Teenagers, Birthdays and Money
As originally appeared in The Jerusalem Post on January 2, 2026.
“Your modern teenager is not about to listen to advice from an old person, defined as a person who remembers when there was no Velcro.” -Dave Barry
In this week’s Torah portion, Vayechi, we read about how Jacob on his deathbed lays out his legacy to his children, and 2 grandchildren. Not much has changed in a few thousand years. Parents have the same fears then that they have now. Jacob’s concerns are like ours. Will our children believe what we believe? Will they appreciate the same value system that we do? Will our individual and national history be remembered, transmitted and kept?
This seems to be the first sustained discussion of intergenerational transfer—not only of land and blessing, but of values, in the bible. While the family of Yaakov is economically secure, the parsha is strikingly unconcerned with how wealth is produced. Instead, it is deeply concerned with what wealth produces in children.
Throughout the book of Genesis, Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch emphasizes that material success is spiritually neutral. Its value depends entirely on what it produces in human character. On Jacob’s blessing of Ephraim and Menashe, Rav Hirsch explains that Yaakov deliberately blesses children raised amid Egyptian wealth and power to demonstrate that Torah values can survive prosperity—but only through conscious education. To paraphrase: The greatest danger to the moral mission of Israel is not poverty, but prosperity without discipline.
In a few days we will celebrate our son turning 17. He’s a good boy. He’s about to get his driver’s license and is in his hardest year of high school- 11th grade- the year with the most matriculation exams. Which brings us to our annual dilemma of a birthday present. His choice of a good gift would be an airline ticket to Italy to watch a Champions League soccer game, or a car for the license he’s about to get. While 17 is a milestone, he’s smoking if he thinks he’s getting either one of those as a gift! As I have mentioned regarding birthday gifts for some of our other children, I’ve toyed with the idea of signing him up for a couple of personal finance courses so that he could start learning how to be responsible with money. Okay, so I am not that cruel.
As I have mentioned previously, I really think that one course that I think could really be beneficial would be a mandatory personal finance course. Our older son had one in 10th grade, and it was amazing. I applaud his school for making it mandatory. They learned all the basics about bank accounts, how credit cards work and the dangers inherent to them, the need to budget and be responsible with money. The fact is that this course will serve him more in life than practically everything else he learned in high school. Unfortunately, that was an outlier, none of our other kids had the fortune. I’ve mentioned to all our kids that maybe they can read my JPost articles and watch my You Tube videos on personal finance and investing, and they can learn the information that way. The question is always met with a laugh and a “no way”. Too embarrassing.
Teenagers need to learn responsible money habits. Just like most things in life, if kids learn the ‘right’ lessons they will have a much easier time being financially responsible. If they see bad money habits in the home and never are taught or shown how to properly deal with money, then chances are that they will make costly financial decisions when they get older.
One of the issues that I struggle with is what to buy for older kids and what to make them buy with their own money. On the one hand they are still at home and dependent on you for most things financially. On the other hand, they have worked and now actually have their own money and if they ‘need’ something, why shouldn’t they buy it themselves. Funny things happen when that is suggested. Often the ‘need’ is no longer so important.
I think actually that helping teens understand the difference between a ‘need’ and a ‘want’ is paramount. How many adults confuse the two terms. Well, if kids are encouraged to be able to differentiate between the two, then a lot of financial stress will be avoided in adulthood.
It’s important to teach your kids the importance of saving. I think that teens should have a bank account. They can learn how compound interest works. Most importantly they will learn that they can continue lying on the couch playing on their phones and earn money. That just may be a big motivator to get them to earn and save more. It’s the ultimate lesson in passive income.
A few years ago, I wrote about a family who had a unique idea of teaching their kids how to budget. They would give their teenagers a certain amount of money (then it was around 500nis) and put them in charge of weekly food shopping. They would have to decide among themselves what the family needed and then figure out how much it cost. The first few weeks they had a lot of Fruity Pebbles and ice cream, and they never had enough money left for all the basics. Then they figured it out and started shopping more wisely and started getting their fruit intake from more natural sources.
If you have good tips to teach teens smart money habits, feel free to email me.
Happy 17th YK!
The information contained in this article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of Portfolio Resources Group, Inc. or its affiliates.
Aaron Katsman is the author of Retirement GPS: How to Navigate Your Way to A Secure Financial Future with Global Investing (McGraw-Hill), and is a licensed financial professional both in the United States and Israel, and helps people who open investment accounts in the United States. Securities are offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc. (www.prginc.net). Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, SIFMA, FSI. For more information, call (02) 624-0995 visit www.aaronkatsman.com or email aaron@lighthousecapital.co.il.
