Life based on Bible

CYNTHIA RAMSAY SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

I'm Not the Boss, I Just Work Here: Insights and Lessons from the Founder of America's #1 Telecom Company
By Howard Jonas
Leviathon Press, Baltimore, Md., 2004.
128 pages, $12.95 US hardcover

When you read a publication with which you basically agree, there can be a few reactions. One is, "Yay me! Aren't I intelligent and on the ball!" Another is, "Hmm... are my views really so simplistic?" I found myself wavering between the two as I read Howard Jonas's I'm Not the Boss, I Just Work Here: Insights and Lessons from the Founder of America's #1 Telecom Company.

Jonas is the founder and chairman of IDT Corp., a business I had never heard of before, but which has annual revenues of almost $2 billion US. Obviously, Jonas is a successful entrepreneur. Being a business owner myself, I figured maybe there was something I could learn from such a master, an Orthodox Jew who lives in New York with his wife and their nine children. But I'm Not the Boss, I Just Work Here is not a book that provides tips for corporate success, rather it is a book that lays out Jonas's philosophy of life, which is based on the Bible (actually the Pentateuch, or the Five Books of Moses). According to Jonas, the Bible represents "the libertarian ideal."

Really, it's the libertarian ideal with exceptions. While the Bible encompasses property rights (thou shalt not steal, for example) and personal freedom, it places limits how how much even a king can amass in wealth, commands that farmers leave a portion of their field unharvested for the poor, ethically obligates Jews to donate 10 per cent of their income, doesn't permit interest-bearing loans, etc. It is these types of provisions that draw Jonas to the Bible (God's word), as opposed to any vision of society held by proponents (self-interested human beings) of the left or right side of the political spectrum.

While there is much in I'm Not the Boss that rings true to me and in which I wholeheartedly believe, I was put off by Jonas's cheerleading-style of writing. Especially in the book's last chapter, Jonas crosses the line between making complex ideas understandable and, therefore, accessible to "average" readers and dumbing things down so much that impressive ideals become naive pap. Which is too bad, because he really does have something important to say.

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