By Rabbi Joshua Heller. Provided by the Jewish Theological Seminary, a Conservative rabbinical seminary and university of Jewish studies, for MyJewishLearning.com
Economic Justice for Insiders and Outsiders
Biblical laws of business ethics.
Chapter 25 of Vayikra, which makes up the bulk of parashat B’har, deals with essential laws of economic justice in an agrarian society. No member of the Jewish people may be relegated to lifelong slavery or landless serfdom. Ancestral plots are not to be sold out of the family forever, but rather returned in the Jubilee year. Even though slavery is permitted, a Jewish slave must go free in the seventh year. One may not cheat another in selling or buying, nor earn a profit at the expense of one in need by charging him interest. And yet, there are troubling limits to the scope of this ethical tradition.
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