So Reb Yisroel said, “What will you do for a living?”
“I’m going into business,” he said.
“Business?!” said Reb Yisroel. “How can you go into business?! If you’re a shochet, all you need to know is a small part of Yoreh Deah. But for business, you need Choshen Mishpat! And that’s much more difficult to learn and to fulfill! You think being a businessman is easy?! To be a koshere businessman, you have to be a very big lamdan.”
It’s a chiddush, isn’t it? What do you have to know to be a businessman? You have to hustle, that’s all. Oh no! You’re hustling on somebody’s feet. You’re stepping all over other people when you’re hustling. You don’t realize what it means to be a businessman. Because when you’re dealing not with chickens but with your fellow man, it’s a very big responsibility.
That’s why we have Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia and Bava Basra. We have more than that. It’s such a big subject to learn not to be injurious to your fellow man and his property, his money. It’s such a complicated subject. Choshen Mishpat is much more difficult than Yoreh Deah and Orach Chaim. Yoreh Deah deals with kashrus. Orach Chaim will deal with Shabbos and things like that. But Choshen Mishpat deals with your fellow man’s property, and that’s more difficult and complicated than any part of the Torah.
