Bringing Holiness to Work
Treating Workers the Way God Treats Us
Relationships are meaningful to the extent that we are empowered to choose how we show up for them. Being forced to do something, against one’s will, is by definition not an expression of one’s own desire. Doing so contributes to the erasure of one’s true self - which is certainly not an investment in a healthy relationship. Why then does God command us, in Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the ETERNAL your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.”? What does it mean to demand that someone have an intense feeling of affection for you?
In the Rabbinic exploration of the Biblical expectation to “love God,” the verse is understood as “you shall make the name of Heaven (God) beloved.” The Talmud explains the scriptural intention to mean that we should study Torah and treat folks we work with in pleasant ways. By doing so, the Rabbis imagine that people will attribute the refined kindness at work to the study of faith, and consequently God will be more loved and appreciated by others.
Ostensibly, the Torah is asking us to take part in a marketing campaign, as a way of showing how much we love God, as if God’s love language is promotion and advertising.
To more accurately engage in an authentic dynamic with God, as our truest selves, it is necessary to interrogate the nature of the relationship. We are told in Genesis 2:7 that God “formed a Human from the earth, blowing into their nostrils the breath of life.” This Divine breath in Hebrew is called a neshama, and is the word that we use for “soul.” It acknowledges the Divine Presence in every living person and assists us in relating to The Source of Life that continues to bless and sustain us with continued life.
The Medieval commentator Rashi understands being created “in God’s image and likeness” as “with the power to comprehend and to discern.” Our ability to recognize Divinity in God and in each other, is advanced when we develop a greater sensitivity to the presence of Divinity in ourselves. Being created in the image of God allows us to better recognize God because we ourselves are Godly, and when we express that Godliness towards other people, they can come to see, appreciate, and love the Godliness in them.
Just as contemplating all of the goodness we have been blessed with develops gratitude to the Source of All Blessings, being good to each other also makes it easier to love one another. On a deeper level however, being spiritually conscious at work isn’t meant to solely reinforce our various relationships through a transactional model of giving and receiving.
Loving the Creator of the Universe necessitates loving the purpose of creation - people! If the person that we love the most in the world is working, wouldn’t we want them to have a fair, livable wage, safe and positive work environment, and all of the benefits that would help them live their best life?!!! In providing good working opportunities for people, we facilitate the creation of a world that expresses the love that we have for God, having learned how to love from how God loves and provides for us.
To love God with “all of our heart” also includes the painful reality that all too often our hearts are broken for the suffering of people all over the world. Rashi reads “all of our heart” to include the desires of both good and bad, along with the invitation to meet each moment holistically as a means of repairing the brokenness. In other words, the places of brokenness are precisely the places where our love is impactful and needed most.
This is why the Talmud focuses on how we approach labor as the principal way of expressing our love for God. Organizing and fighting for each other is a choice. We can choose to look away from all that is wrong in the egregious treatment of workers, or we can choose to show up and engage in advancing the ethical and moral responsibilities of the workplace. Advocating for worker’s rights is meaningful because it reveals the motivation of our authentic, heart centered commitment to making life easier for those who are working so hard. By loving laborers, we demonstrate our love for each other and for God.