Stewardship is the effective management of the responsibilities and resources with which we have been entrusted. Stewardship requires the wisdom to master the responsibility. It involves diligence and excellence in bringing result. The result is to bring increase, to creatively nurture the resource to advance the process. We’ve been addressing the topic of Jewish business secrets. Effective stewardship is an expectation and commitment required of each member of the community, and the businesses in the community, each according to their own talents and abilities, to do their part. It is also a commitment by the community to nurture its destiny and future by preparing each generation to assume their roles in this pathway.

God’s gift of community is designed with God at the center with people of prayer who have made Him their Senior Partner. This gift of community is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, which has the potential to grow into a tree. It is like the yeast which a woman kneads into dough, producing something that grows into a whole lot more than at the start. It reflects both the standard and the means to release the supernatural to operate. It reflects the model operated by the father of the Jews, Abraham. It is a community that is simultaneously God-centered and entrepreneurial.

In a world where the perception is the reality, with terrorism and corruption poised to challenge honorable opportunity and the innocent, there is a need for safe places. The issue is power and a culture designed to preserve the righteous. Since God has had a people, the struggle of the righteous was never designed as a retreat. Good and evil do not blend. While this conflict has often involved a remnant operating against overwhelming odds, the equalizer in the equation has been God. It is within this context that God has given His people a gift to help them not only to overcome, but to thrive. That gift is community.

Entrepreneurship is about opportunity and risk and the response in terms of strategy. We have suggested that at the core of Jewish business secrets is a different way of thinking. Part of this difference in mind-sets is the entrepreneurial way of thinking. Entrepreneurial thinking is just as valid for startups as it is for multinational corporate enterprises.  Now, in keeping with embracing new mind-sets, I’d like to describe what can happen when making God your Senior Partner. It affects not only your destiny but the way the spiritual supersedes the natural with the operation of our enterprises.

Many mistakenly view entrepreneurs simply as people in business. Entrepreneurs are a great deal more. In taking a closer look at Jewish business secrets, it is important to understand the distinction. Entrepreneurs are change artists. They create and innovate. They are people of discipline who spot opportunity and know what to do about it. They build, establish a new order of things and in so doing they bring increase. They challenge the status quo with better solutions to problems and they know how to do so at a profit. The Jewish perspective in viewing these prime entrepreneurial characteristics, of creating and bringing increase entails even more.

We’ve taken a look at the foundations, the model and gifts that are vital to understanding the dynamics of what have given Jews the renown of being a people of business. Now, before we start digging into the dynamics of entrepreneurship, I want to cover some background about Jewish culture. This background will provide keen insights into the uniqueness of entrepreneurship from a Jewish perspective.