Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money

The underlying theme of this book is that wealth creation is fundamentally virtuous because it creates wealth and prosperity for your neighbors. Moreover, he stresses the value of money and why it is such an important element of society. His suggestions range from the subtle such as how to carry yourself to more profound concepts such as never aiming to retire.

The book is filled with interesting stories intended to reinforce his ideas. These include a 70 year old forklift driver who earns a six figure income through extensive overtime only to give the money away to charity. Another is a sales representative relative who likes to drive around to far-flung locations in his Rolls Royce.

While very entertaining, the book has its shortcomings. Rabbi Lapin glosses over how large segments of the economy do in fact operate with minimal honesty. Oddly, he even suggests not being entirely honest as it is not socially acceptable.

Like Evangelical Christian preachers, he draws some pretty far-fetched conclusions about the meaning of specific bible versus. The passages he selects support the virtuousness of earning a living. Any intelligent person can read several different meanings in the selections, so I would have to suggest that this approach won't convince many readers of his arguments. This isn't to mean the general ideas aren't strong, just the supporting passages. He also makes some highly questionable scientific claims. For example, he argues that watching movies instead of reading books is detrimental to your creativity because reading allows one to creatively develop images instead of having a director create them for you.

Despite its flaws, I personally found the book very, very interesting. If you like books such How to Win Friends and Influence People and Daniel Goleman's Primal Leadership, you will probably enjoy Thou Shall Prosper a great deal.