I have recently started working for a finance company that issues short term, small loans. The company is fully licensed etc but the interest is high. My role over time will be to train customer service employees and manage an office for the company. The business has 2 partners that are Jewish and 1 that isn’t. Putting aside my personal morals, is there anything in Halacha that forbids me from working for this company?
Thank you.
Answer:
There is no prohibition in working for the company.
Sources: The only prohibition that might be involved in the company transactions is the loan of money on interest to Jews. This might be a prohibition because of the fact that two of the three partners who own the company are Jewish. However, a number of opinions rule that there is no issue of prohibited interest when the creditor is a company, rather than an individual, and according to these opinions, there would be no prohibition. In addition, some authorities write that in a partnership with non-Jews, one may ‘allocate’ the forbidden transactions to the non-Jewish partner, and assuming that most of the clientele of the company will not be Jewish, the Jewish minority could be ‘allocated’ to the non-Jewish partners. [We have expounded on these issues in an article concerning shareholding, which can be found on the site.]
Furthermore, the question here does not involve being a partner in the company, but only working for the company. At most, this could involve the prohibition of mesayeia, somebody who ‘gives assistance’ to a prohibited act. However, due to the factors mentioned above, in this case the prohibition of giving assistance to a transgression would not apply.
If the Jewish partners in the company are unaware of the potential problem of forbidden interest, this issue could be brought to their attention, and they could arrange for a heiter iska (as Israeli banks do) to be incorporated into the loans.
