There Shall Be No Needy, part 5: The dignity of labor

 One thing to remember about Torah and work: Don't be like Pharaoh. Be like Boaz.

According to chapter 5 of Rabbi Jill Jacobs' There Shall Be No Needy, if we want a model of what NOT to do as an employer, Pharaoh is the perfect negative example. Why?

 

Anyone who has ever read the Passover Haggadah knows that in the biblical story of slavery in Egypt, Pharaoh made the Israelites work "with rigor" (b'farech). Jacobs cites a midrash that reads that word with different vowel points, as b' peh rach, "with a gentle mouth." In the midrash, Pharaoh goes out and inspires them to work hard as a team--then requires them to work that hard every single day! 

 

Don't be like Pharaoh. Don't ask your workers to be Stakhanovites, and don't tell them "We are all one family here," because you are not going to treat them as family. You know that.

Another midrash says that Pharaoh put a heavy burden on a child and a light burden on an adult. What is cruel about this is not only that the child (or in other examples, the elderly person, or the woman) is being overworked. It is also that the stronger worker is forced to witness the degradation of the weaker and do nothing about it. It dehumanizes both, and it also dehumanizes the boss who "by extension, questioned the value of all humans, including themselves" (102). I see a striking parallel to Marx's theory of alienation here, as I've explained it in chapter 5 of Political Discourse in Exile: Karl Marx and the Jewish Question.

 

Don't be like Pharaoh. Hardening your heart against your workers makes you less human yourself.

[There are other lessons I could draw from the biblical text of Exodus itself: 

• Don't work your employees so hard for so many hours that they cannot have satisfying sexual relationships with their spouses (a theme explored at length in Aviva Zornberg's The Particulars of Rapture, which I have blogged about here.)
• Don't retaliate against workers for making demands, as Pharaoh does when he hears Moses and Aaron say "Let My people go." Pharaoah responds with a worker speedup, forcing the Israelites to go out and gather the straw they need for their brickmaking while requiring the same number of bricks from them as before.
•  At the simplest level: don't enslave people. Or do anything that even resembles slavery, like debt peonage, indentures, or trafficking.]

Boaz--not a Ruthless employer!

Much later in the Tanakh, in the Book of Ruth, we get a story of a man that Rabbi Jacobs thinks can set us a positive example. Boaz (whose name means "in him there is strength") is Ruth's kinsman, and a wealthy landowner. He notices the widowed Ruth working in his fields, protects her, and eventually marries her.

It is not just the one employee that Boaz treats with dignity. As Jacobs points out:

First, it is clear that Boaz visits the fields often. He is familiar with the workers, and he even notices the appearance of a new gleaner [Ruth]. Second, Boaz invokes God's name in greeting his workers...[in the workplace, in] a situation where we might not expect to sense God's presence....Third, Boaz's insistence on enforcing the biblical permission for the poor to glean shows his awareness that his wealth is not his own, but is a loan from God, meant to be shared with those who do not enjoy such wealth. (107)

Don't be like Pharaoh. Be like Boaz.

Star Trek Economics

 

Today, while shoveling, I heard Paul Ryan condemn Obamacare because it would give people more freedom to choose whether or not to work, and how many hours.

When I came in from shoveling, my sister Yael Fischman had shared this article with me about an economy where no one actually has to work.

I want to live in the Federation!

https://medium.com/editors-picks/29bab88d50

The Operation Succeeded but the Patient Died

Oops, they did it again.

The Boston Globe has once again written about the Massachusetts mandatory health insurance plan without ever asking the critical question: "Are people getting the health care they need?"

They ask whether people have insurance coverage. Sure, since they'd be scofflaws if they didn't! But being covered is not the same thing as getting care: not when you can buy insurance that doesn't kick in until after you pay a high deductible. That kind of insurance is a subsidy from the working poor to the health insurance industry: pay for something you can never use.

They ask whether it saves the state money. That's an important question, but only AFTER you answer "Are people getting the health care they need?" Because surely the state could save even more money by letting people die. Cost is not the primary issue, any more than coverage is. The primary issue is health.

They ask how small businesses react. That's a good question. Small businesses are justifiably concerned that they are subsidizing large health insurance companies, hospital chains, and the state. But it really shows the bias of the Globe that they ask about small businesses and not about the people who work in them.

They ask what effect this plan will have or should have on Romney's presidential campaign. Show me a mom working two jobs to support her family who's paying for health insurance and who still can't afford routine doctor's visits for her children who cares about that question. Find me one. Then I'll agree that the Globe cares even one little bit about the working people who need real health insurance--not the plan we've got.

Six Days Shall You Labor

It's the end of another work week, and all week I have been carrying with me a thought on last week's Torah portion, B'haalotkha. (I heard it chanted at Ilana Pliner's bat mitzvah.)

1 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2 Speak to Aaron and say to him, "When you mount the lamps, let the seven lamps give light at the front of the lampstand." 3 Aaron did so; he mounted the lamps at the front of the lampstand, as the Lord had commanded Moses.

The words "Aaron did so" could be translated in different way: "Aaron did YES!" According to the medieval commentator the Vilna Gaon, as cited in Etz Hayim:

Day after day, year after year, Aaron's attitude never changed. His work never became routine or boring. He approached each day with the same sense of reverence he brought to his first day.

What a blessing Aaron had, to feel and act that way! At the end of a week of work, while I welcome a day of rest, I pray to greet next week with the attitude of Aaron.

The Invisible Army

We treat our active-duty military like tools and our veterans like bums. But there are more contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan than there are military--and we treat some of them like slaves. Please read Sarah Stillman's article "The Invisible Army," from The New Yorker. Then tell me how in good conscience any of us can support fighting foreign wars, when this is the result.

Labor Day and Day of Rest

At the alternative service at Temple B’nai Brith yesterday, my friend Marya Axner led in us a reflection on the rhythm of labor and rest in Jewish life. When we are being true to ourselves and true to God, we don’t work until we fall down exhausted and rest only to work again. Six days we labor, trying to make the world better. On the seventh we rest, thinking about things that matter. When we return to work, that sense of what matters is the mission statement that keeps us on track and helps us do what’s important, let go of what’s inconsequential, and be able to avoid burnout and keep on making a difference for the long haul.

It takes a lot of work to be able to rest.

Practically speaking, to make Shabbat, we have to prepare meals, buy or bake fresh challah, keep candles and wine at hand, sometimes invite guests. To put the week aside with a clear conscience, we have to organize our work in the workplace and our work to take care of our homes, our causes, and our communities so that everything gets done when it needs to and no one is left in the lurch. Even if we have done this, it’s not easy to cast off the uniform one’s mind and soul wear all week and don the splendid robes of the kings and queens we are supposed to become on Shabbat. It’s impossible to do if you work down to the last minute. It takes time, to leave those cares behind and put oneself in the frame of mind to receive a beloved guest, the Sabbath, which the tradition also pictures as a Queen who deserves all the honor we can give her.

I speak about this from personal experience. I am always true to the Sabbath, in my fashion (as the song says)…but it is not easy, only beautiful and right. Here is a poem I wrote about it nearly twenty-five years ago:

A Song of Songs, by Dennis Fischman

I have been a lover to the Queen before.

For me, she set her tender feet

to walking the long road stretching

from yesterday to tomorrow

and I met her halfway

as evening drew a woven shawl around

the bare shoulders of an innocent world

at the fork in the road I stood, singing

“Come, my friend, to meet the bride”

and our twinned flames spurted into falling night.

But now, though she seeks me, I sit

Amongst my books and papers, murmuring

“Not yet: I’m not ready yet,”

Muttering and fidgeting, as if my word

Could hold back the stars.

I have bought no wine, no braided bread—

and here she comes,

laughing, giving voice to song,

“Return us, and we shall return”

and I know

once again, I’ll cajole her with sweet incense

to stay one hour more

and she’ll slip away, whispering

“observe” and “remember” in the same short breath.