ABSTRACT
Entrepreneurs create new products, production processes, forms of organizations, and markets. This chapter examines some of the ethical issues raised by the practice of entrepreneurship. It looks at entrepreneurship through the lens of Jewish ethics. The spirit of entrepreneurship, from a Jewish point of view, is not an economic ethics unhinged from everything else but, at its best, it is seen as an integral part of everyday life. Continuity and a long-term perspective are just as essential to the complete entrepreneur as singleness of mind and persistence. The contemporary Rabbi, Irving Kula, however describes this kind of mix in positive terms as "sacred messiness". The embrace of sacred messiness is at the heart of the kind of entrepreneurship that can be endorsed from a Jewish perspective. By anyone's definition, Aaron Feuerstein has spent most of his life as a successful entrepreneur. In 1995, his company, Maiden Mills, employed 3,100 union workers and generated $400 million in revenue.
