Instead of worrying how to marry off our children, try worrying how they will manage if the unthinkable happens & these children become yesomim.
How are we, the community, expected to support all these families when so many of us aren’t working? And WHY, if we can’t put food on the table, can’t pay rent or mortgage, are we expected to contribute? These cases are tragic, but quite honestly, I am disturbed by repetitive ads for this Rebbetzin’s unmarried children or that melamed’s almoneh. What can we do if we don’t have anything to spare? We can’t be guilted into giving what we don’t have.
If Yeshivas and other employers can’t or won’t contribute towards life insurance policies, and if the parents can’t pay premiums, how about forgetting lavish dinners and concerts, and get donors to give to a universal life insurance fund.
Another thing. Every week in AMI & elsewhere we see ads for frum yungermen who have achieved great success in selling insurance. To whom? To Rebbes in Yeshiva ? To Mashgichim or supermarket cashiers? I’d like to think that these insurance companies and Platinum Salesmen are contributing to help ordinary community members afford policies that will protect their families if the unthinkable happens.
All these flowery descriptions of “special people”, “devoted melamdim”, “pillars of chesed” & my personal favorite, “we owe it to them to help their families” doesn’t make it possible for us to support them. I wish we could, but we are struggling too.
Please… spend $5 a week (it may be less!) on life insurance. These wonderful people didn’t expect to die! They didn’t prepare. Learn from their mistakes, & may we never need it, but have it anyway. It buys peace of mind.