Hello I was wondering if you could give me some insight on an ethical dilemma for a school project. Any Jewish answers for the dilemma are appreciated. The case goes like this, A man works at a business office and each week him and his colleagues at work give in a set amount of money to buy lottery tickets for an office lottery pool. The one rule of the pool is that if anyone of the tickets bought wins, everyone gets some of the pay. One day the man sees that he is coming to a close on his income for the month and decides to skip out paying on one week. The next week he finds out that one of the tickets is the winning ticket and is ecstatic to get some of the shares. The office then tells him that he cannot receive any of the money because he did not put in money for that one week. The question is, out of all those years that he worked for the company and put in money for the pool, should he get any share of the money?
any response is helpful. thanks.
Answer:
Although it would be a very unfortunate circumstance, it appears that each week and each lottery ticket must be seen as being distinct from all the others. The fact that the person has been sharing lottery tickets for the past few years does not mean that he automatically shares in a ticket that he did not contribute towards, and therefore he won’t have the right to a share in the winnings.
This is true in a Jewish Law sense of the matter.
At the same time, it would certainly be a noble gesture for workmates to give the man a share, in view of his long partnership – but there is a distinction between what is noble and what is obligatory.
Best wishes.
