Jewish Teachings on the Economics of Scarcity

Rabbi Melanie Aron

December 7, 2002

A story is told in Midrash Hagadol of two pious men who went on a sea journey. A huge wave threatened to sink their boat. One of them said: This is the worst. His friend replied: It could still be much worse. Said he: We are at the gates of death, can there be anything worse? Said the other: Yes there could be. Said he: And what may that be? He replied: The day your son says to you: Give me a morsel of bread and you haven't got it to give to him.

When we see "Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" performed, Pharaoh's dream, with its prediction of seven years of plenty and seven of want, is presented in such a lighthearted and humorous way that the challenge presented to Pharaoh is downplayed. But when we think about it, we recognize that famine is a devastating affliction for any society, one which could threaten not only the well being of its citizens but also the continued power of its rulers. Fortunately for Pharaoh, Joseph recognized that this was not the time to depend on the workings of the market, but a time for government action to preserve the richness of the good years and make it available during the difficult years that would follow.

Jewish ethical codes discuss the special challenges in times of shortages or other disasters. They teach that in these circumstances individuals should not be left on their own, but that society must take responsibility for dealing with communal needs. Through education and if necessary coercion, market forces that would lead to very high prices must be controlled. Despite the general emphasis on tzedakah, charitable giving in Jewish life, the rabbis did not believe that personal philanthropy could meet communal needs in such times.

Among the economic legislation of the rabbis was this ruling in the Talmud: "One may not earn twice on the sale of eggs," meaning that on basic foodstuffs, one wasn't allowed to take too great a profit. Certainly less than 100%, and according to Maimonides not more than 1/6 for profit, no matter how scarce the basic commodity had become due to famine or drought, and no matter what the market would bear. They preferred a system of rationing where everyone would receive less, rather than a system that left the distribution of necessities to the chance of wealth.

Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel dealt with a situation in which the law concerning childbirth offerings had inflated the price of pigeons. Because the rabbis of his time had interpreted the law to mean that each time a woman gives birth she must bring an offering of a pigeon, the price of pigeons rose to a gold coin. Responding to this crisis, Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel reinterpreted the law, and taught that the offerings were one per woman and not one per birth, drastically lowering the demand and thus the price of pigeons.

With a similar awareness of market forces, when the fisherman in the 16th century began to gouge the community, charging very high prices for fish, which was considered a way to honor the Sabbath, the rabbis decreed that fish could not be eaten on Shabbat, until the prices came down.

Other related laws limited hoarding to create artificial shortages and the export of basic foodstuffs in times of need, even if they could draw a better price elsewhere.

Was Joseph the right man for Egypt's desperate hour? When Joseph speaks to the Pharaoh he tells the Pharaoh to appoint someone who is navon and chacham, literally, discerning and wise. Nachmanides interprets this to mean that the person appointed needed to know about social policy and about science: social policy so that he could supervise the collection and distribution of the grain and science so that he would be able to preserve the grain and not let it rot. But another commentators sees a bit more in the choice of these words, navon, because discernment was needed to know how to support the people of Egypt with bread during a famine, but chacham, wise, was a reference to practical wisdom, that is the smarts to use this crisis to accumulate wealth and money for Pharaoh. This was the quality in Joseph that the Pharaoh recognized and what made Joseph so appealing to him. And this was actually what Joseph did, collecting the surplus grain in the good years when they were not much missed and then selling it back to the people in the bad years.

Next week's Torah portion will describe the people coming to Joseph and selling first their livestock and then their land, until they end up serfs, working the Pharaoh's land and paying him a tax of one fifth of all their produce. In a sequence consistent with the Torah's sense of justice, those who will suffer most for Joseph's aggrandizement of the power of the Pharaoh will be Joseph's descendents, made not just serfs but actually bondsmen to Pharaoh for 400 years.

Joseph's actions saved a generation from starvation and brutal suffering, but in the long run his exploitation of the situation for Pharaoh's benefit had its own negative unforeseen results, both for the Egyptians and for the Israelites. Similarly we must be careful that the solutions to the problems of our own challenging times do not come back to haunt us with their own unanticipated consequences.