as insight. My experience in the prison in conversation with these men in there was impactful enough for me that I was like, well, if I’m learning so much and growing so much in conversation with people, learning about their spiritual lives and priorities and commitments, what would it look like to do that on a broader canvas? And talking to people really became my sort of chosen curriculum. And I had a wonderful teacher and advisor and mentor, Harvey Cox at Harvard Div School, and I brought this idea to him. I was like, Hey, I want to get in my Nissan Altima and I want to drive around the country and I want to talk to people. I’ll bring a microphone, I’ll bring a camera. Is that the craziest idea? And he was like, man, do it. So I did it and met so many wonderful people and learned a ton both about them and at least as importantly about me.
Brett McKay:
What type of people did you talk to that ended up in the book?
Tom Levinson:
Oh, I mean, it was all across the map. I mean, I talked to basically any religious tradition you can think of. I found folks and a lot of it was finding people serendipitously. So a Muslim shopkeeper in Dayton, Ohio was the first person I talked to. Pentecostal preachers in Northern California, Buddhists, Orthodox Jews, people who had converted to Orthodox Judaism, Mormons, missionaries, and everybody in between. It’s such a diverse religious landscape in America, and I was fortunate to get to experience a lot of it.
Brett McKay:
How did that trip and writing the book influence your relationship with your own faith tradition?
Tom Levinson:
Part of what I’m sort of working through on that trip is what role is religion? What role is spiritual life going to have in my own life moving forward? Do I want to be a rabbi? Is that for real? That would’ve been such a impossible conjecture when I was 16 years old, but there I am, I’m 25 and I’m like, is this really what I want to do? Is this really how I want to spend my time? And again, I didn’t end up becoming a rabbi, but I think that process of wrestling out loud with people, bringing your questions, bringing the things you’re really curious about, bringing the things you’re struggling with, that is core to how I engage my own Jewish learning and Jewish practice. And that’s part of why I love interfaith conversations is because I’m learning so much about other people and what they tell me about them is also informing me about me.
Brett McKay:
So how did you go from divinity student to financial advisor? Were you helping people manage their money?
Tom Levinson:
Right? Yeah, it was definitely a journey. So I graduated from divinity school. I fought really seriously about becoming a rabbi, and then I have spent almost 25 years in the business world. A lot of people when I’m meeting them for the first time, ask, how do you square that circle, Tom? Part of how I answer that question is that when I have conversations with people about money, the conversations are always about more than money. They’re about their hopes and dreams and aspirations, and they are about their fears and anxieties and insecurities. And so my work as a financial advisor, I play the role of educator. I play the role of acknowledging and celebrating life milestone events. There’s also a lot of pastoral care sort of in the process of having difficult challenging questions with people. And when I sort of pull the camera back and look at it work as a financial advisor, if you’re doing it in this kind of hopefully intelligent and thoughtful and open and honest way, it has so many commonalities with work. As a rabbi, you’re dealing with so much of human experience and so much of how people are wrestling with it, and you get to have a front row seat in that. So it might be counterintuitive, but I really think of Div school being honestly just incredible preparation for work in helping people navigate their financial lives thoughtfully.
Brett McKay:
Yeah, I think that’s true that when you’re talking about money, you’re talking about more than just money. I have a financial advisor, he manages my retirement portfolio, and whenever I have conversations with him, it’s pretty much like, okay, we’re doing this. Here’s the mix of stocks and bonds we’ve got going. But sometimes I’d think, man, it’d be really useful to talk to this guy about what are my hopes, what are my values? Because in the background, I’m having those conversations with my wife about what do we want our future to look like? And I think it’d be useful to have a financial advisor who can help you with the brass tacks stuff, but also help you sort through that psychological spiritual stuff that lies behind those money decisions.
Tom Levinson:
Totally. Yeah, I mean, I completely hear you, and I think there’s a lot of appetite out there among people for whom money is how we use our money, how we think about it, how we spend it, how we invest it. It’s so deeply interconnected with our core values. And I think sometimes our culture teaches, especially our economic and financial culture, teaches that money is over here in one sphere and our core values and spiritual lives and religious commitments are over here and in another sphere. And I think that’s a hugely lost opportunity because people want to be figuring out, how do I align my money with my deeply held values? And I think conversations like this, and it’s not an ongoing conversation, it can be really impactful and energizing for people.
Brett McKay:
So you have a podcast called Money Meet Meaning, and what you do in this podcast, you explore what different faith traditions say about money. One thing you note is that money is one of the most frequent topics in ancient scriptures. Jesus talked about money more than anything else except for the kingdom of God. The Torah is full of economic laws. Why do you think ancient scripture talked about money so much?
Tom Levinson:
Yeah, I mean, look, religious, our ancient scriptures, which by the way are incredibly current and contemporary at the same time are focused on humans, how we live in the world, how we interact in the world. And you’re totally right. I mean, I think nearly half of Jesus’ parables are about money and financial life. There are 613 mitzvot or commandments in the Torah. The five books of Moses and over a hundred of them are about our financial lives. So this stuff is hiding in plain sight in our spiritual traditions. And I think when you look back, and this is something that I really have gotten from studying religion and learning more about it over the intervening decades, when you look back at the birth of religious traditions, part of what makes religions so insightful and illuminating is that they’re looking at the world as it is.
And then they’re also at the very same time, they’re imagining the way the world could be, what I would call our wisdom traditions. They’re really about us and our lives, and they are, again, on the one hand, they are clear-eyed and practical, and on the other hand, they are aspirational and inspiring, and they are saying, there’s another world that’s possible, and here’s the roadmap for trying to accomplish it. So I also think on that same topic, one of the things that’s really fascinating about life with money is that it raises, I mean, I think everybody in your audience will probably identify with this, but life with money is hard. It’s challenging, it’s complex, and it raises all kinds of ethical, and I think spiritual questions, and it’s also wrestling with those questions and those challenges. We are filled with creative potential for how to make our lives more meaningful and how to do it with other people more meaningfully. So when I think about religious traditions without deep and broad conversations about money, I think there would be a gigantic crater in those traditions. And so there’s a lot more to talk about, but that’s the beginning of an answer.
Brett McKay:
Yeah, those ancient sages, they understood that money makes up a big part of our life. And when we’re talking about money, we’re often talking about more than just money. There’s things
Tom Levinson:
Behind that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. It’s the same just as it’s true for us. So it was true for people living 2,000 years ago, 2,500 years ago, that the conversations about money are like they’re of course new subtleties and contours to them, but in some respects, there’s not that much new under the sun.
Brett McKay:
No, there isn’t. That’s Ecclesiastes. Nothing new under the sun. Okay.
Tom Levinson:
You know what? I’m glad you brought ’em up. I’m excited to get to Ecclesiastes at some point, but I’m glad you brought ’em up.
Brett McKay:
Well, maybe we’ll bring it up now. Let’s talk about the specific ways, different religious traditions. Talk about money. Let’s start off with your own faith tradition, Judaism. What does Judaism say about money? And maybe we can talk about Ecclesiastes there. He talks a lot about that.
Tom Levinson:
Okay. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you’re going to talk about Judaism and money, you’ve got to bring up Ecclesiastes. So here’s what I would say, Brett. I mean, I think first and foremost, what I’m going to say about this is just the tip of the iceberg, right? And I am a practitioner, I am a student. I’m not a rabbi, I’m not a scholar of this. So let’s take this as the opening of the conversation and not the end of it. But if I think about Judaism and money, I love the book of Deuteronomy. There’s so much to it. And one of the things, one of central injunctions that Moses delivers to the assembled biblical Hebrews in Deuteronomy is right after saying the Lord, our God is one, Moses says, this is Deuteronomy six for anybody keeping score at home, this is Deuteronomy six. But one of the things Moses says is, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being and all your might.
And that’s probably memorized by lots of us across different religious traditions. But the towering medieval Jewish writer commentator, rabbi Sage Rashi, in doing this interpretation of the Torah, he looks at that verse and he says, okay, what does Moses mean when he talks about might M-I-G-H-T, but might? And you? What Rashi says is when Moses is talking about you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart being and might means your property, your money, your wealth. So that’s like a centerpiece of the Jewish understanding around money, is that money is important and necessary for individuals, for families, for communities. And part of why it’s so important is that it’s important because it’s a vehicle for divine service. So that’s one piece. I would say. A second piece is that money and spiritual life are not separate in Judaism. They are not in their own respective corners of the boxing ring.
They are mutually informing and enriching and interdependent. And there’s a great teaching from the Talmud. This is from a part of the Talmud called pirkei avot, which is you can translate it as ethics of the fathers. And this maxim, it goes “Without flour, there’s no Torah, and without the Torah, there’s no flour.” So what are the rabbinic sages, Talmudic sages talking about when they say that? They’re saying, first and foremost, spiritual life requires that people’s material needs be met in a baseline way. Like if you’re hungry for bread, it’s going to be very difficult to focus on higher things. And at the same time, if you’re only focused on material things, it’s going to be you need a roadmap. We need a roadmap. We need guardrails. And so without Torah, there’s no flour. The idea there is that if left to our own devices, humans are going to think that there are no guardrails. And what they need to do is keep accumulating, keep accumulating. And part of what the Talmud is teaching us, there are the precepts and prescriptions that we get from Jewish teaching. And Jewish wisdom helps control our impulses in important and significant and life affirming and community affirming ways. So this is an interplay that Jewish teachers have been wrestling with forever.
Brett McKay:
Another thing I’ve seen throughout the Hebrew Bible as I’ve read it over the years, a theme that comes up that I think is related to money is the idea of idolatry. Since Moses, Moses was up in Mount Sinai and his brother Aaron got up to some shenanigans, made the golden calf, and then throughout the rest of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, these prophets appear because idolatry is on the scene, Amos, and they’re like, you guys, what is going on here? What do you think the Hebrew conception of idolatry can teach us about our relationship to money?
Tom Levinson:
Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean, if you read the 10 Commandments, whether it’s in Exodus or whether it’s in Deuteronomy, baked into the 10 Commandments is a kind of mini roadmap about financial life. So one of the 10 commandments is about you shall work, but you shall also rest. So Shabbat, the Sabbath is built in, don’t steal, don’t covet. That’s a really interesting one. That’s not about action, that’s about intention and our attitude toward money. And of course like the prohibition on idol worship and idolatry, I think Judaism takes really seriously the prospect that money is something that can rise to the level without appropriate, again, I’m going to use the word guardrails. Money can rise to the level of a kind of godly state. We can put it on that kind of pedestal. And I think Judaism is really keenly aware of those challenges.
Part of the Jewish perspective on money is that there is a lot of concern and anxiety baked into that relationship. So back to Deuteronomy, you see that with Moses, Hey, looking ahead, when we cross the Jordan River, this community is going to be comfortable. This community is going to have homes. This community is going to be settled, not going to be wandering in the wilderness forever. And with affluence, with affluence and with comfort, like Moses is expressing this really deep anxiousness about how will you behave? How will your relationship with God change when you think all of what you’ve achieved is your own doing? So I think that’s one really interesting piece of how Jews have wrestled over the millennia with this question of affluence and wealth and spiritual commitment. And then getting back to Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes, for people who haven’t read it, you got to go back and read Ecclesiastes.
It is so timely and current, and part of what Ecclesiastes is saying is like, Hey, this is first person narrative. And it’s very… talk about confessional. My gosh, this is a person who has achieved everything that we could possibly aspire to. Incredible worldly success, running things, governance, anything that this particular narrator has wanted, he’s accomplished. And yet at the same time, he feels this emptiness and this sense that all is vanity and that striving after these things is also vanity. So look, the Hebrew Bible, I guess all scriptures, from my perspective, all scriptures are a curation of content. And there’s a lot of stuff that ends up on the cutting room floor. But what I think is really illuminating and telling about what ends up in the scriptures is that this is something that the ancient curators, whoever they were, were really interested in having future generations consider and wrestle with.
Brett McKay:
Yeah. So I think the idea is just money’s important, but you got to keep it in its proper place.
Tom Levinson:
Yeah, well said. Yep, well said.
Brett McKay:
Are there any practices from Judaism that you think people from any faith tradition or any background could apply in their lives in relationship to their money?
Tom Levinson:
Yeah, I mean, yes, for sure. I mean, at the center of Jewish Teaching and Jews relationship with money is this concept of tzedakah. Tzedakah I think is often translated as charity, but it comes from the root tzedek, and tzedekek really means justice. And so there’s this just deep connection between the work of our charitable contributions actually being something that makes for a more just world and helps us repair the world. So I think just that lens, that frame can be really important and certainly is meaningful for me.
Brett McKay:
Yeah, I think another one, Shabbat, it’s the Sabbath. Just taking a day off where you don’t work and you learn to be comfortable feeling like you have value, you’ve got worth outside of being a producer, embracing yourself as a human being, not just as a human doing, not being anxious about doing stuff that doesn’t have immediate concrete ROI, that’s not productive, just taking time to think about and do hire more meaningful things.
Tom Levinson:
Yeah. Oh my gosh. I mean, Shabbat, we have celebrated and observed Shabbat for as a family for I mean 25 years, something like that. And it is such an important grounding, anchoring practice. No matter what’s going on in your life, you go back to the first chapter or two of Genesis each day, God’s creating the world, and God looks at the world after each day of creation and God says, it’s good, the creation is good. And you get to the end of the sixth day and God looks at the world and God says, what I’ve created is not just good, it’s exceedingly good. Now, it’s not perfect, but it’s exceedingly good. And just as God models how to work creatively in the world, God also is modeling why it’s important to rest, both to appreciate what exists, and also to recognize that we’re not slaves to work. We are liberated in some way from enslavement.
Brett McKay:
Alright, so let’s talk about Christianity. So we talked about earlier, Jesus talks a lot about money in the gospels, about half of his parables are related to money somehow. But whenever I read the gospels of Jesus, it can seem like he’s all over the place on the topic of money. So in one instance, you’ll see him telling a guy, you can’t be rich and get into the kingdom of God. And then in another instance, you’ll see him giving a parable where a guy who has given the least amount of money from his master gets his money taken away because he didn’t invest it while the master was away. Or he tells the rich young ruler that he’s to sell all he has, but he doesn’t make that a universal command. He says, you can’t serve both God and money mammon. But then he also says that you should use worldly wealth to make friends. What do you make of the diversity of Jesus’ teachings about money?
Tom Levinson:
I mean, yeah, there’s so much to it. First and foremost, money is complex. And so the range of topics that Jesus is covering and the breadth of people that he’s talking to about this in and of itself, I think informs us that wow, there’s just such a diversity of experience in our financial lives. Of course, Jesus is teaching and preaching and practicing as a Jew. And so these teachings are umbilically linked to Jewish teachings, both in their focus and in their concerns. And I mean, one of the things that comes up when I’m thinking about Jesus’s teachings is he’s really laser focused on the spiritual perils of wealth. And I think importantly, wealth accumulation, you referenced it, Brett, but this dictum that you can’t serve both money and mammon in Matthew, and that if you serve mammon, it’s a form of idolatry. So that’s straight out of the gospels, of course, the rich man and the eye of the needle.
That’s a really complex piece of scripture. One of my favorite teachings from the Christian tradition is in one Timothy chapter six, and there’s this profound misunderstanding about the verse. I’m sure you and many in your audience know where I’m going with this, but a lot of times people think the language is money is the root of all evil. But that’s not the verse, the verse that presumably Paul is writing this. But the verse is really, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. So it’s not making a declarative statement about the evils of money. No, no, no. Money is neutral. The question is how do we use it? And the excessive love of money is what Paul and of course Jesus is warning us about. That to me is really powerful. And I think Jesus is really, you might’ve even mentioned this already, Brett, but Jesus is really focused on what are your priorities? What is your focus? What are your points of emphasis in the life you live? And how do you keep money in a place of perspective and balance and not let it overwhelm all of these other really important domains of our lives? So yeah, those are some initial thoughts.
Brett McKay:
Yeah, what I think I hear you saying is that in the Christian tradition, money in and of itself is not bad. It’s all about your relationship to money. And maybe that idea can help us square some of Jesus’s diverse teachings about it because he’s addressing the different ways that money can become a problem for people. So for that rich young ruler where Jesus said, you got to sell all your stuff, well, that’s what he needed to do because he loved his stuff so much. That was his stumbling block to faith because he was doing everything else, but he still loved his money more than God. And then with the parable of the talents where that one guy gets his one talent taken away, he had a too fearful of a relationship with money. He was so cautious, but in a way that shows a lack of trust in God and that keeps him from being fruitful and expansive. So even being too fearful about money still allows your relationship with money to dominate you in an unhealthy way.
Tom Levinson:
That’s right. And I think Jesus is offering such personalized, really customized teaching to everybody he’s interacting with. I mean, that’s one of the reasons he’s so inspiring to me. But you look at that parable about the widow’s might, I think it’s in Mark, and part of what he’s doing is that this poor woman offers this tiny gift as a charitable contribution maybe as Akah. And Jesus is like, you see what she did. That is the model. Even though she’s not giving vast amounts, she’s giving from the heart and she’s giving something that’s meaningful and impactful for her. And Jesus definitely wants to shine a spotlight on that kind of relationship to money.
Brett McKay:
Let’s talk about Islam. What does Islam say about money?
Tom Levinson:
Yeah, I mean, Islam is a religion of this world. So there are a few things. I’d say again, like necessary disclaimer, this is really the tip of the iceberg, but first and foremost, the prophet Muhammad was a merchant, and he only receives this kind of divine message in the middle of his life. So he grew up poor, was working class, and what he did in his work is that he would guide caravans across the desert. And he did it with such responsibility and such integrity and such diligence that actually his wife, Khadija, who is a wealthy person, proposed to Muhammad because of the character traits that he exhibited in his business life. So that in and of itself tells us that there’s something really powerful about how we conduct our business with honesty and integrity. There’s another, I think, really important principle in Islamic teaching that there’s no voluntary poverty in Islam.
So living a comfortable life, that’s okay, but hoarding, no, no, no. That’s not okay. So yet again, we’re seeing a religious tradition that’s focused on finding a balance in our life with money and from a sort of communal perspective. One of the things that I find really, really inspiring about Islam’s relationship to the economy and to money is that meeting people’s baseline basic needs is more important than maximizing individual wants. That has a lot to teach us. I got two other things to say on this, Brett. One is that at a certain point in his teaching and his mission, the prophet Muhammad is sort of compelled to move from his birthplace of Mecca to Medina. And that’s a really important journey in the Islamic tradition. And one of the first things he does when he gets to Medina is he makes a market.
Okay, why is this important? He makes a market because all of these different tribes have an opportunity to come to the market. And even though they’ve been arguing with each other and fighting each other and killing each other over lots of different things prior to Muhammad building this market, when they come to the market, they’re interacting and exchanging goods and services, building relationships, getting to know one another. And so you see that a marketplace is actually a platform for building community. So I think that’s mean, not to editorialize too much, but that’s a pretty extraordinary example from Islam. And the one other thing I would say is just like when you’re talking about Islam, there are some central pillars of the faith. And living a conscientious life with money is at the center of these pillars. So one of the pillars is zakat, which is charity being generous. That is just a core principle and a threshold part of being a Muslim. And then fasting during Ramadan has a lot of intersection with life with money because part of why Muslims fast is that they’re showing empathy for the poor, and they are experiencing hunger every year, every Muslim in a way that helps them better understand human needs and human needs and to sort of recommit rededicate themselves to being charitable, to being generous, and to making sure that ideally we live in a world where no one is in need like that.
Brett McKay:
So I think what’s interesting is that the beliefs of these three religions are very different in many ways, yet there seems to be some definite similarities in how they approach money. For all three, there’s this thread that, okay, money is important for wellbeing. It can be a positive tool, but you got to keep it in a healthy balance in your life. Don’t let it dominate your priorities, don’t become so consumed by it that you stop caring about other people. So you’re a financial advisor, so you’re working with people on the brass tax of their finances, like how to invest, how to spend, how to save. Are there any concrete financial practices that you think people can use to turn the broad principles of their faith into action? Are there financial practices that could be turned into spiritual disciplines?
Tom Levinson:
So one thing that comes to mind, Brett, is there’s a gentleman, and I think he’s been a guest on your podcast, Jesse Mecham, who founded You Need A Budget. Do I have that right?
Brett McKay:
That’s right. It was a long time ago, but we’ve had Jesse on the podcast.
Tom Levinson:
Alright, well he was a guest on our podcast. He’s an extraordinary fellow and part of what he talks about in budgeting… I mean, and he’s coming from a deep values perspective, is that budgeting is an exercise for both intention and attention. So focusing on budgeting, how we spend our money, how we save our money, that’s a discipline and that’s a kind of mindfulness practice. So that’s really interesting. I would definitely encourage people to check out You Need A Budget. A lot of why in practical guidance on there. I also think people struggle a lot with how to use their money in the world. How do you invest it? How do you spend it? And I am a big believer that, look, this is not always possible, but to the extent it’s possible, aligning your spending with your values is really important. What kind of world do we want to be living in?
For me, my wife and I get into a back and forth. This is an ongoing thing about, this is an ongoing conversation about how often to use Amazon. And we are blessed to live in a neighborhood where we have all kinds of wonderful local places. We got local independent bookstores. We have some of the most amazing diners you’ve ever been to local shops like such good stuff. And Amazon is really an extraordinary service and an extraordinary company in so many ways. But there is a real cost, a real social cost to using Amazon when we’re doing it and bypassing using local businesses. So we have a back and forth about this. So we have come to a domestic detente about using Amazon where you use Amazon if something is really hard to get or really heavy to transport, but otherwise try to use your local businesses. And I think that can help create the world that you want to live in.
Brett McKay:
Yeah, I think just keeping track of how you’re spending your money is akin to a spiritual practice because yeah, it builds mindfulness and if you keep a budget that develops self-discipline and it just allows you to see, there’s that saying, if you want to see what someone values you look at their calendar and their checkbook because how you spend your time and your money reveals your true priorities in life.
Tom Levinson:
Yeah.
Brett McKay:
So something you talk about in your work is that culture can be a powerful liturgist culture teaches us what to worship and value for parents who are raising kids in a hyper consumerist America with social media, which is basically, I mean, it’s just ads, both they’re subtle ads and overt ads. What do you think is the most counter-cultural financial move parents can make to show their kids that their ultimate joy lies in spirituality, more meaningful things in life, and not just money and stuff?
Tom Levinson:
Yeah. Well, the first thing I go to that we come back to in our conversation is Shabbat. I think the practice of resting and refraining from work, celebrating both the world as it is imperfect, as it is, celebrating the world as it is, and also celebrating freedom, time with family, time with friends, that’s powerful. And it’s so necessary in our world where we’re just going 24 7 all the time. So that’s definitely one thing. Another thing that comes up for me is giving so much of our world, and by the way, some of this is productive. So much of our financial life can be automated now and so much is digitized. And look, I mean, automating your 401k contributions, yes, do it. This is not a financial advice podcast, but that’s a helpful practice for people. But there are ways that you don’t want to automate and that you want to go back to Martin Buber where you really want the focus to be on relationship and not on transaction. So I think in terms of giving your money, giving your time, those are ways we live out our spiritual commitments in the world, both in how we’re generous, how we connect with other people, how we acknowledge the dignity of other people’s work, regardless of what they’re doing. So I think that’s really powerful.
Brett McKay:
Well, Tom, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about your work?
Tom Levinson:
Well, thank you so much for a great conversation, Brett. This has been terrific and I’ve learned a ton too. So check out our podcast. Season two is going to be dropping in early 2026, so it’s called Money Meet Meaning. And by the way, there is a comma in there, Money, Meet, Meaning it’s like we’re introducing money and meaning, and then you can, if anybody wants to talk a little bit further or engage in the subject a little bit further, I’m happy to. You can send an email to [email protected], and we can take it from there.
Brett McKay:
Fantastic. Well, Tom Levinson, thanks for your time, it’s been a pleasure.
Tom Levinson:
Thanks, Brett. Really enjoyed it.
Brett McKay:
My guest today was Tom Levinson. He’s the co-host of the podcast Money Meet Meaning — you can find on any podcast player and they’re about to start their second season. Also, check out our show notes at AoM.is/moneyandmeaning where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic.
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AoM podcast. If you haven’t done so already, I’d appreciate it if you take one minute to give a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you’ve done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member you think would get something out of it.
As always, thanks for the continued support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay reminding you to not only listen to the podcast, but put what you’ve heard into action.
