Mutual Banking and Mutual Credit

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The descriptions of the Mutual Bank or Credit Union below are general.
They need to be tweaked to suit Jewish needs and this is a matter for
Jews to sit down and discuss to decide how best this can be done.
As you can see, the idea is built upon the principle of free credit -
and that is in line with Torah.
The system of banking that we have today in Israel is wholly corrupt.
Every time we make use of a commercial bank in Israel we commit an
avayrah. We are FORBIDDEN to earn interest on a loan to another Jews.
PERIOD. No if. No ands. No buts. No "heterim". Gornisht.
To partake in and support institutions Jewish usury is not less an
avayrah than any other. Any Rabbi who tells you otherwise is getting
his salary to do so from the establishment. More about that
establishment at the end of this post.
Today, most Jews in Israel outside of Me'ah She'arim have to do
business with commercial banks. We can, we must, change that. ASAP.
It is incumbent upon us as Jews to establish Mutual Banks based on
Mutual Credit. The residents of Me'ah She'arim have such a banking
system. I am sure that they would be delighted to instruct us how to
implement and run a bank like that.
The bank should be commonly run, should have wholly open books and
there should be a Board of Governers who sit for a short period of
time, who are elected by the community and are subject to immediate
recall if they do not carry out their duties in accordance with
Hilkhot Mamonot and common decency.
This system will eventually supplant gemachim. Although people who
run gemachim can be very helpful in the establishment of such a Mutual
Bank.
No one should have to borrow money from another person. We should all
have what we need.
Let's get to the short overview then:
"Mutualists argue that free banking should be taken back by the
people to establish systems of free credit. They contend that banks
have a monopoly on credit, just as capitalists have a monopoly on
land. Banks are essentially creating money by lending out deposits
that do not actually belong to them, then charging interest on the
difference. Mutualists argue that by establishing a democratically run
mutual bank or credit union, it would be possible to issue free credit
so that money could be created for the benefit of the participants
rather than for the benefit of the bankers.

A credit union is a cooperative financial institution that is owned
and controlled by its members. Credit unions differ from banks and
other financial institutions in that the members who have accounts in
the credit union are the owners of the credit union.
Credit union policies governing interest rates and other matters are
set by a volunteer Board of Directors elected by and from the
membership itself. Only a member of a credit union may deposit money
with the credit union, or borrow money from it. As such, credit unions
have historically marketed themselves as providing superior member
service and being committed to helping members improve their financial
health.
Credit unions may be viewed as non-profit organizations, or
alternatively as for-profit enterprises charged with making a profit
for their members (who receive any profits earned by the cooperative
in the form of dividends paid on savings, which are taxed as ordinary
income, or reduced interest rates on loans).
This debate reflects credit unions' unusual organizational structure,
which attempts to solve the principal-agent problem by ensuring the
owners and the users of the institution are the same people. In any
case, credit unions generally cannot accept donations and must be able
to prosper in a competitive market economy. "
My dear Brothers and Sisters: There is nothing more revolutionary
than to be a true Jew. The heart and Soul of Judaism is revolt against
corruption and the mechanisms that are generated from it.
From the day we were commanded to slaughter the sacred cows of Egypt,
we were commanded to live a life of perpetual revolt against power of
man over man and the idol worship that supports it.
When the State of Israel was declared the rich and politically
powerful understood that if Judaism was given true expression that we
would create a world-wide revolution.
They were right on correct about that.
So, all the forces of Hell were unleashed against us: they support the
Arabs to keep us in a constant state of war; they fluoridate our water
so that we will be debilitated; they bankroll an army of "Rabbis" to
teach us that which is not Torah and keep us very busy with made-up
things to do so that we will not remember the voice we heard in Egypt
and at Har Sinai. They keep us in economic straits and worries, they
keep us in thrall in a million different ways.
Why have they gone to all that trouble and expense. Because NO ONE is
more dangerous to a corrupt system than a real Jew. Nothing works
against a real Jew to get him or her to cooperate with corruption -
not the carrot and not the stick.

And so, my dear Brothers and Sisters, despite all that has been set
against us - real Jews we must be. A real Jewish society we must
build. Real solidarity we must return to - the solidarity that we knew
when we were a young people.
We have to return to a time when authority was invested in people
only on the basis of the love and the wisdom they proved. We have to
return to the time of the Judges - the time before a State and a
government was set over us. The Judges were known by their communities
intimately. Their every character trait was seen by all. If they were
not immaculately honest and straight they would not have been
respected. Their honor was their only source of power - and that is
the only correct source of power.
Read the Book of Sh'mu'el. We were not meant to be ruled by flesh and
blood!
Because our society is so sick our Judaism too is sick, paltry and in
our hearts we know, sadly, largely contrived. We will only be able to
find our way back to the true Torah as we institute mechanisms of
righteousness.
Today we turn to HaShem in our poverty, in our fear, in our
insecurity, with our broken hearts and broken spirits and broken
bodies, after having been traumatized - and we fall victim to the
"Rabbis" who are working for the rich and politically powerful to lead
us astray.
Would that we would turn to HaShem in our strength and in our love
and in our security! Would that we would turn to HaShem in celebration
of the bounty we live in!
I saw on Kibbutz that when every material and social need is provided
for still there is a feeling that something is lacking. I saw on
totally secular Kibbutzim synagogues being built and b'tei midrash
being put together and study groups forming.
When we have provided for one another's human needs, when we all live
in abundance and in solidarity, when our consciences and our hands are
clean and we all earn our livings in dignity and with honor THEN and
only then will we be in a position to return to the true Torah.
It is so easy to begin. We form food co-ops and mutual aid projects.
We form a mutual bank that provides mutual credit. Soon others will
emulate us.
Tzfat is the perfect community to begin this in and the one that
needs it the very most.
Let's begin NOW. For I tell you truly, it is we who must usher in the
Messianic age.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
***@gmail.com

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An interlocutor wrote me in response to my contention that to take
part in banking, such as it exists today, is to partake in a Avayra (a
transgression of Torah):

"Doreen:

I agree that the Israeli bank system is more than corrupt, and the
choice of an American banker to be at top of it did not help at
all...

But I have to inform you that our sages already 2000 years ago were
aware that without interest no economy works and installed the Heter
Iska, which circumvents the biblical law.

So if you believe an alternative form of a bank may be of help - I
don't
argue about that.

But saying making an Aveyrah?

That's as selling the Chametz on Pessach or the agricultural produce
in a Shmitta year, problem solved since long, reverting to the
biblical written
word reinterpreted by Chazal, that - yes - that is an Aveyrah!"

I responded:

The very phrase "circumvents the biblical law" rankles.

I have been thinking about what is written here and have seen that it
should be considered carefully, because what is written has profound
implications for a banking system we Jews can call our own.

"There are four character types among men: He who says: "What is mine
is yours and what is yours is mine", is an ignoramus; [he who says]
"What is mine is mine and what is yours is yours" - this is the median
characteristic; and some say that this is the characteristic of the
people of Sodom; [he who says] "What is mine is yours and what is
yours is yours" is a pious and benevolent person; [he who says] "What
is yours is mine and what is mine is mine" is a wicked person." -
TRACTATE AVOT (PIRKEI AVOT) Chapter V, Mishna 10


Let's consider two points in the above paragraph. First, is it true
that one who says" "What is mine is yours and what is yours is mine"
is an ignoramus? Usually when one fluffs someone off as an
"ignoramus", one knows that the person who holds the position has
something important to say and doesn't want you to hear it. We may
always suspect the motives of someone who calls another and
"ignoramus" and presents another's position in their stead.

Second, let's consider how the Mishna defines a pious and benevolent
person. He is someone who says "what is mine is yours and what is
yours is yours". If the process of give and take stops with one
person, then the possibility of private property might continue to
exist.

However, if the pious and benevolent person gives to someone who is
likewise pious and benevolent, that person will say: "No! What is mine
is yours and what is yours is yours!" In such a situation BOTH (or in
the case of more than two people) have negated the concept of private
property entirely. They both (or all) abnegate the rights to their
property mutually.

The laws of commercial interaction called for in Judaism then, if we
wish to be what our ideals hope for, leave us no recourse but the
abolition of private property.

Upon consideration we see that the only way in which to carry out the
mitzvoth of Pesach without worry of huge amounts of food and value of
food be lost and of the laws of Yovel is not by heter mekhirim and not
by prozbul, which are nothing but heroic intellectual exercises on the
part of the Rabbis to protect their wealthy who were often their
patrons, but by *the abolition of private property*.

Anarcho-Communism, then, is the logical conclusion of Jewish Law.

I am NOT speaking of Marxist Communism, which is nothing other than
State-owned property.

I am speaking, rather, in terms of Kropotkinian Anarcho-Communism -
the utter abolition of property and currency. This is the only system
of Anarchism that will allow for us to keep the Laws of Torah as they
are written and as they are intended.

The forms of Anarchy generally known as collectivism and mutualism
will not fulfill the needs of the Jewish people, for they still retain
either some degree private ownership of property or collective
ownership of capital.

During Pesach when we are not allowed to own chametz it will not help
us if the chametz is collectively owned. We would still be faced with
the problem of what to do with it during Pesach.

Only when the grains in our silos belong to no one - when everyone
takes what she or he needs and everyone gives what she or he can we
fulfill Jewish Law.

The problems of the Yovel are solved entirely if there is no money
lending, slavery or land ownership to begin with.

If we have harvested commonly the year before the shmitta, the land
belonging to no one, we need not be concerned with problems of
shmitta. We will have all that we need and no problems of ownership.

Our particularly Jewish system of banking, then, must be one of the
mere distribution of commodities and services to all who need.

Our work itself will produce increasing wealth. There is no need for
interest whatsoever.

This too can be readily understood by a general audience. I've
translated the terms that are transliterated and added a bit of
information in parentheses.

I'm posting it here to give an idea of how religion should be
redeemed, not rejected.

Another interlocutor wrote:

"Actually, Doreen, (the Sage) Hillel (the Elder, 1st C. BCE to 1st C.
CE) set up corporations because people stopped lending money to each
other.

Hillel wanted to make sure the rich would lend (INTEREST FREE, as
you know) to the poor. And Hillel, a Babylonian immigrant to Eretz
Ysrael (the Land of Israel), was so POOR that when he couldn't PAY the
ENTRY fee (later cancelled by R. El'azar B. 'Azariyah) for entering
the yeshiva/beith midhrash (house of study), he climbed up onto the
roof & listened through the skylight & nearly FROZE from the snow.

I know not a few amount of people who give 20% of the
profits to tzedaqa (charity) because of the RABBIS & that money fills
a LOT of cracks for weak people. PLEASE, if you are going to say
something negative, better not to, but if you are going to do it
anyway, make sure you cap it off w/something nice. It's so easy to
destroy, but it's so much better to build."

I responded:

Read what you wrote and see the implications of it.

Hillel had the power to create a precedent that would institute a
millennia-long "circumvention" of Torah.

Yet, he did not use that same power to compel the rich to continue
lending to the poor.

Hillel had the power to take the Jewish people off course and go
against the Word of God for over two thousand years. Yet you would
have us believe that he could not have compelled the rich, who have
always been a small minority, to continue to lend?

If we are to create a more just economic system, a more Jewish
economic system, a more Torah-true economic system, and of course that
will include an entirely new banking system; we must be entirely
honest with ourselves and that will involve divesting ourselves of our
mythology about the Rabbinical establishment, from its inception.

We will not throw out the proverbial baby with the cliche bathwater.
Where they were right, they were right and what fits our reality, we
must retain. But that which does not stand the test of time and the
possibility we now face of eradicating poverty, we must dispose of.

There are all kinds of ways of giving. Tzeddakah (charity coming from
the radical tzeddek -righteousness), as I have written, need not be
monetary, and should not be. Tzeddakah can be educational, it can be
emotional, it can be social. When we teach someone something s/he did
not know, we have performed an act of Tzeddakah. When we give succor
to someone in emotional straits, we give Tzeddakah. When we tell our
wife who is pregnant with our third child that she is beautiful, we
give Tzeddakah. When we tell our unemployed husband that we love,
honor and admire him, we give Tzeddakah. There will always be ways of
giving Tzeddakah. It need not involve the humiliation of the poor
eating out of the hand of the rich.

While giving 20% of one's income if one can if honorable by today's
standards, we can build a world in which we are all so whole as to be
able to give much closer to 100% of ourselves.

There is no reason to "circumvent" Torah. It is not an obstacle. There
is, however, a need to see it with new eyes.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel