Eileen Fisher and Business Start-up

I was sent a link on an unrelated topic which took me to a background site for the retailer Eileen Fisher.  What a beautifully laid out presentation of the company.  While I am most interested in how a company does what it does, there is some reference there to the company's charitable acts, which center on "empowering women and girls," which I am not sure what that means.  In the Eileen Fisher case, it is grants to worthy projects, no doubt all perspicacious choices.

At the same time, I have a I received a missive from Rabbi Daniel Lapin.  You can too.  But to wit:

A poor, impoverished widow approached the prophet Elisha for help. (II Kings 4:1) He asked her what she had in her house.  Ancient Jewish wisdom indicates that he sent her to search her house several times until she finally discovered a previously overlooked tiny bottle of oil.

The next requirement necessary for a miracle to occur, said Elisha, was that she should borrow many containers, which she did.  He directed her to pour oil from her small bottle into the large drums. 

Miraculously, the oil continued to pour from the miniature bottle until all the borrowed containers were filled with oil.

We know that Elisha wanted to help the widow and that he could summon Divine aid--a miracle.  So why did he force her to search her home repeatedly until she found the tiny bottle of oil?  Once he was going to use a miracle, why didn’t he just make oil flow from a tree or other source?

 Furthermore, why make her borrow containers?  Couldn’t the same God who supplied plenty oil also have supplied many containers?

We study Scripture to extract specific life-lessons we must learn from each story.  These seven verses teach us two things about miracles. 

First, in order to trigger a miracle that can transform your life you have to find within your ‘house’ which is to say, within yourself, some small reserve of resources.  Maybe it is one last bit of energy and optimism.  Perhaps it is the last bit of capital you still possess.  You have to search until you find your tiny bottle of oil.

Second, you must have ‘containers’ into which the blessings brought by the miracle can flow. 

Imagine a man praying to meet a woman with whom to share his life.  But other than prayer, he takes no steps to trigger an encounter.  Furthermore, he has no job and no home and is nowhere near ready to get married.  He has violated the rules of Elisha.  He has failed to find within himself even a small catalyst for transformation.  Even if God brings him the woman of his dreams, he isn’t ready to do anything about it.  He has failed to have ready ‘containers’ for the blessing.

We want so many things: love, financial security, health, abundance, fulfillment and more. Yet, too often, we fail to reach deep enough inside ourselves and offer even more than we think we possibly can. Sometimes, we forget to ready enough containers so that our blessings don’t go to waste.

Now, this story has me thinking too.  Here again, a woman is the subject.  This woman is afraid.  She has reckoned her material wealth accurately, and decided this was all there was to reality.  Yikes, down to a small bottle of oil!  And the creditors will enslave my kids. (Since women could not form debts, her late husband left her in this situation. How often do women find their families threatened by the failure of men in our society which has abandoned women in law and culture?)

I see the tiny bottle of oil as the one thing the woman has.  She has decided it is not enough and implored Elisha for help.  Elisha goes straight to the one thing she has, the oil.  He tells her to borrow vessels.  Now think about that.  She is in such dire straights that she is about to lose her sons (and her future) and she is supposed to borrow from others?  Loans at this time carried no interest (usury) but they were voluntary.  Containers were hand made.  Loaning vessels to this woman may result in loss of vessels.  She is in a jam, she must be even more vulnerable.

Here is a hard lesson: being self-employed is also personal transformation.  Yes, you may go bust, but the failure has meaning.  Not some trite "learning from mistakes" but changing because you failed to use your talents properly, in particular, to serve others with your talents.  It is scary, and even harder to do when the system you are in makes you money.  Why change?

In our epoch men have abandoned women and children in law and culture.  "Empowering" women and girls is a response.  Eileen Fisher is empowering women and girls.  Elisha empowered (by the grace of God) a desperate widow.  

In capitalism power, and the illusion thereof, is ever concentrated into ever fewer hands.  This power, or sense thereof, corrupts.  The first bonds to loosen are family relationship bonds.  Perceive yourself powerful, and perceive yourself entitled. Women and kids find themselves on their own.  E. Fisher and Elisha do what they can, by the grace of God.  Men can stop seeking power, stop supporting illegitimate regimes, and get to work providing a value in the marketplace.  Then the normal act of women in business would not be mischaracterized as an act of empowerment, in the face of economic disadvantage.

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