James Howells is ready to buy the landfill.
The British man is desperately seeking to recover a hard drive that he believes contains the keys to nearly $800,000,000 worth of bitcoin. Apparently, he mistakenly tossed the hard drive into the trash over ten years ago. He has been locked in a battle with the city since 2013, trying to gain access to the landfill so he can reclaim his treasure.
After losing a court battle to mine the landfill for the mined currency, he has decided to buy the landfill outright. He’s ready to fork up $70 million for a change to unearth his digital data, which he believes is worth more than ten times that.
As I read this bizarre tale, I was reminded of a teaching in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) about the efforts we must undergo to study Torah. “Delve and delve into it, for all is in it,” the Mishnah tells us.
In this week’s parsha Yitro we read about the Giving of the Torah. Even though it was a brief event, limited in time and space, it encapsulated all of G-d’s infinite wisdom. Throughout the generations, we work on unpackaging the gift that G-d has given us. Sometimes, we need to dig deeper and deeper to understand or find meaning in the words and teachings of the Torah. But, if we search hard and long enough, the answers are all there.
Just imagine: If you knew that you had an $800 million treasure buried beneath a pile of garbage, would you turn everything upside down to find it?
We have a treasure – and it’s available at our fingertips. So let’s delve and delve into it!