Commentary on Parshat Ki Tetze (Deuteronomy 21:10 – 25:19)
“So what do you do for a living?” Almost every time we meet someone new, that is among the first questions we ask or are asked. So much of our identities and our lives is defined by our work.
Perhaps this is why the sages of our tradition made this bold claim about what God would ask us as well. The sages envision that after we die and arrive in the World to Come the first question an individual will be asked is: “Were you honest in your business dealings?” (Talmud, Shabbat 31a).
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Business dealings for them and for us of course is a very broad category. It includes all the ebb and flow of work. From the resources put in, to the hiring and training of employees, and so much more. Given this question, how do we know if we will live up to expectations? The mitzvot/commandments that flesh out how to act in the business world and work world in general run throughout the Torah.
Our portion, Ki Tetze, offers one central text that focuses on employee and employer relations and obligations:
Deuteronomy 24:14 You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow Israelite or one of your strangers in one of the communities of your land.
15 You must pay out wages due on the same day before the sun sets, for the worker is needy and urgently depends on it: else a cry to Adonai will be issued against you, and you will incur guilt…
18 Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and your God, Adonai, redeemed you from there; therefore, do I enjoin you to observe this commandment.
These verses focus on the financially precarious position of many workers and the greater resources of most employers. They also emphasize a particularly protected class of workers – the stranger in our midst, or in today’s terms a migrant worker or an immigrant seeking work. In highlighting this group our text adds the regular admonishment to us that we are to be careful based on our own experience of being slaves/strangers in Egypt.
All too often our own country’s treatment of people coming into the U.S. in search of work and refuge is in marked contrast to this approach. Open the newspaper on almost any given day and the headlines speak of a focus on the suspect status and/or arrest of employees, not the hiring practice of employers. From tomato fields to chicken processing plants, the worker is the first pursued, arrested, and whose family is disrupted regardless of guilt or innocence in many cases.
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Last month’s round of arrests of workers (see reporting by Reuters and the New Republic), which minimized the employer’s illegal and unethical actions, runs in stark contrast to the Torah’s teachings. Torah teaches that employers are clearly responsible to act honestly in all business dealing and are accountable for their actions. This honesty begins with the hiring of employees, the paying of appropriate wages, and caring for the hired foreigner as well as the local.
The gap in emphasis of our current system–looking more aggressively at workers rather than employers–need to be corrected. Honesty in business is a core Jewish teaching, but business and work identity is a core human world view. We are what we do. Let us make sure that what we do and who we are align, not just for the World to Come but for the world we live in. Hire well, treat right, and be fair to the poor, the widow, and the stranger, and the employer and business.
Darah Lerner serves as Rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Bangor, Me. where she lives with her wife and their dog. Rabbi Lerner speaks widely on Jewish social justice issues, ethics, and diversity.