Imagine you’re finally debt-free. Your mortgage is paid off, your kids’ college funds are fully stocked, and you’ve got a comfortable retirement account. Life is good. But what happens when the struggle to make ends meet is over?
This isn’t just a personal dilemma; it’s the fundamental challenge facing every free society that has ever existed. And it’s one that Moses identified over 3,000 years ago in words that feel startlingly relevant today.
Moses had a stark message for the Israelites about to enter the Promised Land:
Moses understood something that modern society is painfully relearning: the real threat to freedom isn’t external enemies or economic hardship—it’s the complacency that comes with success. His warning wasn’t just for ancient Israel; it was a timeless diagnosis of how prosperity corrupts the very virtues that create it.
Look around today and you’ll see Moses’ warning playing out in real time. We live in the most prosperous era in human history, yet surveys show record levels of anxiety, depression, and social division. We enjoy freedoms previous generations could only dream of, yet many feel more isolated and purposeless than ever.
This isn’t coincidence—it’s the predictable cycle of civilizational rise and decline that Moses first identified. When societies become comfortable, individual responsibility gives way to entitlement. When basic needs are easily met, people begin to take their prosperity for granted and assume someone else will maintain the systems that created it. Shared purpose dissolves into self-interest as the common struggles that once bound communities together disappear, replaced by increasingly narrow personal pursuits. Long-term thinking gets replaced by instant gratification—why invest in the future when the present is so comfortable? Finally, appreciation turns to expectation as the freedoms and opportunities that previous generations fought and died for become “rights” that we assume will always exist.
But Moses didn’t just diagnose the problem; he prescribed the antidote. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks brilliantly observed, Moses’ solution can be distilled from the Book of Deuteronomy into three timeless principles:
The first rule is to never forget where you came from. This means remembering your history—both personal and collective. The struggles that created your freedom, the sacrifices that built your prosperity, the values that made your society worth defending. Amnesia is the first step toward decline, and societies that lose touch with their origins inevitably lose their way.
The second rule is to never drift from your foundational principles. Success has a way of making us feel like the rules no longer apply to us. But the principles that created prosperity—hard work, integrity, justice, care for the vulnerable—aren’t suggestions that can be discarded once you’ve “made it.” They’re the very foundation that must be maintained if prosperity is to continue.
The third rule recognizes that a society is only as strong as its faith. This doesn’t necessarily mean only religious faith, though Moses certainly meant that. It means faith in something greater than immediate self-interest. Faith in future generations. Faith in moral principles. Faith in the idea that we have obligations beyond our own comfort. When societies lose this transcendent dimension, they lose the motivation to sacrifice present pleasure for future good.
Moses’ message isn’t a prediction of inevitable doom—it’s a warning that gives us the power to choose differently. Every generation faces the same test: Will we use our prosperity to become better people and build a better society, or will we let comfort make us complacent?
The choice is playing out right now in how we approach everything from climate change to education to civic engagement. Are we making decisions based on long-term consequences or short-term convenience? Are we teaching our children to appreciate their inheritance or to simply expect it?
The societies that survive aren’t necessarily the strongest or the smartest; they’re the ones that remember why their freedom is worth preserving and remain willing to do the work necessary to preserve it.
Moses understood that the greatest enemy of freedom isn’t tyranny—it’s the assumption that freedom will maintain itself. The moment we stop actively choosing to be free, we start the process of losing our freedom.
When our society faces this test, the question is whether we’ll remember the lesson Moses taught: that sometimes our greatest challenges come not from our struggles, but from our success—and that recognizing this is the first step toward meeting the challenge.
The choice is ours to make. The question is: What will we choose?
