Shoftim veShotrim – A Judiciary and a Police Force
Regulations and enforcement are socially necessary. Yet regulations and enforcement do not make people great. People define their greatness by the degree to which they perceive themselves as takers or contributors. Takers need regulations and enforcement. Contributors do not.
The Sarbanes-Oxley regulatory response to the Enron/Worldcom scandal does nothing to raise the ethical standard of business. Of course we do need a sound legal system with strong punitive consequences for those who exploit others for their own gain. But so long as people see business primarily as a means to make money, to take, they will continue to find ways to circumvent the law in their pursuit of greed. Is business then not about making money? Is there some higher purpose in business? Yes! Absolutely. Money is the outcome, not the purpose of business. (Seehttp://sbe.us/philosophy.htm). What then is its purpose?
G-d could have created the world in such a way that we did not need to trade with one another. He did not. Instead, at least after Adam’s sin, man needs to trade. Trade is the creation of value, the serving of others, the satisfying of needs, the payment for goods, the lending of money, and the repayment of debts. Business rewards givers and penalizes takers. All of these economic activities are the university for the growth of the human character and spirit.
Even though the Parsha opens with the instruction to create a system of compliance, the Midrash Rabbah immediately encourages us to learn from the ant, who is not governed by a police force but is meticulous in avoiding any theft as it toils to find, secure and store its food. We too should observe the laws, not because of the fear of enforcement authorities. We should observe them because they are right.
The Generous Optimist
The Midrash makes a further comment about the ant: it collects amounts of food that it could not possibly consume even in many lifetimes. This is because it “reasons”: perhaps Hashem will extend my life, and then I will have enough food! The ant – eternal optimist, living and toiling for a very uncertain future!
What are we really meant to learn from the ant? To work incessantly to earn far more than we could conceivably need? That appears to concur with a statement by Rabbi Dostai [1] that if one has planted one field he should still plant a second, and a third; because you cannot know which will be the successful one, or perhaps all three. Is it possible that we are being taught to work limitlessly irrespective of the outcome of our work?
The Midrash does continue to draw a parallel with the service of G-d. We should never be satisfied with what we have achieved. We should always strive for more and prepare for the certain future ofOlam Ha’Bah (the World to Come). However there is a message in the parallel drawn between the relentless pursuit of material security and the accumulation of mitzvot for Olam Habah.
The key is whether we see our work and our business as a means of taking or a means of making a contribution. If business is a means of making a contribution (with money being the outcome of making a needed contribution at a competitive price), then why would one stop working because he has made enough money? Surely you would only stop working if you believed you had no further contribution to make; or that you preferred another vehicle for contribution.
Using this model, if you complete a deal that yields enough revenue for you for a year you would not necessarily stop working for the rest of the year. You would need to examine your own vehicles of contribution. If business is your primary vehicle for making a difference, you would continue working at business (leaving yourself enough time for the other mitzvot such as Talmud Torah, Tefilah, Family etc.). But if there were other more contributive things you could do whether in chessed or in Torah, you would switch gear and do those things instead of business. Some people contribute primarily through business, others through science, medicine or art, still others through the learning and teaching of Torah.
Rabbi Dostai suggests we work relentlessly without becoming attached to outcomes over which we have no control. We do the work, we invest, we plant, we contribute: Hashem decides the outcome. Rabbi Dostai applies that principle to economic activity. In the same piece Rabbis Yishmael and Akiva apply it to Torah learning. The common denominator is that whatever your field of contribution, the work of the contributor never ends.
That is the instinctive wisdom of the ant: “My job is to contribute to the store of food. I cannot set a value to the store because I cannot predict the future.” Contributors are naturally optimistic; takers are pessimistic.
Contributors Avoid Theft
It is this very attitude of the ant that drives its natural avoidance of theft. Takers will take from anyone and anywhere they can. Contributors are offended by the very notion of taking something from another without offering them reciprocal value.
In America and the Western World we need to change the paradigm in which we view business. So long as we see it as an activity of taking, there will be the Enrons and Worldcoms on large and on small scales. Those who see business as a noble activity of contributing and exchanging value, however, are abhorred by theft and fraud. They, govern their own ethics, irrespective of Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulations.
Shoftim veShotrim titen Lecha – there are people who are takers, so set up a police force. The police will deter the criminals. But most people access their own inner wisdom, just like the ant, to work incessantly at making a contribution. They do not need a police force or any other force of compulsion. They are guided by their own moral compass permanently set on the due north of ongoing contribution.
Notes:
[1] Avot deRabbi Nattan 3:5
