acKNOWlEDgmENT mONEy

Thus far, all the words used originated in Scripture. There is one meaning that originates with the rabbis: damim (יםִמָּד), which his blood in the plural, like saying “bloods,” but the sages use it in the sense of “money.” Why is this so? Because just as blood circulates in the body, money circulates in the economy—it is the life-blood of the economy. In the Torah Academy model (mentioned in the beginning of this class), economics corresponds to the sefirah of acknowledgment (hod) and since the flow of the economy is blood, we place this word, damim, in acknowledgment.