To Give or to Get?

I teach a fourth grade religious school class every Wednesday afternoon and Sunday morning. Yesterday afternoon I was in the middle of teaching and I remembered that I had not done something I promised to do. Bob Schwartz, our business development guy, had asked me to schedule a meeting with somebody he met who was interested in our company. Beth Kahn, our office administrator, schedules all of my meetings and I had forgotten to speak with Beth. So, in the middle of class I called Beth and asked her to schedule the meeting.

Why is this such a big deal?

Michigan's economy is one of the worst economies, if not the worst economy, in the nation. Many, many people are unemployed, particularly those who used to work at one of the car companies, which supported Michigan's economy for a very long time. Obviously when an industry that supports a local economy suffers, as the automobile industry has suffered, other local industries suffer as well. The individual with whom Bob wanted me to speak used to work at one of the automobile industries. (I'm not certain what he did there, but my guess is he worked on an assembly line.) After working for twenty years he decided that he wanted to pursue a lifelong dream and become a writer and speaker. First, he earned both an associates degree and a B.A. I was most intrigued after Bob showed me a book that this individual wrote. Wow!! The title of the book is "Grade Grabbers: Improve Your GPA."

I suspect that this individual is interested in a job. But, even though my schedule has gotten pretty busy, I'm eager to sit down with somebody who decided after twenty years on a job to go back and get a college degree and then wrote a book. Without even having met this individual yet, he sounds rather interesting.

So, why did I call my office in the middle of teaching? I suspected that this individual might be waiting for a phone call from my office. I know that if I was in his situation I would be anxious. My thought was why make him wait. Alleviate his anxiety. After I got off the phone, I explained to my students why I had made the phone call. I told them the old adage that if you give somebody a fish you feed them for a day but if you teach somebody to fish you give them the skills of feeding themselves for a lifetime. If this guy is as much of a go getter as he sounds, then I would have no problem in giving him a job.

In Judaism, the greatest act of charity is giving somebody a job. Yet, thinking about this fact from my chair, I'm wondering why this is the case. I don't give people jobs to be generous. (I'm simply not in that kind of a position.) Rather, I give people jobs so that they can help my company grow and be successful. Perhaps this is selfish, not charitable? Can selfishness and charity compliment one another? I'm not sure but it sounds like an interesting question, at least to me.