“I wasn’t interested in sending my brother money so his wife could buy designer dresses!”
It’s hard enough when you’re close friend or next door neighbor is wealthy and you’re struggling. But what happens when the person rolling in the dough is your sibling?
There’s a legend about how the site for the Beis Hamikdash was chosen: Two brothers farmed side by side on that land, one single, the other a father of a large family. When both enjoyed a bountiful harvest, the single brother thought, My brother has a large family to feed. Let me transfer my excess to him. The married brother reflected, My brother has no children to support him when he gets old; let me give him my extra grain. At night, each would steal out and add grain to the other’s pile, waking up the next morning to find the grain he’d given away had been mysteriously replaced. Finally, one night the two bumped into one another, realized what had been happening, and fell into each other’s arms in loving embrace.
This show of brotherly love, the legend says, inspired Dovid Hamelech to choose that site for the Beis Hamikdash. Though the veracity of this story may be questionable, it remains an ideal model for sibling relationships: each brother considering the other one’s needs and doing his best to anticipate and fulfill them.
Following this archetype in modern family life, however, may be a little more complicated. In an economy in which the middle class has become an endangered species, it’s become increasingly common for siblings to have widely disparate income levels. How does that play out in family relationships? What happens when siblings have a harder time sharing — or not sharing — the wealth? How does a struggling couple give gifts to the nieces and nephews who have everything? Can parents prevent hard feelings when their resources are mainly directed at one financially challenged sibling?
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