Moral Resistance and Spiritual Authority: Our Jewish Obligation to Social justice by Limmer Rabbi Seth M

Author:Limmer, Rabbi Seth M. [Limmer, Rabbi Seth M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780881233193
Publisher: CCAR Press
Published: 2018-11-27T16:00:00+00:00

You shall not have in your pouch alternate weights, larger and smaller. You shall not have in your house alternate measures, a larger and a smaller. You must have completely honest weights and completely honest measures, if you are to endure long on the soil that the Eternal your God is giving you. For everyone who does those things, everyone who deals dishonestly, is abhorrent to the Eternal your God.

The strong language here damns those who corrupt commerce through unethical practices by using one set of weights or measures for buying and another for selling. This disreputable practice allows the merchant to have an unfair advantage in all exchanges. The Babylonian Talmud, in Bava Batra 88b–90a, discusses the steps the merchant, as well as the ordinary homeowner, must take to ensure that their measures are just. The Talmud points out that the Deuteronomy text commands owning weights and measures that are sh’leimah vatzedek , “perfect and just” (Deuteronomy 25:15). The doubling of the adjectives is interpreted as signifying two practices concerning the weights and measures. The first is that they should be accurate; the second that the seller should always over-measure, meaning measuring accurately and then adding a bit more (BT Bava Batra 89a). These two practices ensure that the seller does not cheat the buyer, deliberately or inadvertently.

If the moral underpinnings of these rules are applied today to gender pay equity, it should become the responsibility of employers to guarantee that they are paying female employees fairly. Just as the Talmud’s instruction that fair measurements include two parts, measuring accurately, plus adding a bit more, to ensure ethical business practices, employers need to be scrupulous in assigning salaries to female workers, perhaps even overpaying by a bit to safeguard they are not underpaying and therefore perpetuating the gender pay gap. The question every modern employer must answer is not “Am I paying my female employees fairly?” but instead “How do I know that that I am paying them fairly?” The former question too often becomes impressionistic: “Do I think or feel that I am paying the equal and fair wage?” This question is too easily answered in the affirmative. The latter question requires thought and research to ensure that salaries offered to female employees are truly equal with the market range offered to white men. As in the matter of weights and measures, the responsibility to ensure “perfect and just” wages should be on the employer, who must use multiple methods to ensure ethical employment. Employers should not ask what employees were paid in their prior positions or how much they wish to earn in the new position. 11 Instead, employers should utilize salary studies to set wages. Many employers use implicit bias inventories, self-administered tests which help individuals reflect on the biases they unwittingly harbor, 12 before engaging in the hiring or review process to reduce the impact of bias on hiring, promotion, and salary. Being able to identify those subconscious biases that inevitably lurk within every human helps an employer consider if they are judging potential or current employees fairly.

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