I have for many years worked as a free-lance consultant for a circle of very close and long-standing friends combining two groups, one from Stanford Graduate School of Business, class of 19~~ and one from Havard Law School 19~~. We are about 20 loosely connected people that work together, invest together, play together, go to marraiges, bar and bot mitzva togetether and while we are not all religious in our jewishness, most of us come from that as a background and ethical standard.

For many years there has been an ongoing dispute as to the relative value of work/labor/ideas and capital and the ability to "get the deal done"

I am, alas, on the work/ideas side of the equation and in the main, the principal deal maker is on the capital side and he controls the process on behalf of the others, who cede to him all of the ethical and business issues of getting the deal done, up until the point that they either invest or not.

We have been remarkably successful, and most of that is down to the man I am describing, who I will call "James" (which is most definitely not his name on the chance that he would be embarrased by this question). But, I have produced astonishing value, through my understanding of technology and Wall St and strategic issues and my relationships in those industries and those communities.

For some 17 years, there has been a dispute about who was adding what value to the deal, and how the rewards should be allocated. James notion of "fair" is that ideas are worth not so much and that the deal and the capital is everything.

As I usually only have ideas to bring to the mix, and since in at least one case, a single idea and relationship created $30mm in value for one of the members - for which I got $50k "for making a phone call" and James got $1mm as fee - for me there is something screwy.

Recently, James asked me to do some work to understand the value of 2 patents that the Group held, leftover from a comany that they had owned and then sold, holding back these 2 patents for further exploitation. The trouble was that no one knew exactly what they did or what they were worth. I was asked to sort it out and offered the usual "A piece of the upside (which piece was unspecificed as usual) and since James knew that I had been ill and out of work for some time, he wanted to pay me on a current basis as well.

Except, rather than pay my billing rate as a fairly high powered technology and strategy consultant nor anything like it, he offered an amount less than 10% of what I had made the last time I had worked. I told him I would do the work pro-bono and then once I sorted out what the patents were worth we could play "Let's make a deal."

The patents turned out to be worth proably hundreds of millions of dollars BUT James would have had to have his Group commit to the litigation expense of fighting it out. He did not want to do this - part of why he is rich is that he is someone who hits singles and doubles rather than swinging for the fences.

I said that I would not work on the basis of them proceeding to fund the litigation by picking off weak patent violaters and then using that to fund further litigation, since this was for me a waste of all of our time, especially mine, since I after all was not being paid. This led to a full blown argument about my not being willing to continue on the what he felt was very generous basis that he had offered, which I felt was abusive and astonishingly stingy, given that between them, these guys have hundreds of millions of dollars, so it was not that their kids were not going to eat if I go paid fairly, whereas I was literally broke, in debt and homeless at the time of the discussion.

He then disengaged from and refused to discuss further the issue, has refused any further contact, and has deputed a mutual friend and business associate to handle to wrap up of the project and any further contact with me.

SO, that was a long setup for the following question: "What is fair payment to a worker for his work?" "How are the rewards of speculative or entrepreneural work to be shared out?" and "What is the mechanism to investigate the true 'facts' of the matter and to resolve the dispute ethically and within the context of an ongoing and viable relationship?

Thank you in advance for your kind consideration of this question

Warm regards

/s/ Mark

Mark,

Yours is a very interesting one. Jewish law on this is different and more complicated I wouldn't even dare t tackle it. But, fundamentally what matters at the end of the day is what you agreed to do.

I'm in the middle of a $170MM deal. where there are brokers, who have agreed to their percentage at closing. There are lawyers who agree to their fees etc. As long as everyone has agreed then everyone should stick to the agreement. It may turn out that what you agreed to was not the best deal, but that's how the world of speculation goes.

There is also a fundamantal difference between a hired hand and an investor. If you agree to a speculative scenario and your rewards are based on the performance of the deal, then you've become an investor. If you are hired strickly as an employee, you get paid the wage stipulated a priori. You can't have it both ways, unless the agreement specified you could. In which case you are looking for trouble anyway. Jewish lawyers are supposed to be the quintessence of this. Find yourself a good Jewish lawyer to set it up right for you. LOL!

Welcome to the Global Yeshiva. I spoke today with Rav Yitzchok Silver of the Mir about your question. He is an expert in these matters and he said that everything depends on the agreements and the contract which you made. There are patents and copyrights in halacha however most of it is governed by the minhag hamakom (the custom and practical law). The bottom line is it is better not to do business with close friends.

In a tradition where the issue of small and wonderful things is fully explored, your answer is too modest by far. I did not write asking for advice on life, I wrote asking for comment and information on jewish law and the Torah. Would you please be so kind to direct me from that point of view. And if there is text directly in the Torah on point, a reference to that would be appreciated

Thank you for your kind attention to this matter

Mark

Did you think that Rabbi Mitterhoff was giving an answer that was otherwise in accordance with Torah law?

The section of the Shulchan Aruch which deals with civil laws is called "Choshen Mishpat". One who studies this section in order to become a Dayan [judge on a Beis Din] can take upwards of 10 years to do so. It is therefore not a case of merely pointing to a verse in the Torah; these laws are very sophisticated and are mainly derived from the Oral Tradition.

quote:

Originally posted by Rabbi Mitterhoff:
The bottom line is it is better not to do business with close friends.

I'll add - relatives - too.

Good, now we are getting somewhere, Where do i find a copy of the section of the Shulchan Aruch which deals with civil laws which is called "Choshen Mishpat".

If it is going to take time to understand it, and no one who has spent the 10 years wishes to share their knowledge, I am certainly capable of reading it on my own.

Do you know somewhere that the text is available on line and if you have it digitally, can you please send it to me, and I will trouble this body no longer.

Mark

The best I can do is to direct you to the following URL Shulchan Aruch on line. You then have to select Choshen Mishpat.

What it doesn't have, however, are the many major commentaries which discuss and elucidate the Shulchan Aruch.

Mark, are you looking for a place to purchase it online? With an english commentary?

quote:

Originally posted by Yisroel Phillips:
The best I can do is to direct you to the following URL Shulchan Aruch on line. You then have to select Choshen Mishpat.

What it doesn't have, however, are the many major commentaries which discuss and elucidate the Shulchan Aruch.

On the webpage it's listed under "Seforim of Lubavitch", why is that?

quote:

Originally posted by sam-:
Mark, are you looking for a place to purchase it online? With an english commentary?

I don't think such a thing exists.

One can call up Eichlers at 1-888-Eichlers and order the Shulchan Aruch and they can ship it out.

I called up for prices:

Old Print (Not as popular):

Small - 120 US Dollars
Medium - 180
Large - 300

New Print:

Small - 195
Medium - 260
Large - 320
Extra Large - 430

Hope this information helps. If more information is needed, I'll be glad to try and help out further.

Looks at bit expensive.

It probably is. Just a starting point. That is a ball park figure, no? Basically, Mark can have a set shipped out to him if he's interested in purchasing.

There's a 10 volume work in English by Rabbi Emanuel Quint on all the Jewish civil laws.

It can be purchased here Israel Books - Quint

They can be purchased indivually at $50 a volume or the whole set at a special price of $320.

Looked at the online site and it is - not surprisingly - in Hebrew

I take it that there is no English version available on line

And as this is likely to be an undertaking of some duration and require help from older scholars, where in Manhattan is there a library where the sections of the Torah and the commentaries might be found?

Thank you both for your help with this. It is honestly a little surprising that so much of other religion's sacred texts are available in English online - Islam is famous for it, and many Tibetan Buddhist texts are availalbe that way as well - but that we do not have access to such a basic document as the Torah online in English, much less to the Commentaries you refer to.

Maybe Google or one of the several University based online knowledge and information programs can be induced to add it to their project of scanning all the books ever printed and to make it available on the Internet.

Warm regards

Mark

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The NYPL certainly seems to have copies of Choshen Mishpat.

quote:

Originally posted by Mark Baraz:
Thank you both for your help with this. It is honestly a little surprising that so much of other religion's sacred texts are available in English online - Islam is famous for it, and many Tibetan Buddhist texts are availalbe that way as well - but that we do not have access to such a basic document as the Torah online in English, much less to the Commentaries you refer to.

Certainly the Torah is on line in English, but something like the Shulchan Aruch is a work that is not really suitable for translation.

There is an English translation of the Orach Chaim section with the famous commentary of the Mishna Berura; it is published by Feldheim. The reason it was translated is that it deals with the daily life of a Jew and so is suitable for all to study. The commentary had to be translated as well since the rulings of the Mishna Berura are followed by a large portion of Jews.

Parts of the Yoreh De'ah section (the one that deals with the laws of Kashrus, Family Purity, mourning and others) have been translated, but usually only in conjunction with a study program. For example, if you look at my profile you will see that I have been involved in editing the translation from Hebrew of a series of lectures on the laws of mourning, which includes the text of the Shulchan Aruch itself.

The other two sections of the Shulchan Aruch, Even Ha'Ezer (dealing with marriage and divorce) and Choshen Mishpat are usually only studied by students who want to become Dayanim (Judges on a Beis Din, Rabbinical Court). These are advanced studies, normally undertaken only after the student has studied to an advanced level the other two sections, and therefore no translation is needed as the student will be expected to study not only the Shulchan Aruch but also the many commentaries on it, plus the rulings of earlier Rabbinic authorities right back to the Talmud itself.

To get an idea of how many Judaica books are in english, take a look at Artscroll's website at: http://www.artscroll.com