Friday, April 5, 2013

Kosher Company Guidelines

If I told you that your job, your family, your house, and everything you did followed a guideline of life, would you believe me?

Not sure I would believe me either. When you start to work at a new company you may, or may not, receive guidelines. They may be disguised as a company manual or in a wiki but they should exist and you should read them. You may learn much about your new company or you may choose to not read it at all. The company of course has a checklist they gave you the manual or a link to it. The company may even have you agree that you read it. But did you really read it? Will it help guide you in your job or your new role? Or do you ignore it and move along because you can not be bothered?

Now juxtapose work guidelines with the laws of Kashrut, or Kosher animals, which is a complex and lengthy discussion in this week's parsha of Shemini. The simple of it many people know, but the secondary items, like touching a dead animal is not allowed, are not as well known.

The laws provided for a sense of holiness in Israel. In doing so, they became both an albatross to some and a spiritually uplifting legacy to others.

If laws were easy, people would follow them but we have laws to protect people, sometimes from themselves, sometimes from others. Kosher laws are there to provide a line between everything we do in life such as our friends, and our choices of how we live or where we live. It is not easy and for some, it hangs on them until they break or give up.

People who look at the Kosher laws and think, it is so much easier, guidelines to limit the choices to one view, help answer a choice for another. Making decisions is hard. Sometimes too hard. The Torah has laid out a way that we can follow in our own directions if we know what path we have chosen. For many, this is the easy way out, no doubts, no guesses, no worries, no lies, just the guidelines to steer you in the right direction.

Hopefully, your company has chosen to help you in your travels and provide you with guidelines that make it easier for you to get your job done and you have followed these guidelines.

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Parsha Shemini in the book of Vayikra 9:1 - 11:47
It is said that the Torah or Bible could be interpreted in over 70 ways. More likely these days 100's of ways. In light of this idea, I am writing some posts that bring a business sense to what we can learn on a weekly basis. Enjoy, Shabbat Shalom

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