Prioritizing the Next Life

What does the Torah say about prioritizing the next life in terms of worship and gaining knowledge of the religion and focusing on it and not focusing on the luxuries of this world?

Shalom!

Thank you for your question.

While the material world is very important in Judaism, emphasis is on the spiritual. As you yourself put it nicely, we are not to overly focus on the pleasures of this world. Take for example teachings of our sages such as, “Learn to be satisfied with little” and “Who is truly wealthy? One who is satisfied with his lot.”

A person should be more focused in spirituality, such as Torah study and doing mitzvot and good deeds. Judaism recognizes, however, that we need to merge the material with the spiritual for both our survival as well as to ensure that our spiritual pursuits can be maximized, as the sages say, “If there’s no flour there’s no Torah.” Even so, we can use our material wealth in the service of G-d. If we have money, we can give charity. If we have a nice home, we can fill it with guests. If we have a car we can use it for visiting the sick, and the like.

The bottom line is that we must find balance. We are all unique in our service of God and we need to work on ourselves to find the right balance. There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to serving G-d. Indeed, some of our sages were know to be fabulously wealthy and others were know to live a life of poverty.