Does the Torah Give Career Advice?

Sometimes you hear people say, "I hate my job."

In truth, they have someone else's job, and they hate that person's job! Because if they were doing the thing they loved, the thing that meant the most to them in the world, the thing that was the most fun, then they would love their work.

So, the question is this: Are you really meant to enjoy your work? Or does that sound like an impossible dream?

In the time of the Torah, everybody had a job. There are no unemployed people in the Five Books of Moses. There was a "safety net" back then. Everyone who worked was commanded to share what they had with the poor. This might take the form of leaving the corner of your field unharvested, so that the poor could come and take what they needed. Or it might come in the form of giving money to those in society unable to fend for themselves – the poor, the widow, the orphan.

Philanthropy, charitable giving, and looking out for those with little or nothing have been part of our heritage for thousands of years.

Unlike today, however, you don't see anyone in Torah times complaining about their job. Apparently, people were Divinely guided to find the kind of work that suited them. We aren't told how they found their livelihoods, but we don't see too many people switching jobs! Perhaps the Torah is telling us that if we find the work we are best suited for, we will be happy, productive, and successful.

You could describe the figures we encounter in the Torah as highly successful small businesspeople. Abraham was a shepherd, and he must have done well at it because he had all the money he needed to practice hospitality at a very high level. We're told the story of the three visitors, perhaps men, perhaps angels, who came to share with Abraham the news that he and Sarah would become parents, despite their advanced age. Even before they delivered that shocking news, Abraham put on a feast for them. He loved the work he did because it allowed him to live the way he wanted to live.

Moses worked as a shepherd until he received his Divine call to action. As we all know from the Passover story, G-d sent him to speak to Pharaoh and asked for the release from slavery of the Israelite people.

Moses then spent the next forty years of his life as the ultimate leader, which, in a way, made sense. He had grown up in a powerful home, so he was uniquely qualified to understand what leadership was all about, having witnessed it as a child.

Another biblical figure was a gentleman named Betzalel, who was the first artisan in biblical history. In the Book of Exodus, we learn that Betzalel had a unique gift for fashioning beautiful objects, which were then used in the tabernacle, the portable sanctuary that traveled with the Israelites through the desert during their forty years of wanderings.

And so it goes. Everybody had a job, and since there was very little switching of jobs, everybody appeared to be doing the work that was best suited for their natures and abilities. Deborah was a judge. Noah was a pretty good wood worker! And so on.

What about you?

Perhaps you remember a career counseling book called What Color Is Your Parachute? When I was a senior in college, the only classmate I knew who went through all the exercises in the back of the book was a guy named Dan Duquette.

Question: What did you do in the summers in high school and college?

Answer: Played baseball.

Question: What do you think about when you're not thinking about anything else?

Answer: Baseball.

Question: What would you do for a living even if they didn't pay you?

Answer: Anything with baseball.

You get the point. Dan wrote to all twenty-six of the Major League Baseball teams, got twenty-five rejections and one job offer – to be an assistant in the scouting department of the Milwaukee Brewers for the princely sum of $12,000.

This was in 1980, and $12,000 wasn't a lot of money then, either! But Dan was thrilled out of his mind to get the offer. Five years later, he was the assistant general manager of the Montreal Expos, and two years later, Dan was the general manager of the Boston Red Sox, and later, the Baltimore Orioles.

Dan was living his baseball dreams.

In today's world, most people don't take the time Dan did to think through what they would really love to do with their lives. And in today's world, most people don't listen for a Divine nudge pointing them toward one career or another. Instead, we mostly default to whatever jobs are available, whatever sounds prestigious, whatever sounds lucrative.

And that's how so many of us end up failing to enjoy what we do for a living.

I just published a book called The Million Dollar Part-Time Job: Making a Living, Making a Life, a Torah-Based Guide to Entrepreneurship.

The idea of the book is to show exactly how to identify and then run a business in the field of your dreams. I show readers, based on my own experience as an entrepreneur, how they can master the mindsets and skill sets of successful small businesspeople. These include how to identify the thing that you enjoy the most, how to build a business around that interest, and how to do all the things that successful businesspeople do so that you can make all the money you want and still have time left over for marriage, family, and whatever else matters to you.

Maybe your role models come from biblical times, the Torah personages I mentioned earlier. Maybe your role models are secular success stories like my classmate, Dan Duquette. Either way, whether you are just starting out or thinking about a career change, the Torah wants you to succeed, wants you to support your family, and wants you to help support those in need. That's the Jewish way. It's time you found your baseball if you haven't found it yet, so you can make your own dreams come true.