A prayer for work

I wanted to offer this, which I wrote, as a prayer for the daily work of running a business.

Because this is only my second post, I want to emphasize that I don't intend this blog to be a platform only for my religious views. Everyone is welcome; if you own a business or care about one, then I submit you have a lot of faith, whether you're of any religion or no religion. I mean this: actually, the thinker who taught me the most about faith is an atheist -- maybe I'll say more about that at another time. But I come from a liberal Jewish perspective; that's my home base, and it's the context for a lot of my own thinking about spirituality and business.

With that said, I'm offering you my personal prayer for work. It's a sonnet and I don't imagine the words will appeal to everyone, but let me explain what I'm doing with it, as one of my own personal meditations. With this prayer, I want to:

Embrace the reality of sacrifice and investment. Since ancient times, small farmers have survived by strict budgeting and seasonal investment. They planted in the spring, the low point of seasonal resource levels after the stores of winter had been eaten, and they harvested in the fall, a time of joy and plenty. In ancient times, the year's rhythm had everything to do with a business model of seasonal payoff for a year-round investment. When we say "those who sow in tears will reap in joy" (Ps. 126:5), I think that concept intuitively resonates with everyone who's believed enough in a business to invest time, sweat and money into it. A willingness to take these risks is one thing that makes us entrepreneurs. And even if you don't own a business, all of us take risks in life, so all of us can relate.

Emphasize our responsibilities to other people when we are successful. The spiritual entrepreneur isn't blinded by the fallacy that any of our success is self-made. Of course we're to be congratulated when we achieve; we took risks and the risks paid off. But we're also the product of a society that made our success possible, and in most cases those of us who have achieved their goals were aided by educational and career opportunities that not everybody has access to. We are obligated, therefore -- not to sit around feeling guilty, and not to give everything back and take a vow of poverty -- but to use the leverage of our success, our social prestige and our earned privilege to make our society and world more fair.

In Judaism, if you own a field, you nevertheless have a responsibility to leave the corners and the gleanings (dropped items from the harvest) for the poor and disadvantaged (Lev. 19:9-10). It's not that the corners aren't yours; it's that you are required to give. The responsibility to care for others is simply part of what it means to own wealth. The word tzedakah that Jews use for these gifts translates closer to justice than charity. It's not a choice; it's just a simple principle about what ownership means. When you own something, you owe something back. It's part of acknowledging the fundamental wholeness of the world.

Dedicate our work to a purpose much greater than ourselves. If you believe in God, I'd say, offer our work to God. But this concept is for everyone. Do you hope your company will survive after your retirement or death? Then your company has a purpose that's greater than yourself, so I'm suggesting that we consciously dedicate our own work to that higher purpose. We're here to make money, of course, and we might also want to gain market power -- as we used to say in politics, we're in it to win it. That's all good. The spiritual question, I think, isn't what you're trying to accomplish; it's why.

The non-spiritual entrepreneur has answers to this question, but they ring tinny and hollow. We've probably all heard them. "Why am I in business? To make money!" Fine, but that has the distinct air of tautology. We're all in business to make money. We all need to put food on our table, and many of us want comfort, leisure and luxury. Isn't there any other reason you're in business at all? For most of us, I think there is.

"Well," says the non-spiritual entrepreneur, "I want to make money so I can pass it on to my children, so they won't have to work." Okay, this is understandable. We all want to provide for our loved ones, but that doesn't do much for anyone outside your inner circle. Isn't there any reason at all you're in business other than me, me, me?

Marketing news flash: the marketplace doesn't want to hear you're in business all for yourself. Hardly anybody supports that, and it's no way to achieve success. These days the marketplace is punishing bank managers and car executives who are seen as greedy. (What's that you say, it's the government and not the marketplace? Last I checked, these failing companies were in the market for loans on favorable terms. Where did you think that loan market, on that scale, comes from?)

On a smaller scale, if you still don't think you're in business for anything but your own personal profit, ask your head of marketing. You might still hear childish stuff like "greed is good" in the occasional boardroom, but I haven't ever seen any ads featuring that slogan. Even Big Oil, now, is marketing itself an environmentally responsible. Every company wants to be part of the bigger picture. A company that makes widgets will advertise about how those widgets help people live better lives by (fill in the blank). As well they should. The marketplace wants to hear about corporate purpose and responsibility. And I respectfully submit that everybody knows this. (OK, almost everybody, but the exceptions and the reaction to them prove the rule.)

I said above that we make sacrifices all the time in business. The word sacrifice comes, of course, from the ancient Biblical practice of dedicating our first fruits and often livestock to God in gratitude for providing for us, or for various other cultic reasons. Etymologically, to sacrifice means to make something holy. This is what I mean when I say, in my own language, that I dedicate my work to God. We may make money in business, and I hope we all do. But we can still say with a full heart, not to ourselves, not to ourselves goes the honor, but to the supreme Source of good in the universe, to that great conscience of good that we feel responsible to.


A Prayer for Work
by Jeremy Sher

Eternal God, accept our daily labor.
We offer it most humbly to Your throne,
As joined with every friend and every neighbor
We build the world that You began alone.

If in Your service we should find our fortune,
Hold us close, so we remember You,
And teach us wisdom that we may apportion
To justice all that by Your law is due.

And if to serve You we must work through hardship,
Give us strength to make our soil grow
And help us see that underneath Your guardship
Our work bears fruit in ways we may not know.

We praise You, ancient God of seeds and leaves;
May it be Your will to grow our sheaves!