Published January 28, 2010
Economics, financial transactions and business activities, determining how people acquire wealth and what they do with it, have existed since the dawn of history and so have the ethical and spiritual issues that accompany them. While Torah is not a text book on how to make money, it definitely constitutes a value system that details what is permissible and what is forbidden in this sphere, just as it does in all the other fields of human desires and existence.
Since the Divine blueprint for the world is such that our wants have to be satisfied through human effort, it follows that there is nothing wrong or immoral with the possession of wealth and the creation of assets. So too, there is no spiritual value in poverty and it is no mitzva to be poor. At the same time given the power of greed and its all-pervasiveness, the drive for money and wealth can lead to widespread unethical behavior, great economic immorality, injustice and oppression. Torah recognizes the difficulties involved in the pursuit of money but it also recognizes that this yetzer is the one that is never satisfied; people always think that more is better than less. The mitzvot are like guardians that protect and refine man, therefore in order to refine this powerful yetzer and to educate us towards kosher money, the Torah has surrounded our search for money and wealth with over 100 mitzvot; there are only 28 connected to kosher food.
“The knowledge and belief that all our wealth and all our prosperity, [both as individuals and as a society] flow from G-d, is the only reliable means whereby greed for more and the drive for spiraling wealth are able to be channeled into morality” (Sefer HaChinuch, mitzva 330).
The knowledge and faith that all money and wealth originates from G-d mandates that they not be earned through immoral or unjust ways. Unjust weights and measures are described in the Torah as a TO-EIVA, an abomination just like idolatry and sexual immorality. The verse “You shall fear Your G-d” is written three times in the Torah, all of them about major areas of business and earning money. In Parshat Kedoshim, in which we are enjoined to be holy because G-d is Holy, it is written, “You shall not cheat your fellow, you shall not rob, you shall not retain a worker’s wages, you shall not place a stumbling block in the path of the blind [understood as forbidding the giving of advice or of selling goods and services that are to the physical, financial, or moral detriment to the other party (Rashi)]; You shall fear your G-d” (Vayikra 19:13). Regarding commercial activities, we read, “When you make a sale do not oppress one another; you shall not oppress one another [referring to verbal oppression as for instance enquiring about prices when you have no intention of buying]; You shall fear your G-d” (Vayikra 25:14-17). “You shall not take interest and increase, neshech and tarbit [in today’s sophisticated financial markets many transactions would seem to involve issues of ribit], You shall fear your G-d” (Vayikra 25:35). “Even when they are legal, exploitation, abuse of power, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and oppression through the withholding of information, cannot co-exist with a G-d-given morality” (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Gezeila v’Aveida 1:1-4).
All the related mitzvot not only educate and refine the need and desire for money and wealth into moral and just channels, but they can thereby actually become forms of divine worship. “All nations have social and commercial laws, but only with us do these laws purify, thereby becoming part of our holy avoda; hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz, to remove the artziut, the earthiness out of bread” (Menachem Mendel of Kotsk). Our Sages taught, “One who desires to become pious, should live according to the [commercial, social and constitutional] laws of Nezikin” (Bava Kama 30a). It is in this vein that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi placed Pirkei Avot, dealing with morality, ethical behavior and Torah study, in Seder Nezikin. “Pirkei Avot was called Sefer HaYeshu’ot, Book of Redemption” (Shabbat 30a); Redemption, Geula, that has its place as part of the Torah’s laws of acquiring and spending money.
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