Taking a partner

One of the three teachings of Nitai HaArbeli at Avot 1:7 is אַל תִּתְחַבֵּר לָרָשָׁע ("don't cleave to a wicked person").

Most commentators on this part of the mishnah discuss the damage that a person suffer, directly or by association, when he or she keeps bad company. The rasha (the wicked person) is contrasted unfavourably with the tzaddik (the righteous person), whose good qualities will ideally rub off on you. So long as you can tell a tzaddik from a rasha, you should have no problems.

Rabbi Eliezer Papo, author of the popular mussar book Pele Yo'etz, also wrote a three-volume work on halachah, the Chesed LaAlafim. In this work he takes time out from laying down the law in order to pursue at very great length a subject that is clearly of great interest to him -- Jewish business ethics.

In the Chesed LaAlafim (vol 1, siman 156, se'if 26) he relates Nitai's teaching to the choice of a business partner. Do not enter into partnership with a bad person, he argues, even if that person is apparently successful and everything is going right for him. You will never be able to trust him. R' Papo does not insist that one go into a partnership only with a tzaddik, which would be a most impractical piece of advice, but only that one avoid someone whose morals and business ethics are poor. Later in the same siman he adds two further criteria for a suitable business partner. First, that person must be open in his dealings and not do anything behind the other partner's back Secondly, that person must be open and above-board when he accounts for his trading activities.

Reading this advice, I was reminded of a discussion I had with my late father, a lawyer, some 50 years ago. He was at that time in partnership with another lawyer. One of the small but regular income streams of their practice came from fees received from people who needed to swear an affidavit (a written statement confirmed by oath or affirmation, for use as evidence in court).

My father's partner told him that he should not go to the trouble of putting the fees received through the partnership accounts since they were of such a trivial nature. This left my father wondering: if my partner tells me not to put some of the money I earn through the firm's accounts, what income might he not be putting through the firm's accounts?" That's not to say that my father's partner was actually a rasha, but I could see how his apparent generosity towards my father generated suspicion and was not conducive to mutual trust.