Attitudes about Giving

Dennis Eisenberg was interviewed by Mishpacha magazine.  He trains yeshiva administrators after having been a successful yeshiva executive director for decades. 

He discusses fundraising and compares fundraising in the 1980's to today.  He says, "When I started in 1983, the donor base was comprised of Baby Boomers who gave [tzedaka] out of a sense of duty, of obligation.  For them, tzedaka and maaser are mitzvos like all other mitzvos."

Times have changed and now:

"Donors wanted returns; some mosdos offered prestige, others promised segulos, but it became about 'what's in it for me?' Now, I don't mean that people are completely selfish, but it was clear that donors needed to identify and build a stronger kesher with the cause, and even altruistic, selfless donors wanted the feeling that they'd given to 'their' cause, a sense of pride of ownership."

How interesting.  In the 1980's the maala (advantage) was kabbolas ol, you gave because you were supposed to give.  The chisaron (disadvantage) was that when you do mitzvos solely out of a sense of obligation, there is no feeling there.

These days, the chisaron is a lack of kabbolas ol.  The maala is that people get personally involved and care.

Heavenly Accounts

From an article by Mrs. Krohn:

An elderly man who had kept Shabbos in the early 20th century was interviewed by his grandchildren about the challenges he faced.

"Zeidy, it must have been so hard for you to keep Shabbos in those years," said a grandson.

The grandfather smiled and said, "It wasn't difficult to keep Shabbos; it was difficult to earn a parnassa."

Since the grandfather did not view Shabbos as a hardship, this enabled him to merit to raise generations of frum descendents, for as R' Moshe Feinstein would say, the reason earlier generations lost their children even though they were shomer Shabbos was because the parents would complain, "It's hard to be a Jew," when they lost their jobs yet again in order to keep Shabbos.

Interestingly, in the same article, R' Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg z'l is quoted as saying that the money a person spends on any mitzvah will not be deducted from the amount that is granted to him for his yearly expenses (source: Ritva, Shita Mekubetzes Beitza 16a).

Making Money

Ami magazine has a column which features a successful businessman.  He is interviewed and is asked how he got started, what was the best advice he received, how he handles stress, etc.

Many of the people interviewed are chassidishe fellows (occasionally yeshivish) who formed a business from scratch and are making lots of money, without any advanced schooling and degrees and sometimes without much English. I get a kick out of it.  They have guts, they work hard, they love what they do, and they demonstrate that parnassa is from the Aibershter.

Not so Poshut

In R' Dovid Kaplan's fourth "Impact" book, called Lasting Impact! he tells of a couple who had a baby boy and decided to name him after the mother's grandfather.  But then she began to have second thoughts.  "My grandfather was a very nice man and a fine person," she said to her husband, "but he wasn't a talmid chacham.  He was just a poshute Yid (plain Jew).  Maybe we should name the baby after someone great."

 

Her husband consulted with his rav who asked, "When did her grandfather live?" When he answered, "He came to America in the 30's," the rav asked, "And where are his children today?"

 

The husband answered, "All of them are frum and all his grandchildren are bnei Torah."

 

The rav then said, "Anyone who lived in America in the 30's and 40's and raised a family that produced bnei Torah is not a poshute Yid! Name the baby after him."

 

The same week I read this story, someone told me that when her husband's grandfather was bringing up his children at some point, when he lost a lot of money (see story that follows) he went to Rabbi Levy to take his girls out of Beis Yaakov.  Rabbi Levy asked him why he was taking them out and when he heard that it was because of money he said something to the effect that money has nothing to do with this and made sure that they remained free of charge! The P.S. to that story is that when the grandfather had more money in later years he repaid the money.

As to how the grandfather lost a lot of money -  he built a dry cleaning business from scratch with partners, with the intention that it would be a shomer Shabbos place.  When it was ready to open, the partners decided that Shabbos was the busiest day for business and that it would have to be open on Shabbos.  At that point, the grandfather pulled out of the business at a great loss of money. A daughter of his remembers the hard times that she went through at that time and how she went to the bank with her mother to redeem a bond so that they would have a little more money.

 

People like this are not famous, they don't appear in our Jewish history books, but they are far from being "poshute Yidden."  They are Jewish heroes.

Then and Now

 

R' M.M. Weiss, a rav in Staten Island and teacher at Machon BY seminary, wrote an article in the year 2000 discussing why he thought the previous fifteen years (1985-2000) saw an unprecedented crisis among frum youth.

When he started teaching in 1985, he said that 80% of the mothers of the girls he taught were full-time homemakers. In 2000, he says, it's the other way around, with 80% of mothers working full time.

He understands that some have no choice, that was always the case. Whether for valid reasons or not (that was not the issue here), he was observing that parents, particularly mothers, are not available for their children as they used to be, not physically available (like not being home when their children come home from school, or even when home, not having time for their children), and not emotionally available because of having to juggle so many responsibilities.

 

****

Recently, Hamodia magazine presented the following numbers to compare a young family in Brooklyn in the 1970's versus 2014:

Salary for a professional in the 1970's: $15,000

Median starting salary for professional in 2014: $45,000

Rent for a two bedroom apartment in the 1970's: $200 a month

Average rent for a two bedroom apartment in 2014: $2000 a month

Tuition in the 1970's: $125 a month for one child

Average tuition in 2014: $425 a month for one child

Rent+Tuition in 1970 = approximately 25% of income

Rent+Tuition in 2014 = approximately 65% of income

 

to be continued

Mean What You Say and Say What You Mean

No sooner did I finish listening to a shiur in which the speaker said this is an alma d'shikra (world of falsehood) in which words do not retain their true meaning, than I heard the following.  Someone with a son in shidduchim said her son told her that in the yeshiva world, when they refer to someone having "lots of yiras shomayim," those are code words for "lots of money!"

Ironically, this came up on the Shabbos of parshas Vayeira in which Avrohom said to Avimelech, "there is no yiras Elokim here!"

It's not the only code for money.  People say "balabatish" or "comfortable," but to use a term like "yiras shomayim" for money? Unacceptable!

Acting on our Faith

 

Every Wednesday, there is a circular from my frum supermarket with the week's specials.  I often find myself planning my Shabbos meals around the sale items.  Eggplant is on sale? So let's have eggplant salad.  Fresh mushrooms and grape tomatoes are on sale? So let's have the salad that calls for those ingredients.  Napoleon is on sale in the bakery department, let's buy that for Shabbos.

I feel bad about it because I believe the Gemara that says that the amount of money we are designated on Rosh Hashana for the year, does not include Shabbos and Yom Tov expenses.  So why should items on sale have any bearing on the Shabbos menu? Then again, just because our Shabbos expenses are not taken off our annual monetary allotment, doesn't mean people have the actual money to lay out for full-price food items.  True, we will be repaid for our Shabbos expenses, but right now, I might not want to use up my available cash.

I had a conversation with someone who said, there is no way they are going to pay $12 a pound for flanken, it's too expensive! Their alternative was to use another, cheaper type of meat.  All I said was there are often sales on the meat that goes into chulent which they can look out for.  What I thought, but didn't say, was - if you believe the Chazal about repayment for Shabbos expenses, what difference does it make if it's $12 a pound or half that?

It might be a good idea to occasionally buy something expensive at the full price just to demonstrate our belief that we will be repaid for Shabbos expenditures.  Otherwise, do we genuinely believe or not?

Financial Strategies from the People at Mesila

In response to the question in the comment posted to the previous post, what they can do is read the book, Your Money and Your Life: Mesila’s down-to-earth, Torah-based strategies for managing your finances. This book is a compilation of Mesila’s financial advice columns that ran in Hamodia.

Shmuli Margulies, Mesila’s chairman, said “The material in this book is very different from the material you will find in other books on financial management. Our goal in writing this book, like our goal in all of our activities, was to combine Torah hashkafah, professional knowledge, and the experience we have amassed in our years of experience working with families and businesses, in a way that will help people to successfully navigate contemporary financial challenges and achieve financial stability.”

Mesila's stated mission is to empower families and businesses to seek, achieve and maintain financial stability.
Mesila is dedicated to combating poverty by:

• Raising public awareness of the importance of financial stability and independence
• Promoting the development of attitudes and habits that lead to financial stability
• Giving business owners the professional tools to manage their businesses correctly
• Guiding people to create and implement sustainable, long-term solutions to the economic challenges they face

Contact information for Mesila is here

I read the book and overall, it sounds sensible.  It bothers me a little that although they talk about bitachon, they place such an emphasis on hishtadlus that I don't see where bitachon really comes into the picture.  For example, they believe in constantly upgrading your skills and marketability.  Why is that necessary if a person did reasonable hishtadlus? They will say that upgrading your skills is part of reasonable hishtadlus. 

I also wonder about their seeming belief that everyone can attain financial stability.  That seems to come from the mindset that if you put in the effort and handle your finances right, you will succeed.  Where is Hashem in this picture?