"$5.95 for a cup of coffee? You gotta be kidding!"
Well, millions of people around the world enjoying their Starbucks obviously don't think so…
In Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz's book, Pour Your Heart into It, he writes that "the best way to build a brand is one person at a time—starting with your staff."
And so, with his assuming ownership of the company in 1987 he promptly made sure that every single employee became a shareholder in the company. They in turn also became passionate about their coffee, like he was.
The company's astounding annual financial reports indicate that the ball didn't stop rolling there…
Yet, while Mr. Schultz must be credited with amazing results transforming four coffee shops in Seattle into more than 16,000 in 49 countries, he definitely can't claim originality for his strategy.
5,747 years before he took over the company, the world's first Entrepreneur, the Creator of heaven and earth, employed a similar tactic when launching our world into existence.
In describing the Sixth Day of Creation, the verse tells us that G‑d rested from all His work which he created "to make."
To make what?
The commentaries note that a deeper interpretation would read: "Everything which He created to be perfected."
He created an incomplete world which still needed to be "finished."
In doing so, He transformed Adam and Eve – and their subsequent offspring – from stewards of the universe into shareholding partners.
A partner in the creation of the world is both a responsibility and an opportunity.
Either way it changes our attitude from one of mechanical obedience into emotional passion.
While we can get away with doing the bare minimum: a Friday night with friends as the sum total of Shabbat, avoiding prawns and bacon for the sum total of kosher, and sending an annual check to the local charity for the sum total of helping others—that's not the Starbucks attitude.
Remember, you've got shares in the company. Be passionate about it.
$500 for two little black boxes?"
Of course! It's a Starbucks pair of tefillin!
