"Symbolic" isn't the word here; obviously it is teaching by example. But we all need to examine our circumstances and give what we don't need. Further, the Catohlic Church encourages consecrated life whereby the commandment given to the rich young man is undertaken by the monks and nuns literally.
Jesus does use symbolism
Yes, but it should not be an excuse to sweep aside whole chapters of the gospel as "symbolic". Symbolic speech is used quite a bit, but it is easy to spot. For example, where Jesus calls Himself the door (John 10) He also calls his disciples sheep, and a bit later He calls Himself shepherd, so it is clear that we have a metaphor. No one questions Him "are you really a door?" In both John 3 and John 6 the discourse goes on for a while and both times Jesus repeats the same startling statement another time: "amen, amen I say to you: you have to be born of water and Spirit; you have to eat my flesh". Further, it contains an instruction for us to do something, and we see in the scripture how the instruction is implemented in the early Church: the Apostles go and baptize people and Jesus does give them His flesh at the Last Supper telling them "do this"; then from 1 Cor 11 we learn that it indeed became the practice of the Early Church to celebrate the Eucharist. So, the Early Church took these passages literally.
The general rule is that the literal meaning is to be applied first and symbolic or metaphorical meanings only secondarily, just like Fr. Victor says.
‘born again’ = ‘baptism’
or
‘born again’ is symbolism for ‘baptism’?
third time is a charm...