Does G-d have space in your office?

How would you react if your doctor said his primary goal is making money? I assume you would be horrified. That may be because we believe medicine is a calling, not a business. Let’s test that difference. Should business only be about making money?

The American economist Milton Friedman argued that “the purpose of business” is “to pursue shareholders’ financial interests”. In other words, business is about honest profit-making.

Peter Drucker, the Austrian-American author and management consultant, disagreed. He defined the aim of business as “to create and keep a customer”. Or, as retailers like to say, “customer first”. It’s a big debate. Is the goal of business to enrich me or to improve your life?

I think Whole Foods co-founder John Mackey’s perspective resonates with Jewish thought: “Just as people cannot live without eating, so a business cannot live without profits. But most people don’t live to eat and neither must businesses live just to make profits.”

He addresses what most of us probably know intuitively. Business cannot focus solely on the bottom line. It should contribute something meaningful beyond cash. Like Ayn Rand said, “Money is only a tool”.

Business has evolved since Milton Friedman’s 1970s version of “shareholders first.” Modern corporations invest fortunes to make a meaningful impact. That’s why Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company, pioneered the “triple bottom line” in 1997. The “triple bottom line” is their commitment to “make decisions based on financial, social, and environmental responsibility equally”. In simple English, they stopped “selling insulin” and started working to “defeat diabetes”. It’s a profound shift.

In 2014, CVS Health stopped selling tobacco in its United States pharmacies. That decision cost them an estimated $2 billion annually, but selling tobacco conflicted with their aspirations as a healthcare company. If you care about human health, you cannot sell cigarettes.

CVS dumping a lucrative business in the ashtray links to the Torah’s attitude to business.

One of the most intriguing and disturbing stories in the Torah is when our forefather Avraham almost sacrificed Yitzchak on Mount Moriah. Although Hashem stopped him at the last moment, our sages teach that Yitzchak’s ashes are still on the mountain. Yitzchak was never burnt, so his “ashes” must represent something meaningful.

Ash, says the Alter Rebbe, founder of the Chabad movement and author of the Tanya, is spiritually intriguing. Everything is made of four basic elements: fire, air, water, and earth. When you burn something, three elements dissolve, leaving only residual earth: Ash. Ash is completely materialistic. Ash is what remains after matter has lost its soul. Ash represents our engagement with materialism.

The altar is the polar opposite of materialism. It is holy. It is where you elevate ordinary stuff into flaming holiness. Ash and the altar represent the two sides of our lives: Holiness and materialism.

Yitzchak’s “ash” represents total sacrifice for G-d. In Yitzchak’s life, everything was holy. That may be beyond our pay grade. When the kohanim cleaned the altar each morning, they placed a handful of ash at the altar’s base. They deposited the remainder outside the Temple precinct.

Some believe that materialism belongs outside of the Temple. We reserve holiness for the synagogue, but in the office, we are Rockefeller. Hopefully, we don’t sell our souls as we make sales. We work to earn to give to make a difference. But we live in silos. Our souls belong at shul, our wits at the office.

Yitzchak’s model fuses the competing worlds of meaning and materialism. All his “ash” lives in Hashem’s home. Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer teaches that Yitzchak never sowed wheat; he prepared tithes. Even as he muddied his hands in the fields, he experienced the Divine. Yitzchak teaches us that business should be a spiritual experience. I don’t earn money to donate a percentage. I run an office to engage and inspire others.

Perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong question. We ask whether business should make money or make a difference. Yitzchak teaches us that these need not be competing ambitions. A field, your office, the marketplace — each can become a place of holiness. The question isn’t only what we do with the money we earn. It’s who we become while earning it.