The great Jewish philanthropist Mr. Irving Bunim was meticulously honest in his business dealings. He applied the same rigorous standards to his financial integrity as he did to his observance of other mitzvos.
On one occasion, he realized that a supplier had undercharged him by the then-massive sum of $40,000 and that this error had gone unnoticed for several months. He called the company and was told that he had no outstanding debts.
Mr. Bunim wasted no time; he immediately made an appointment to meet with the president of the company, Mr. Burnet Valentine. “Today a Jewish man is going to show you what our Torah demands of us in terms of ethics and morality,” Mr. Bunim said, and handed over the entire sum that he owed.
The executive was shocked; he was sure that no one else in the business world would ever have returned such a sum when there was no chance of the error later being discovered.
On a later occasion, Mr. Valentine had lunch with a different Jewish businessman who ordered non-kosher food. He later told Mr. Bunim that he was so incensed by the man’s actions that he wanted to slap him for failing to respect his own religion. Irving Bunim’s integrity had moved a non-Jew to respect every aspect of the Jewish religion.
Reproduced from Living Kiddush Hashem by Rabbi Shraga Freedman with permission of the copyright holders, ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications, Ltd.
