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Parshas Acharei Mos-Kedoshim:
Our Duties Versus Their Rights
By: Rav Yehonoson Dovid Hool
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OUR DUTIES VERSUS THEIR RIGHTS
Throughout history, the relationship between employer and employee has been fraught with tension and disagreement. Workers have always attempted to claim various rights in their pursuit of better terms of employment. An early example was the Peasants’ Revolt in medieval Britain, when laborers demanded better wages and working conditions. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the early nineteenth century, the demands of workers for better conditions, the right to organize, and the counter demands of employers to restrict the powers of workers’ many organizations and to keep labor costs low gave rise to the introduction of labor law. Modern labor law is the body of laws, administrative rulings, and precedents which address the legal rights of, and restrictions on, working people and their organizations. The debate however is essentially framed in terms of workers’ rights, and the contrasting rights of the management.
The Torah has a very different approach. Both management and workers have rights but the emphasis is placed not on rights but duties. For example, the Torah does not describe the timely payment of an employee in terms of the worker’s right to be paid on time, but as a duty of the employer to pay his worker on time. The converse right of an employer to have the total effort and dedication of his employee is not described by the Shulchan Aruch as an employer’s right, but rather couched in terms of the duty of the employee to apply himself fully to the job for which he is being paid.
For a Jew, paying employees on time is not merely a wise practice which fosters good labor relations. It is not just something that a worker can demand from his employer. It is a religious duty of great spiritual significance. It is a mitzvah, a Torah commandment, and thus, both a personal obligation and a privilege.
In this week’s parshah, the Torah instructs us, “A worker’s wage shall not remain with you overnight until morning” (Vayikra 19:13). In addition, apart from the negative commandment not to withhold the wages, there is a positive commandment: “You shall give him his wages on the day” (Devarim 24:15). According to the ruling of the Shulchan Aruch, a person who withholds the wages of an employee after the appointed time transgresses five (!) negative commandments and one positive commandment.
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Related Audio Shiur
Bava Metzia, Daf 110
Timely Payments
By R’ Avrohom Bookman
Author “The Lost Scotch” I & II
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Related Video Shiur
and
Ba’al Talin:
Timely Wages Part II
Delivered by:
Rav Ari Marburger
Dayan Bais Din Maysharim,
Author of “Business Halacha”
in
Conjunction with the Orthodox Union
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Moreover, the Torah instructs us to pay workers on time “Because his life depends on it” (loc cit). This phrase is understood by the Sefer haChinuch in a rather literal way. He explains that people work for others in order to provide food and sustenance for themselves and their families, and thus one who withholds wages is committing an act which has the potential to starve the employee and his family. In Hashem‘s eyes, he has “taken the life” of the employee.
But as we noted earlier, a mitzvah is not merely an obligation. It is also a privilege. One should approach the opportunity to fulfill this mitzvah with the same enthusiasm as one does all other mitzvos. Hiring a handyman or taking a taxi ride provides an opportunity to fulfill a very important mitzvah, the spiritual reverberations of which one cannot imagine. One should bear this in mind at the time of doing the mitzvah, as my barber in Jerusalem always reminds his customers before they pay him, “Have in mind to fulfill the mitzvah of Beyomo Titten S’charo - You shall give him his wages on the day!”
The truth is, however, that even without these two mitzvos to pay a worker on time, a person is already obligated by the Torah to pay a debt to his worker in a timely manner. The Gemarah (Kesuvos 86a) rules that it is a mitzvah to pay any debt, and Rashi derives this from another verse in this week’s Parshah. In Vayikra 19:36, the words Hin tzedek yiheyeh la’chem - ‘You should have a correct measuring cup for liquids’ – are understood on the most basic level to be a commandment upon a merchant who sells liquids to have measuring equipment that is accurate so as not to cheat the customer. However, Chazal see in this pasuk a hint to another, more general, Torah instruction. The word hin, a word meaning a standard liquid measurement, sounds like the Hebrew word henn, a word which means ‘yes.’ The pasuk can thus be read: You should have a correct ‘yes.’ The Torah is hinting that a person’s ‘yes’ – his verbal agreement – must be reliable. A Jew is expected to keep his word and honor his commitments even in a case where he may not be legally bound to do so.
What then are the practical effects of this halachah? If someone borrows money and agrees to repay the loan by a certain date, his obligations are twofold. Firstly, there is an actual monetary requirement to repay the money. In addition, there exists a personal obligation, a mitzvah, to keep his word and repay it at the agreed time. So if he repays the loan a week late, he has no further financial obligation – the money has been returned – but he has transgressed the halachah of hin tzeddek, the requirement to honor his commitment to pay on time.
So actually, the mitzvos regarding paying one’s workers on time serve to add to the already existing and more fundamental obligation to honor all of one’s financial commitments. These additional mitzvos merely take that core obligation and give it more precise parameters. The Torah expects all debts to be paid in strict accordance with the agreed terms, but it is understood that those terms typically allow for some leeway (one who agrees to pay back a loan on Sunday, for example, presumably has until Monday morning to pay). However, when it comes to a debt to one’s worker, the Torah expects an even higher standard – not only must you pay your debt on time, you must pay it almost exactly on time. A worker who completes his job by day must be paid before sundown, and if he completes his employment during the night he must be paid before sunrise.
From this brief overview of Torah labor law, it is quite evident that the laws of the Torah are framed in terms of moral responsibility. Of course, those higher level responsibilities can and do translate into real financial obligations, but the ethical imperative is the driving force. It is the context that one feels pulsating through the entire body of Choshen Mishpat.
In our post-modern society, we are quite proficient at making laws that delineate other people’s rights, but somehow have lost the ethical context. The individual’s moral duties are not discernible in the laws of his society, only his rights. Maybe in a democratic society it cannot be any other way. But we should understand that a study of Choshen Mishpat can go a long way to provide us with something that Western society does not – awareness of not just rights, but of duties as well. |
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