The day the California Lottery launched in 1984, I bought a $2 scratcher and instantly won $20. Thrilled, I leveraged that $20 and bought 20 more tickets, won about $10, and so on until it was all gone a few minutes later.
That pretty much sums up my career as a lottery player. But certainly not my career as a lottery fantasist.
Who doesn’t go there? Imagine winning the big one, say, $100 million in one confetti-dropping moment of outrageous fortune. Think of the mansions, the yachts, the electric dog polishers and, of course, what everyone needs (and as the lottery commercial depicts): that magical snow-making machine that turns a summer lawn into a winter wonderland.
Actually, I don’t want any of those things.
If I won $100 million, I would give most of it away. I swear that’s my lottery fantasy: to become a big shot philanthropist. I figure, keep $1 million to live on, put the rest in a foundation and then spend down the corpus, as they say.
I doubted I was the only one so charitably inclined. Many real lottery winners have given away millions. So I asked a random sample of friends what they would do if they won $100 million in the lottery.
Jewish community volunteer Jan Reicher told me she’d start a Bay Area Jewish Day School Legacy Endowment Fund to make sure an affordable Jewish education was available to every child. Then she would start a family foundation to fund all sorts of other important Jewish community endeavors.
Toby Rubin had a similar plan. First on her list, set up a foundation dedicated to supporting innovative Jewish experience, much like UpStart, which she currently heads. Next up, a world-changing donation to Parkinson’s disease research. After that she starts to think about the fun stuff, like a San Francisco pied-a-terre.
Though they admitted to wanting a few indulgences, I wasn’t surprised that my Jewish friends, especially those already civic-minded, would want to give their winnings away.
But when I told him about it, Rabbi Judah Dardik of Oakland’s Temple Beth Jacob wondered how many of us would really follow through with these outsized charitable impulses should the magic numbers roll our way.
“I have a sneaking suspicion [many] would forget,” he told me. “Studies show a lot of people who get a lot of money all at once do very badly.”
Fortunately, Jewish tradition has some guidelines for lucky people who do strike it rich. As the rabbi explained, and as is commonly known, we are obligated to give a minimum of 10 percent of our income to tzedakah. But did you know there’s a maximum? It’s 20 percent. So, you could be as rich as Bill Gates, but Jewish tradition requires you give no more than 20 percent to charity.
The reason: The community doesn’t want fat cats to become charity cases themselves one day.
Of course the real question is: Can I live a life of consequence, whether or not I win the lottery? Obviously the answer is yes. Money is power, no matter how much I have. A windfall like $100 million would provide extra power to both overindulge and shore up the world. The key, as with everything in Jewish tradition, is balance.
Despite the 20 percent maximum, I would still give most of the money away. As for indulgence, I can’t imagine wanting to do, see, taste or drive anything that would set me back $100 million. But before I get too smug about what a great ascetic philanthropist I would be, I remind myself of one more story Rabbi Dardik told me. It’s a story that tells me I could try to save the world and polish my dog at the same time.
This tale is about Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888), considered by many to be the father of modern Orthodoxy. In his old age he once announced to his Torah students he was planning a vacation to the Alps. His acolytes were astonished that the master would contemplate something so seemingly frivolous.
Replied the sage, “When I shall stand before God, the Eternal One will ask me, ‘Did you see my Alps?’ ”
Dan Pine can be reached at [email protected].