What the world of business can teach us about repentance and renewal?
Date: Wednesday, December 07 @ 19:59:37 PST
Topic: Home
New Year: Time for
Spiritual Accounting
What the world of business can teach us about our
annual process of repentance and renewal.
Usually this column is devoted to taking messages from the world of
Jewish tradition and applying them to the world of economic life. This
New Year I want to go in the opposite direction, and see what the world
of business can teach us about our annual process of repentance and
renewal.
I can point to ancient precedents for this application. For example,
the Zohar exhorts us to be accountants, mari dechushbana, and make a
periodic accounting of our acts. Like accountants, we should make an
ongoing accounting of our "credits and debits", our good and bad deeds.
But accountants go beyond making ongoing ledger entries; once a year
they "close the books", making a final accounting and summary of the
year's activity.
Likewise, as Rosh Hashanah approaches we should all make a careful
evaluation of our deeds during the year 5765, and at what spiritual
level they leave us. We should be careful to do our work carefully, as
on Rosh Hashanah our books will undergo a thorough audit!
Another business practice universal among serious firms is the
formulation of an annual budget. A person, like a business, has limited
resources; our energy and attention may be great but they are not
inexhaustible. Each of us can benefit from a clear definition of our
"business objectives", what we are trying to achieve personally in the
coming year, and from translating these objectives into a more detailed
plan of how we could use our energies more productively.
Although virtually every firm makes an annual budget, there are two
different approaches. Many firms build each year's budget on the basis
of the previous year's; the old budget is the benchmark, but
modifications are made for changing circumstances. But every so often
there is a need to build the budget from the ground up, to re-evaluate
each expenditure item and completely reorient the business.
This too is a useful metaphor for our annual process of taking stock of
the past and applying its lessons to the future during the High Holy
Days. It's only natural that we can't reinvent ourselves each year, and
so typically our resolutions involve token adjustments to the
autopilot: perhaps to do more to control our anger, perhaps to devote a
bit more time to helping others, and so on.
But every so often it's desirable to rebuild our future from the ground
up, to reflect on what we really want to achieve with our lives and how
we should go about pursuing our goals. This doesn't necessarily imply a
revolution in our way of life; businesses and government which
re-budget seldom completely transform their practices. Most of us have
good reasons for our habits and way of life, and a thorough examination
wouldn't cause any disruptive changes.
But such an examination is still of immense value. A few people will
decide that they have reached a critical juncture and need a thorough
renewal of their way of life. Most of us will conclude that on the
whole our conduct conforms to our values, but that there are still
significant aspects of our lives which need reevaluation and change. We
may discover that much of our conduct is never really subject to
careful scrutiny, and plenty of our precious resources are squandered
in activities of questionable value.
Even if we decide to continue just as we were, we will do so with
renewed energy and motivation, armed with the awareness that our daily
routine is not imposed on us by others or by habit, but rather is the
outcome of a process of conscious choice.
Let's make this the year we get ourselves off of ethical autopilot and
take control of our lives, trying to make sure that every expenditure
really conforms with our goals and values.
Shanah tovah.
About the Author
The Jewish Ethicist Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir is Research Director of the
Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem. Rabbi Dr. Meir received his PhD in
Economics from MIT, and previously studied at Harvard. Rabbi Dr. Meir
is also a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Jerusalem College of
Technology and has published several articles on the subjects of modern
business and economics and Jewish law. He writes a weekly column, The
Jewish Ethicist, which provides advice on everyday business and work
dilemmas.
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