TECCanada

The Rabbi and the CEO:

The Ten Commandments for 21st Century Leaders

Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Finalist for the Foreword Book of the Year Award.

“This book summarizes, in an excellent way, human wisdom and ethical values. In an age where a balance between different interests and the overall view is needed, this book helps managers in their every day decisions. The Rabbi and the CEO is written with plenty of great examples and references to real life situations. It is one of the best books on Leadership because it treats business as a part of everyday life.”

Dr. Frank Waltmann, Head of Executive Learning, Novartis International

I have a pretty short attention span, but I couldn't put this book down. The Rabbi and the CEO is carefully researched and fun to read, and it's one of those extremely rare books that give mere mortals real access to great management. If you lead anything, do yourself a favor: Get this book. It offers a kind of leadership power that is all too often missing in boardrooms and that you simply won’t find elsewhere.

—Ali Velshi, CNN senior business correspondent and host of Your $$$$$

The Rabbi and the CEO provides an insightful “lighthouse” to navigate the dynamic world of leadership and management in the 21st century. More than ever in today's challenging environment, authentic leadership and a strong moral compass are paramount, and this book provides strong insight and tools into these critical areas for success.

—Dr. Martin Cross, CEO, Novartis-Australia

As the CEO of UJA-Federation, I find myself speaking to audiences all over the Jewish community about leadership, values and the "vision deficit" in our organizations and communities. All our institutions can benefit from better management and leadership. The Rabbi and the CEO is engaging, packed with insights, rich in perspectives, and yes, wisdom. The writing keeps the reader (or at least this reader) absorbed. I recommend this volume to all those, both in the Jewish community and far beyond, who must lead today. Kol ha’kavod.

—Dr. John Ruskay, Executive Vice President and CEO, UJA

In an age where anything goes, and unfortunately almost anything does, it’s refreshing to rediscover a familiar anchor. The leadership wisdom contained here is timeless, powerful and actionable—just what you’d expect when you combine a Rabbi and a CEO!

—Scott A. Snook, Professor of Organizational Behavior, Harvard Business School

In my 30 years as the leader of The Hunger Project, I have faced all the challenges any 21st-century leader will ever face, from mobilizing a truly global movement to fostering alignment on a nearly impossible vision, from empowering leaders at all levels of society to keeping the organization true to its mission under intensely adverse circumstances. I am pleased that today's and tomorrow's leaders will have The Rabbi and the CEO as a guide at their side. This compelling work of scholarship and humanity helps leaders tackle seemingly insurmountable challenges. Above all, it is a manual for that most elusive of leadership skills: unleashing the human spirit."

—Joan Holmes, Founding President, The Hunger Project; Member, UN Millenium Project Hunger Task Force

It has been said that you can tell the worth of a person's religion not by how he acts in synagogue on Saturday or in church on Sunday, but by what he does in business Monday through Friday. In The Rabbi and the CEO, a highly creative application of the Ten Commandments, Dr. Zweifel and Rabbi Raskin have a great deal to teach us and each other about living both a godly life and, in every way, a successful one.

—Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, author of Jewish Literacy and A Code of Jewish Ethics

As leaders in business and in life, we need breakthroughs in how we think and act for the uncharted territory of our future. This book provokes and inspires us to build this leadership capacity in ourselves and others. Act now.

—Anne Griswold, Director Organizational Effectiveness, LifeScan, a Johnson & Johnson company

An invaluable moral compass for today’s turbulent times. Buy this book; sell your kidneys if you have to.

—Rabbi Simcha Weinstein, author of Up, Up and Oy Vey and Shtick Shift

Todah robah to Dr. Zweifel and Rabbi Raskin for giving the world a sefer that is nothing less than a blueprint for navigating the moral and business challenges that lay ahead. All top business leaders and those on the way up can always benefit from solid moral guidance, and The Rabbi and the CEO demonstrates beyond a doubt that it’s not only possible to live a moral life while pursuing personal achievement—it is an essential hallmark of exemplary leadership and assured success.

—Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn Borough President

This is powerful stuff. In turbulent times, more and more managers, in Japan and elsewhere, draw inspiration from the Bible. I have built my company on these principles and tools, from checking my own blind spots and letting go of control, to effective communication with my people and global citizenship, to turning breakdowns into breakthroughs. The Rabbi and the CEO makes the difference between a good company and a great company.

—Mikio Uekusa, Chairman, Akebono Corporation, Japan

Do we have any true leaders today, or are we all followers? In response to our current crisis of leadership, Dr. Thomas D. Zweifel and Rabbi Aaron L. Raskin, in a fascinating collaboration, have created an important and uplifting book—a profound and practical guide for both active and aspiring leaders. Based on the timeless Ten Commandments, The Rabbi and the CEO offers a timely model for leaders of the 21st Century.

—Simon Jacobson, author of Toward a Meaningful Life

This book has the merits of relevance and reverence. It offers relevant, pragmatic and sound business guidelines inspired and informed by profound reverence for the primary spiritual sources of the Jewish faith. I recommend it to all who care about the ethical values of our “globalized” business world.

—Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, Executive Vice President, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America

The CEO and the Rabbi advise simple changes that have traction and generate results. It is an awesome project, it hits home, and I can apply it. Imperative reading for every CEO.

—Lawrence Obstfeld, CEO, Image Navigation Ltd.

Authors Raskin and Zweifel have provided us with a sorely needed exposition of the new leadership model based on the template of creation, the Torah—the Jewish wisdom teachings. Its core principles and central pillars provide a powerful light at the end of the darkened tunnel of the twenty-first century. The authors’ prowess as social commentators is matched by scholarly underpinnings allowing their words to ring true.

Leadership holds the key to the “new world.” But leadership is no longer the domain of those in positions of power. Today, in a world where view and opinion has been democratized through the Internet, leadership devolves on each and every one of us. Each one of us holds the key to the global future. The authors have done us a great service in putting that key into our hands. Dare we unlock the door that Torah provides to create a much better way? If we continue on the current path of egoism and insecurity, “that way madness lies.”

—Rabbi Laibl Wolf, Australia; author of Practical Kabbalah.

The Rabbi and the CEO couldn't be more timely. As the financial industry is being rocked by a tsunami, this book provides an anchor in the rough seas of volatile global markets and corruption scandals. More personally, the financial and career successes I have enjoyed have all come from living the lessons in this book. Just read it. It's the highest-leverage investment you could make in your future.

—Michael S. Bromberg, Senior Vice President, Global Wealth Management

Judaism’s ideal is to join wisdom and wealth. A dynamic CEO and a dynamite Rabbi join to teach timeless principles to advance your career, cultivate your soul, and succeed spiritually and materially.
—Maggid Yitzhak Buxbaum, author of The Light and Fire of the Baal Shem Tov

Zweifel and Raskin take the Ten Commandments off the synagogue wall and put them where they belong—in the marketplace. There are valuable lessons here for today's leaders and decision makers.

—Professor Ari L. Goldman, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; author of The Search for God at Harvard

Dr. Zweifel and Rabbi Raskin have provided a workable roadmap to understanding one of our greatest needs and mysteries—what is the meaning and impact of true leadership and how is it achieved? In my field of venture capital, they provide great vision and direction. “Venture,” in its broadest sense, is a new, freer way—the innovative changes that free all of us to enjoy new ways of living. “Capital,” in its truest sense, is our inner resources. The Rabbi and the CEO demonstrates that the greatest source of capital comes not from our bank accounts, stock portfolios or corner offices, but from within each of us. After reading and rereading the book, I’ve learned so much, and I can’t wait to impart it to venturers of every type.

—George Weiss, founder and CEO, Beechtree Capital

The inherited wisdom of Jewish tradition offers us guidance that is at once spiritual and practical. The Rabbi and the CEO offers the gift of this direction to 21^st century leaders of all stripes. The book speaks to managers who want access to the principles and practices that have served leaders ever since Moses. It also provides state-of-the-art executive management tools for contemporary American religious leaders. Read it and you will gain the influence that comes from profound insight.

—Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, Ph.D.; Director of Organizational Development, CLAL

Moral values are the basis for the human race to prevail, and ethics are the fundamentals for leadership in business or any other activity. It's only natural to find a common denominator that links leaders in history and in business life. The Rabbi and the CEO is a very interesting effort to reflect the meaning of the Ten Commandments in the economic content of today. Exciting reading.

—Dov Tadmor, Chairman, Aviv Venture Capital

Seamlessly bringing together ancient wisdom and 21^st-century case studies, The Rabbi and the CEO’s impressive scope of inquiry and fresh ideas offers valuable insights for anyone interested in leadership. In the face of the leadership crisis in almost every walk of modern life, the book charts a road map to leadership at once effective and ethical, through a process looking both inward and outward. This book makes you stop and think, and then offers you tools to move forward.
—Oren Gross, Irving Younger Professor of Law and Director, Institute for International Legal & Security Studies, University of Minnesota

In Jewish prayer, the Torah is referred to as “instructions for living.” For every dimension of life, the Torah contains timeless—and priceless—wisdom. This book brings the light of Jewish wisdom to people who carry particularly great responsibility in life: leaders.

—Shimon Apisdorf, author of Beyond Survival, Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur Survival Kit and Kosher for the Clueless but Curious

As a senior executive who works at the intersection of Judaism and management, I found The Rabbi and the CEO an inspiring and indispensible guide and reference. It offers a perfect mix of ancient Jewish philosophy and state-of-the-art leadership tools—a mix that will give leaders an edge in today's complex ethical and global environment. Every nonprofit manager, indeed all leaders who are committed to something bigger than themselves, should read this book."

—Scott Richman, Executive Director, Dor Chadash

A confronting (while highly entertaining) read, The Rabbi and The CEO summarizes the costs we pay when leadership is insufficient. The authors invite us to explore the possibility of our own leadership and, at the same time, bring contemporary meaning to the Ten Commandments for those who choose to lead.

—Mel Toomey, Scholar in Residence, Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership at The Graduate Institute

The CEO and the Rabbi bring their unique and original insights into the Bible, and its leadership principles, to bear on today's leadership responsibilities. Readers will be inspired to apply the new dimensions of self-knowledge gained from the authors.
—Malcolm Elvey, Chairman of the Audit Committee, The Children’s Place Retail Stores Ltd.

The Rabbi and the CEO: the 10 Commandments for 21st Century Leaders is a tranparent title for a book that preaches transparency in everyday and corporate life. Rabbi Raskin and Dr. Zweifel make you look at the Ten Commandments in a new light. The Commandments are the foundation of Judeo-Christian religions and ethics, and religious in nature. The authors manage to approach each Commandment in a new light without denigrating its source and nature. Through a review of each Commandment and its core principles the book is a practical guide to personal growth, finding an ethical base, and developing one's ability to lead others in the private and public sectors regardless of one's personal religious beliefs.

—Steven Z. Mostofsky, President, Young Israel

It's about time someone did what these authors are doing: remind people that the distance from Mt. Sinai to Wall Street can be far or it can be very near. Reminding humans of what their limitations ought to be requires courage. Hoping that people will heed the words on these pages is an act of faith.

—Hank Sheinkopf, political strategist and CNN contributor

The Rabbi and the CEO is an important work integrating disparate models like the two Tablets of the Law or the two hemispheres of the brain. The authors masterfully intertwine the objective and the subjective; the concrete and the abstract; strategy and art. The result stands out for its boldness and creativity and is guaranteed a triple A, validated by a tradition of millenia.

—Rabbi Nilton Bonder, author of The Kabbalah of Money: Jewish Insights on Giving, Owning, and Receiving

Dr. Zweifel and Rabbi Raskin offer the reader a true convergence of worlds. Their work is revelatory in the best sense—a union of the ancient and the modern, the sum of heaven and earth, a compilation of style and substance. Here in brief is a latter-day decalogue of usable wisdom, a Mount Sinai for the 21st century.

—Michael Skakun, author of On Burning Ground: A Son’s Memoir and former consultant, Holocaust Memorial Council

In my work with chief executives around the world I have found that the principles and practices in The Rabbi and the CEO have timeless applicability both for those clients and inside my own company. The insights presented by Zweifel and Raskin been very helpful to me in building a viable global business that operates ethically and from clear principles. Regardless of your religious beliefs, the lessons they present are universal and continue to be timely. This is a book executives should read and share with their co-workers.

—Jay Greenspan, Founder, JMJ Associates