THE BAIS HAVAAD PARSHA PERSPECTIVES Parshas Korach: Employee Expense Accounts in Halacha By: Rabbi Tzvi Price

Integrity in the workplace is a constant challenge and temptations abound, but nowhere is the temptation greater than when an employee is given an expense account. The ease at which one can pad the account with a perk here or an unnecessary expense there can be quite alluring. Even the best of men can find themselves having difficulty defending their business-related expenditures. Take George Washington, for instance. According to a book written by Marvin Kitman entitled George Washington’s Expense Account (2001, Grove Press), when Congress appointed Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, they offered to pay him $500 per month. However, he declined and instead asked only that his expenses be paid. Washington used his expense account to indulge lavishly in food, drink, and other amenities. In the end, the bill he presented to Congress was $449,261.51 (far greater than the $48,000 he would have received in pay for his eight years of service). In this week’s Parshah (Bamidbar 16:15), we find a decidedly different attitude than Washington’s with regard to expense accounts. When Dasan and Aviram accused Moshe Rebbeinu of abusing his position of power, Moshe defended himself with the words, “… I have not taken even a single donkey of theirs, nor have I wronged even one of them.” The medrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 18:10) explains that the ‘single donkey’ mentioned by Moshe was a reference to a specific donkey – the donkey that Moshe used when Hashem commanded him to travel from Midian to Mitzrayim in order to save Klal Yisroel.