Talmudic Discourse (Jewish Business Ethics)

 

Dear Rabbi Abrams et. al.:

 

What a wonderful d'var Torah (sermonette) on business ethics (below)

Thank you!!

 

It needs to be repeated often, unfortunately.

 

While you were moved to write it by the use of steroids in Baseball, giving one an unfair advantage over others, i.e. cheating and defrauding, your d'var is apropos to those lenders involved in making mortgage loans to those who could not afford the balloon payments, or who they knew were borrowing the 20% elsewhere.

 

The days of Sandy Koufax not playing ball in game one of 1965 world series because it was Yom Kippur, have long gone. Koufax, now 71, is pitching for the Modi'in Miracles, of the Israeli Baseball League, which was formed in the spring of this year (07).

 

Our sages in our Talmud took the Torah admonition of ''not putting a stumbling block before the blind'', (Lev:19:14 lifnei iver lo sitten michshol) and said that this was clearly about business ethics. (Bava Kama 118B, Bava Metzia 5B, 75B, and Midrash Sifre Leviticus ). 

 

 We Jews have an obligation for full disclosure, even if the law of land, says we do not need to do so. Caveat Emptor, [let the buyer beware], is a Roman Pagan law, and is an anathema to Judaism.

 

We are to be rigorously honest, taking a bow to the old Kosher hot dog commercial, implying that we must go beyond the laws of the government (in that case, meat inspectors) because we yield to a Higher Authority.

 

Yet it is sad to still hear the worn out canard of the Jew being the perennial ''cheat'' in business.  I still remember the shock that ran through the audience and the gasp of my Bubbie [of blessed memory], and my mother and father, when we saw Roth's novella, "Goodbye Columbus," produced into a movie in 1969, and the nouveau riche Jewish father character, played by Jack Klugman,  stating that ''one needs a little gonef (thievery) to be in business.''

 

As you so wonderfully cited, our Talmud states that when we stand in front of Moses before the gates of Paradise, we will not be asked if we kept kosher, nor asked if we kept Shabbat, but will be asked if we were honest in business.

 

Our yetza ha ra, our evil inclination, is always chasing after us, literally to kill us. (Talmud Tractate Kiddushin 30B). The Talmud in Bava Batra 16A says it and Satan and are the same thing. Ibid 17A says that only three humans were not swayed by the yetza ha ra, (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) but my read of the Torah, shows them to have lied, cheated, and done other things, that all of us have done, or will do, in our human life times.

 

Indeed Tractate Sukkoth 52B, says we Talmud students have the worst chance of being influenced by the evil inclination. Chigigah 16A says that the inclination of our hearts is towards evil, always. And that G!D regrets creating it, in  Sukkoth 52B.

 

Yet without it, if we were all angelic, no one would go to work, houses would not be built, and babies would not be born. So we must work ethically, build homes with parapets on the roofs, (Deut. 22:8) and keep our sexual urges in check.

 

Of course, for the yetsa ha ra, G!D gave us the antidote, and it is Torah study and prayer. We are taught "Asei ritzono ritzoncho, Make His will, your will," in the Talmud in Perkei Avot. "Before you I have placed life and death... Choose life, so that you and your descendants may live." (Deut. 30:19)

 

But here is the trap and the dilemma. Using our own will, as Rabbi Abrams suggests, is not the Talmudic answer to beating back the yetza ha ra. The Hindus know this and eventually so did European ethical philosophers such as Schopenhauer.

 

Our own will comes from our ego. And we as humans can be the best rationalizers (lying to ourselves) than anyone else can ever lie to us. The Talmud teaches that one small sin leads to another, and we have all said to ourselves, in one way or another, 'ah, another piece of cake won't matter.'

 

No one wakes up one day and says "let me become a steroid junkie, throw away my multi million dollar  a year contract, my profession, my reputation and my liberty.'' But one does say "let me just take a little steroid, just this once.... after all 'everyone' is doing it.''

 

The Talmud teaches us that only by real Tephelia, [prayer which is self -judging], and asking G!d to negate our will, not give us more of our will power, and by asking G!D to give us His power, can we over come the yetza ha ra. Only by doing the Talmudic asked daily chesbon ha nefesh (inventory of soul) and daily vidui (confession of our defects and even thoughts of doing wrong to G!d and to another), can we beat this evil inclination, that is always at our door.

 

Self knowledge and our own will power is no defense against it, according to the sages.

 

Let me close with this recent personal experience. Back in the end of June, a fellow, not a Jew, but someone who for 5 years purported to me to be a good G!D loving Christian, asked me to join him in his 18 year old business. As with anything new, even dating, it takes a while until things become known. And they don't unfold like an instruction manual. After 3 months, I suspected him, to although being with in legal codes, not to be within ethical codes, and I got out, even though, I left a lot of money, and potential earnings as well. Doctor's order also played a part.

 

I could ONLY have done this with G!D's power. Left to my own, with my yetzah ha ra, sitting on my shoulder ready to pounce and kill, I would have continued to believe his lies, when I asked him questions, and continued working with him.

 

It was only because of the Study of Torah and Talmud, and prayer, that I knew what G!D expected of me, and was able to walk away.

 

Getting 'home,' be it to ''home plate'', or 'back to the garden' of Gan Eden, [ before we were given free will and a yetza ha ra], takes effort, but once we place our lives and will into G!d's hands, and pick up the yoke of G!D, the Talmud promises us, all earthy yokes, fall from our backs.

 

Again, thank you Rabbi Abrams, for this bit of mussar, (ethics), that really rang out to me. G!d bless you!!

 

Shalom.

Rabbi Dr Arthur Segal

 _________

How Do We Find Our Way Home?
Rabbi Judith   

 The revelations of this past week about the use of steroids in major league
baseball leave us feeling disgusted? Disappointed? Disillusioned?  Certainly
we feel a sense of loss regarding the honor and traditions that are so much
a part of baseball and its history.
So, how can we frame this experience?  Quite easily.  If major league
baseball is to be a legitimate sport something more than professional
wrestling ,then we should hold it to the standards that Judaism sets for
every single one of us in our businesses:  absolute honesty.

Rabbinic literature teaches us that we are required to be absolutely hone
st in our business dealings.  We may not mix two kinds of produce, even if the

difference between their worth is only a penny (Tosefta Baba Metsia
3:26//Sifre Deuteronomy 295)

not even if we sell them at the lower price.

Indeed, the very first question each person (not just Jews) will be asked
after they die and are facing judgment is, Were you honest in business
?
(Bavli Shabbat 31a).  It doesn't get much more basic than that.

I understand the temptation on the part of the players to achieve better
statistics.  I understand the management  desire to put on a better
show that leads to higher revenues.  We always struggle with our urges to have
more. But that  the point, we struggle with these urges.

We need the Evil Inclination to urge us to achieve, but it cannot rule us:

 

Once, the sages prayed for mercy, and the Evil Inclination was handed over
to them. God said to the sages:  If you kill the Evil Inclination, the world
will fail.  They imprisoned the Evil Inclination for three days, then looked
in the whole Land of Israel for a fresh egg and could not find one.
Thereupon they said:  What shall we do?  If we kill him, the whole world
would fail. They put out his eyes and let him go.  (Bavli Yoma 69b)

Perhaps the Evil Inclination was simply allowed to grow too strong.  So here
is the way back:  we make ourselves stronger than the Evil Inclination
again. We remember who the true hero is. The true hero is the one who
masters his or her Evil Impulse (Pirkei Avot 4:1).  We remember the high
level of honesty demanded of us and come back to it  feat of strength
that can only be accomplished through strength of will and spirit, not drugs.
  And through this exercise of will, we will be able to repair this situation and
baseball can return to its home in our hearts.

 

 

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