According to Jewish law, if something has value it can be considered currency. The Talmud defines currency as any legal tender accepted by the government or generally accepted by the locale where it’s used for transactions. The Torah says Jews can’t borrow or lend money or merchandise from other Jews with interest, also called usury.… More
This halachah gives rise to the question concerning owning stock in non-kosher food chains, such as McDonald’s. By owning shares in the company, the shareholder is effective a partner in the trade of non-kosher products. Would this ‘passive trading’ also be included in the blanket enactment? The question, we should note, is limited to companies… More
In our case, it is known that the shareholders have no ownership and power to sell the chametz or to burn it, for the business is conducted according to the wise leaders to benefit their business, and since the stock owner cannot burn the chametz, he does not violate the prohibition of seeing chametz on… More
Regarding the matter of shares in companies that do business on Shabbat, we do not consider the purchaser of shares to be a purchaser of the business for they have no opinion in the business. And the purchaser does not want to be an owner, and doesn’t want part of the business, but only purchases… More
The major halakhic authorities have not accepted the “legal-person” view of the corporation and cogently points out that even the secular law does not view the corporation’s legal personality as entirely independent of its owners. We can give examples of this principle: The law views the managers and directors as trustees of the shareholders; they… More
If the shareholders are not the owners – the ones who bear responsibility – then who is? Several answers are given to this question: A few authorities take the secular-law concept of a legal person at face value: the corporation itself is the owner. The halakhic justification for this is sought in legal-person- like entities such… More
There are numerous prohibitions which relate to running a business on Shabbat. Two of them, working one’s slave or beast, are of Torah origin and are dependent on ownership. Practically, the problem is limited to animals, since few-publicly owned corporations own slaves (though it may be that the definition of slave or servant for the… More
The extent to which stock ownership is considered active partnership in a corporation is a critical question in numerous areas of Halakha. Conceivably, by buying a single share of stock a person could find himself committing transgressions from all four sections of the Shulchan Arukh: from Orach Chaim – Shabbat prohibitions such as profiting from… More
There are halakhic authorities who absolve the average shareholder of any responsibility for the actions of the companies whose shares he owns. The ultimate basis of the lenient position is the perception of the investor not as an owner, but rather as a creditor. Stock purchasers lend money to the company in return for a… More