Bar Mitzvah Study Passage

By Isaac Malter

Isaac Malter, 13 years of age, is American and has lived in the UK for seven years. He has cerebral palsy, drives a power wheelchair and communicates with electronic and manual devices. He will continue his Jewish education and hopes to achieve a Jewish Studies GCSE. He plans to attend a leading university and then pursue his interests in the business world.

How do you treat your employees?
After all, nearly all of us have employees.
I know I do. They are my carers.
Can the Torah help us know what is ethical?
Can it teach us what kinds of things are ethical?
Despite the fact that the torah was written over
3000 years ago, the Torah can indeed help us.
It is better to follow the Torah and be ethical than to
Ignore the Torah and be unfair to people.

The Torah talks about how to treat our employees.
These are its guidelines:
We must be fair to them.
We must never trick or cheat our employees.
We must do what we say.
We must help poor people to make a living.
We must give employees the services that we have agreed to give them.
We must pay our employees the right amount and on time.

The Torah keeps reminding us to remember when we were slaves in Egypt.
We can not treat employees like we were treated when we were slaves.
We were treated horribly and we don't want to do that to anybody else.
As we are taught in the Mishnah: "we must pay every worker even if we are not pleased with their work, because they could have been doing work for somebody else, and they need the money."

Here is a story from the Babylonian Talmud:
Some porters were carrying a barrel of wine for Rahhah bar Hana.
They were careless and dropped it.
As a punishment, he took away their coats and didn't pay them.
The porters went to the Rabbi and complained.
The Rabbi ordered Rabbah bar Hana to give them their coats and money.
Rabbah bar Hana asked the Rabbi if that was the law,
And the Rabbi said that it was,
Because the Torah says "keep the paths of the righteous."

We must stick to the local customs for the workers.
For example, at my school, meals are provided for the staff because they have to work
during mealtimes, feeding the students.
The staff don't have to work for most of the school holidays
because in Britain that is the custom.

Mind you, employees also have a responsibility to work ethically.
The employees must do their work as best as they can.
They must not be sloppy at their work either.

One time I was depositing some cheques at my bank.
Afterwards, I looked at my bank book and I noticed that the cashier had put way too much money into my account.
I told her about it and she took the extra money out.
I stopped her from getting into trouble and I was ethical to point out her mistake.

I have had greater carers and not so great carers.
The not so great carers meant well, but they just didn't know how to do everything.
None of them are here today because I didn't ask them to work with me again.
I have asked the great carers to work with me again and some of them have.
I give them days off, time to eat their meals after they feed me,
And somewhere nice to stay.
We also do interesting things together.
I never fire them halfway through the time that we agreed on.
They must not quit during the time they agreed to help me.
I expect them to help me during that time and to listen to me.
I try to be as ethical as I can because
I want them to feel that they are being treated well.

I have discovered through this research that Jewish teaching can help me think about
Behaving in an ethical fashion as an employer.

I hope that as a Bar Mitzvah, a son of the commandments,
I will continue to learn the values that my tradition teaches and
Try to carry out these values in my life.