The Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh gave us one very important purpose for excess wealth, and that is to give others what is rightfully theirs—but there are other cheshbonos as well. Sometimes, the Ribbono shel Olam gives a person extra money because He knows that he will soon incur large expenses, and he will need the money to cover them. If he squanders the money on luxuries now, he won’t have the money when he needs it later for necessities.
And so, if a person sees that he was given an infusion of money—before he begins scheming how to spend it—he should pause and think: Perhaps in a month from now I will need the money for necessities, and it will turn out that Hashem was arranging everything perfectly so I will have the money when I need it. Or, a certain usual stream of income will dry up, and this was Hashem’s way of “providing the remedy before the ailment”—arranging for a new conduit of shefa before the first one dries up.
