God Squad: Lessons in divine economics
Since it has dominated the news for the past year and a half, how about a column on money? I know the Bible rails against usury. There's also the story of Jesus casting out the money-changers from the temple. I believe this is the only time Jesus displayed anger.
- J., via e-mail
Coincidentally, a recent weekly Torah reading in synagogues included Leviticus, Chapter 19, which discusses several biblical laws that reveal the Hebrew Bible's approach to money, or more precisely, work, since money came later.
The Bible actually reflects primarily a barter economy, rather than one based on money. However, the moral foundation for the various laws in this chapter reflects a larger set of teachings that support the same view. In Leviticus 19:9, we read of the law that prohibits the owner of a field of grain from harvesting all of the grain. The law also prohibits the owner of a vineyard from harvesting all of the grapes. The grain in the corners of the field and some grapes must be left unharvested so the poor can glean and share in the bounty.
This law is based on the moral belief that God owns everything - the earth, its bounty, our bodies - and we have no pure ownership of anything. This is not capitalism. This is not socialism. Instead, it's divine economics that allows private profit but also demands compassion for those who slip through the cracks of the economic system.
In Leviticus 19:13, we read of the law prohibiting the oppression of workers. There and in other verses, an employer is prohibited from holding a worker's wages overnight or taking his only blanket in pledge for a loan. In this spirit, rabbis through the ages have defended workers' rights.
In Leviticus 19:36, we read that a seller must have honest weights and measures. "You must have honest stones" is my favorite phrase in describing the overarching view of money, profit and work in the Bible. If you sell a pound of something, it had better be a pound. If you sell a bushel of something, it had better be a bushel. This is not just good business; it's good religion.
There's a regrettable tendency to think of religious obligations as purely ritual. In Leviticus, the connection between these laws and God's primary demands is clear: "You shall protect and observe all my statutes and ordinances and do them: I am the Lord." (19:37) In the post biblical laws concerning selling, these biblical values were elaborated upon and deepened. For example, theft was expanded to include misrepresentation, which was called "theft of knowledge." The religious view of money in all the major faiths is identical and clear: Religious commerce must be moral commerce, or it is a sin.
Jesus also said a lot about money. Roughly a third of his parables are about money and the stewardship of God's blessings. My favorite New Testament passage conveying Jesus' poetic and biblically moral beliefs is from Luke 12: 22-34: "Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds?
"And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you - you of little faith . . . ''
One of my favorite rabbinical teachings is that after we die, the first question our souls will have to answer is not whether we violated the dietary laws but whether we were honest in business. I think this teaching grew from the values first articulated in Leviticus 19. I also believe it was a way to speed up the intake line in heaven . . . "Were you honest? No? OK, next soul . . . "
So prepare yourself and check your stones. God cares.
