During a terrible famine, King Monobaz opened the royal treasury and distributed everything inside it to the poor. Every coin, every jewel, every stored reserve of wealth that his ancestors had accumulated over generations — he gave it all away. The hungry were fed. The dying were saved. And the treasury stood empty.
His family was furious. His brothers and his father's household surrounded him with accusations: "Your fathers stored up treasures and added to the wealth of their fathers," they said. "And you have squandered everything they built. You have emptied the storehouses that took generations to fill."
Monobaz listened to their rage and then answered with words that the Rabbis would quote for centuries: "My fathers stored up treasures below. I have stored up treasures above. My fathers stored treasures in a place where human hands can reach them — where thieves can steal them and armies can plunder them. I have stored my treasures in a place where no hand can reach."
He continued: "My fathers stored something that bears no fruit. I have stored something that bears fruit forever. My fathers gathered wealth for others — for after they died, it passed to strangers. I have gathered wealth for myself — for the merit of saving lives accompanies the soul into the world to come."
The Rabbis taught that Monobaz had not wasted his inheritance. He had invested it in the only currency that survives death. Gold rusts. Silver tarnishes. Storehouses collapse. But a life saved during a famine earns dividends in heaven for all eternity.