Let Your Fellow’s Money Be As Precious To You As Your Own

“If one is honest in his business dealings and people esteem him, it is accounted to him as though he had fulfilled the whole Torah.”  Mechilta, B’Shalach 1

We will be judged (by the community, by God), not by our piety, but by how we treat other people.  Were we fair in our business practices?  Did we pay workers fairly, and on time? 

In this short piece, Telushkin repeatedly suggests that we are judged not by what we think, but by what we do.  Our motives can be murky (even to ourselves), but our actions speak for themselves.  We note that someone, “Talks the talks” but then wonder if they also, “walk the walk?”   The Talmud says that we receive three names over the course of our lives - the name our parents give us, the name our friends give us, and the name we earn.  Of the three, the name that we earn is the most important. 

In the first two entries, we are asked to say a prayer for the stranger in distress when we hear a siren, and to treat ‘the other’s’ money as preciously as we treat our own.  If I try to remember these two ideas every day, it will give me plenty to work on.