For many who managed to get a winter break—or, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, a summer break—this week, it’s back to work. It doesn’t take too many days at work to forget all the wonderful vacation adventures, which become but a distant memory in no time at all.
How providential indeed that this week’s Torah portion, Shemot, begins with the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt. Somehow, all that Joseph did for the Egyptian economy is quickly forgotten; and so, the Jews are deemed a threat to national security and a potential fifth column, and are subjugated into bondage.
Of course, it didn’t happen immediately. It was a gradual process. Still, before long, the Israelites were being worked b’pharech, which is translated as “ruthlessly” or with “backbreaking labor” (Exodus 1:13).
According to Maimonides, b’pharech means not only crushingly hard labor but “work without purpose—meaningless, futile labor.”
Some commentaries say that the Egyptians would force the Jews to build a wall and then coerce them to break it down. How frustrating and demoralizing. It’s not only the manual labor, but rather, the lack of any satisfaction at seeing the results of one’s efforts. If one can at least find some fulfilment, then it can somehow mitigate the hard work. But to work like a dog building a wall and then see it destroyed was completely and utterly soul-destroying.
This kind of slavery was not only backbreaking, but it also broke their spirits. The cruelest form of work is one with no purpose, with no constructive end in sight. The Egyptians were deliberately destroying not only the Israelites’ bodies, but their mind and their morale.
Perhaps as we begin a new year of work, we should ask ourselves whether we find job satisfaction in our work. Is there a sense of purpose? Or is it just a slog? Even if we are self-employed, there should be a higher purpose than just making a living.
Have we just begun another year of drudgery? Are we back to the grind again just to wait for the next vacation, or is there any meaning to it all? And if so, is it just to make another buck? A bigger buck?
Not everyone is a philosopher. Not all of us wonder and contemplate the meaning of life or whether there might be a higher purpose to it all. Some are quite content with making a buck and enjoying a good steak. The purpose of life is to make more than the next guy, right? I have a sports car in my garage, and my T-bone is bigger than his, so life is simply glorious.
Others may be more pensive, if not all that philosophical. Can it be that life is reduced to whose protein on a dinner plate is more substantial or who has the fancier vehicle? Or whose stock portfolio is bigger? Is the meaning of life not something higher, greater and nobler than all that? Can it really be that the pursuit of success in life is limited to a piece of metal on four wheels?
Job satisfaction can certainly mean that you enjoy what you do, or it can mean that you see a higher goal and purpose in what you do. Perhaps you are manufacturing a product that really helps people. Maybe you are even changing lives for the better.
To enjoy what you’re doing and get paid for it is not work but pleasure. Mark Twain once said, “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you won’t have to work a day in your life.”
In our own Torah portion, the infant Moses is saved from the river by the princess of Egypt, but he refuses to drink from the Egyptian wet nurses. His sister, Miriam, suggests that she call an Israelite wet nurse, to which the princess agrees. Miriam calls her own mother, Yocheved, and the princess pays Moses’ mother for nursing her own son. Now that’s job satisfaction!
Of course, providing for our family and being able to afford a Jewish education for our children is a pretty good start. But we need more than that. I’ve seen too many Jewish businessmen who built up impressive companies only to be disappointed and disillusioned when none of their children expressed any interest in taking over the family business.
I recall a conversation with a young banker who told me his company wanted to transfer him from Cape Town to Johannesburg and offered to double his salary. I was shocked when he told me he declined the offer.
“But why?” I asked.
He said, “Rabbi, you of all people should appreciate the value of quality of life. Johannesburg may be South Africa’s business center, but Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I can finish work at 5 p.m. and still get a few hours at the beach in the summer.”
Personally, the beach is not my thing. But I was impressed with a young man who was prepared to forego a bigger financial package for what he deemed quality of life. Money isn’t everything, after all.
At the beginning of this new calendar year, let’s hope we can all find a deeper meaning and a higher purpose in our life’s work. May our work never become bondage. May we enjoy job satisfaction, quality of life and merit to fulfill the Divine purpose for which we were each created.
