This is one of my favorite texts (Ps. 127:1). It's a difficult passage, and famous; I worry that it may be famous for the wrong reason. At a first reading, it seems to be giving us bad advice, which Jewish scholars have always rejected: the notion that we ought to sit back and wait for God to do our work for us. I don't think that's the intention of this text at all, but let's struggle with this issue for a moment.
A common expression among those who must take a leap of faith is that "God will provide." But how do we know? What if God doesn't provide? I submit, as a businessperson, that if you've never been in a situation where you've failed (you might say, where God hasn't provided) you haven't been trying hard enough, and it might be wise to seek out new challenges. Failure is an indication that we are pushing the envelope, learning and growing; when combined with the disciplined study of our circumstances and the self-awareness to know what we need to learn, failure leads to success. Success is seldom provided on a silver platter for us, and when it is, we haven't really earned it, and because we haven't earned it, we may very well not know enough to make the best use of it. Right? I think most of us in business have had plenty of failure and success experiences and have found this to be true.
Business is about risk, and the notion of God providing is about certainty. That's why the sit-back-and-wait analysis of the psalm doesn't resonate with me. To boot, it makes little experiential or theological sense. Businesspeople know perfectly well that we live in a world in which evil is often rewarded by material gain, while good sometimes necessitates suffering. Therefore -- to summarize in a nutshell what philosophers call "the problem of evil" -- the notion of an interventionist God who does our work for us is problematic. This doesn't really bother the spiritual entrepreneur, I think, because we know perfectly well that survival and success in business require us to make the best of the opportunities provided to us, often engaging our creativity to wring success out of what seems to be setback or failure. We don't obsess about God coming in to save us; we know we're responsible for our own survival and success.
But we may, depending on our own moral character, be certain of some things. In business, we know better than to be certain about outcomes. Ancient Jews who ran small farms, at the mercy of the weather, knew the same thing intuitively, but that didn't stop them from blessing God who provides "every day, every season, every time" (Grace after Meals). So what is this certainty, if it's not certainty about outcomes?
I think the spiritual entrepreneur has certainty, at least, about purpose. Upon a rock-solid understanding of why we're doing what we do, we have a reasonable hope of founding a solid and resilient business. But if we don't know why we're here, we will drift and fail. We also have certainty about the means we use to achieve our ends. We are ethical and we do not cheat; we value honest work for honest pay; we keep our word once given. Those simple values of hard work, honesty, diligence and discipline (combined with luck, of course) have turned paupers into billionaires. In religious terms, we let God into our work when we behave in these ethical and honorable ways.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
The story of the helicopter
Not long ago, there was a little village in a river valley. The people were farmers; the fertile flood plain provided more than they needed and profit to spare, and they were happy. One day, it began to rain, the river rose, and the valley flooded. The police came by to evacuate the town, but they couldn't force the few most stubborn townsfolk to leave their belongings and take the bus out of town.
Among those who stayed was a Jewish man, who insisted that he didn't need the evacuation bus because he relied on help from God. He began to chant, "I lift up my eyes unto the hills / From whence cometh my help?" as the water reached his doorstep. He moved his most valuable things upstairs with him as the flood enveloped his ground floor, but despite his prayer, the water showed no sign of abating.
When the water had almost reached his second floor, a couple neighbors in the same situation paddled over in an old canoe. "Come on!" they cried, "it's not far to the hill, and you can fit in here!" "No," replied the man, "I have faith that God will save me." "We took a risk to come and get you, now get in the boat!" But the man wouldn't get in the boat. Finally, his neighbors left, and the man went up to his roof to watch his neighbors paddle over to safety at the nearby hill.
The water still rose. The man climbed up his roof, wondering where God was. When the water had reached a few feet up the roof with no sign of stopping, a police helicopter flew by and dropped a rope ladder. "Get in!" said the policeman. "We told you to evacuate, and we've come back to make sure you're safe!" But the man wouldn't take the ladder. The helicopter stayed there for the better part of a half-hour -- they couldn't hear what he was saying -- and finally it slowly backed away with the man making no effort whatsoever to take the ladder. The water reached the top of the roof and continued to rise; at last the man could no longer stand and couldn't swim as far as the hill, and he drowned.
His soul went to Heaven and he met God. Before God he said, "O God, I had faith that You were going to save me! Why didn't You come? What did I do wrong, that You didn't care about me?" And God, who is invisible and doesn't really have a head, sadly shook His head anyway. God said to the man, "Your kind of believer is the first to honor Me when you're satisfied, but you're also always the first to blame Me when things go wrong for you. What are you talking about? I sent you a bus, a boat, and a helicopter!" And the man finally understood that his faith had fallen short.
Among those who stayed was a Jewish man, who insisted that he didn't need the evacuation bus because he relied on help from God. He began to chant, "I lift up my eyes unto the hills / From whence cometh my help?" as the water reached his doorstep. He moved his most valuable things upstairs with him as the flood enveloped his ground floor, but despite his prayer, the water showed no sign of abating.
When the water had almost reached his second floor, a couple neighbors in the same situation paddled over in an old canoe. "Come on!" they cried, "it's not far to the hill, and you can fit in here!" "No," replied the man, "I have faith that God will save me." "We took a risk to come and get you, now get in the boat!" But the man wouldn't get in the boat. Finally, his neighbors left, and the man went up to his roof to watch his neighbors paddle over to safety at the nearby hill.
The water still rose. The man climbed up his roof, wondering where God was. When the water had reached a few feet up the roof with no sign of stopping, a police helicopter flew by and dropped a rope ladder. "Get in!" said the policeman. "We told you to evacuate, and we've come back to make sure you're safe!" But the man wouldn't take the ladder. The helicopter stayed there for the better part of a half-hour -- they couldn't hear what he was saying -- and finally it slowly backed away with the man making no effort whatsoever to take the ladder. The water reached the top of the roof and continued to rise; at last the man could no longer stand and couldn't swim as far as the hill, and he drowned.
His soul went to Heaven and he met God. Before God he said, "O God, I had faith that You were going to save me! Why didn't You come? What did I do wrong, that You didn't care about me?" And God, who is invisible and doesn't really have a head, sadly shook His head anyway. God said to the man, "Your kind of believer is the first to honor Me when you're satisfied, but you're also always the first to blame Me when things go wrong for you. What are you talking about? I sent you a bus, a boat, and a helicopter!" And the man finally understood that his faith had fallen short.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
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!
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!
A leap of what?
Hi there, I'm Jeremy Sher. I'm a small business owner in Boston. I think if you ask around among entrepreneurs, you'll find it takes a lot of faith to run a business! That's true at any time, but especially in this economy, starting a business is a pretty serious leap of faith.
Wait a minute, a leap of what? Isn't faith a superstitious word? Don't we have to focus on things that pay the bills? Well, I think if you're looking for faith, houses of worship are one place to look, but business sure as heck is another. Every business owner has a lot of faith -- at the very least, faith in their ideas, faith in themselves, and for many, religious faith also plays a crucial role. It shouldn't be surprising, then, to examine history and find a continuing nexus of business and faith, from the ancient subsistence farmer right up to today's small and large businesses.
I thought we'd create a space here on The Spiritual Entrepreneur to talk about faith in business. We can think about religious faith, and because I'm a religious person, I'll devote a lot of space to that. But this blog is for everybody! Faith, to me, is so much broader than just my religion, or even anything that might be recognizable as religion. So if you're a business owner, investor, employee, consultant, observer, or anyone who has anything to do with business -- welcome! If we all agree that owning a business is a leap of faith, let's talk about what that leap really is.
Wait a minute, a leap of what? Isn't faith a superstitious word? Don't we have to focus on things that pay the bills? Well, I think if you're looking for faith, houses of worship are one place to look, but business sure as heck is another. Every business owner has a lot of faith -- at the very least, faith in their ideas, faith in themselves, and for many, religious faith also plays a crucial role. It shouldn't be surprising, then, to examine history and find a continuing nexus of business and faith, from the ancient subsistence farmer right up to today's small and large businesses.
I thought we'd create a space here on The Spiritual Entrepreneur to talk about faith in business. We can think about religious faith, and because I'm a religious person, I'll devote a lot of space to that. But this blog is for everybody! Faith, to me, is so much broader than just my religion, or even anything that might be recognizable as religion. So if you're a business owner, investor, employee, consultant, observer, or anyone who has anything to do with business -- welcome! If we all agree that owning a business is a leap of faith, let's talk about what that leap really is.
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