Reply To: Purim collecting

Joseph:

You seem to have missed the point of the post. Here is my response:

You wrote: “On Purim you’re supposed to give tzedakah to anyone that asks, without investigation.” Nothing I wrote in the post was negating anything about giving. The issue was the collecting that has gone haywire. I was also not addressing investigating. I believe that most of the yeshivos represented are legitimate and worthy mosdos.

You wrote: “It is absolutely proper chinuch for yeshivas to train talmidim to engage in the humongous mitzvah of collecting tzedakah.” I checked the ???? ????? a few times. I did not notice a single one that includes collecting tzedokoh as a ???? at all. Giving, yes. Taking, no. I do not challenge that facilitating the tzedokoh reaching its target is a positive thing. But the “humongous mitzvah”? Not listed in the ???”?. And it is debatable, as I suggested in the OP, whether this is good chinuch. Additionally, the motive behind sending the children to collect is not about their chinuch – it is about the money being brought into the office of the yeshiva. Let’s be honest.

And since we’re looking at the mitzvah of chinuch, would it not be prudent to teach talmidim to be respectful of someone’s tefiloh by not disturbing him in the middle of it? Later, these same “lucky” talmidim will appear in shul, and spend their time chattering away, as davening will not be a precious gift that deserves respect. Are we teaching our children that money is everything? It seems to be more important than tefiloh.