Setting us up to fail financially

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  • #600900
    ANONANO
    Participant
    #830982
    2scents
    Participant

    Good points. However why make a blanket statement.

    Most people I know live very modest lives with no expensive vacations.

    #830983

    2scents I dont know where you live, but in the frum and litvish and chassidishe communities we have a very high materialisitic standard of living. There are very few and far in between folks willing to live within their means. Many people risk losing their house re-mortgaging it to marry off kids, as they are later in their years and not knowing how they will pay it back.

    Many young married ladies dress up beyond their bank account. We all can get caught up into it. Men driving vehicles they cannot justify having, but “everyone has one”. Renovations to the home are part and parcel to the look of one’s home, $$$ keeping up with the Rosenbergs etc. ANONANO has a point. We’ve become like the non Jews, a part of the Americans. We are following in their footsteps. And its no good. Look at the spot we the U.S has gotten ourselves into. 23 Trillion Dollars in DEBT or something like that. That means when it comes and hits home, its going to hurt.. And the commerce experts are not hiding it.

    ANANO is in fact making a good point. How can we continue to have such high standards of living when a) most of these boys cannot even write their name in English and b) we discourage pursuits in business.

    #830984
    For_real
    Participant

    Just to build on your question ANONANO, WHY do we expect boys to learn in Kollel until they are in their 30’s? Why do we expect boys to learn in Kollel at all?? What ever happened to the concept of supporting yourself and your family. Kollel shouldn’t be mainstream!! It should be for a few, exceptional people who are the next Gedolei Hador, as it’s been for the past 2000 years.

    (I’m going to stop before I lose it.)

    #830985
    ANONANO
    Participant
    #830986
    For_real
    Participant

    No answer. Completely agree>

    #830987
    gavra_at_work
    Participant

    A MOFES!

    #830988
    gefen
    Participant

    So true – sad but true. Question is – will this ever change?

    #830989
    BSD
    Member

    This is a very real and very serious issue. Not only can the parents not afford it, they are setting a high standard of life style for their children without a hope of helping them live that life style. They are setting them up for disappointment. It is hypocritical and goes against the message of what mesiras nefesh for yiddishkeit is, what ehrlechkeit is. It negates “der poshutah yid”. It sends our children a terrible message of where our priorities lie. And even people who would not ordinarily follow such practices are sucked into it because they don’t want to look like the beggars on the block.

    WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THIS?

    #830990
    Thom Finn
    Member

    Try being unemployed when everyone else seems to have it made.

    #830991
    littleapple
    Member

    Ano, as far as kollel learning, Doesn’t the gem. say when the Yidden are doing the ratzono shel Makom their melacha will be done by others, perhaps you should be working on your emunah and bitachon and sparing us your worries about the future? That is not to say that anyone should live over their means, on this point I agree entirely and I feel the olam should be spreading things like the Satmar wedding takanos throughout Klal Yisrael.

    #830992

    BSD: What can we do about this? We can start by reading the biographies of our leaders from 2 or 3 generations ago and how they were willing to live without virtually anything just to be given the chance to rehabilitate the beloved garden of G-d. Stories like Moshe Dayan that when he would need a new pair of trousers would take hsi fathers old pants and cut them down to size and when buying new furniture meant taking a shipping container and renailing the wood so it would make a table or chair. People like Dovid BenGurion who when he moved to the beloved garden was told that he should leave before he would die of malaria and while he still had money only to write in his diary why are these people speaking to me in yiddisih. He also broke up with his girlfriend Rachel because she was not working hard enough. People like Golda Meir that left a comfortable teaching job in america to be a communist in a kibbutz draining swamps and working for Solol without knowing if her checks would bounce. That is the way to succeed. Lower ones standards in the exile so that one can have a share of the Beloved garden of G0d

    #830993
    ANONANO
    Participant

    What does A MOFES mean? To add to my point the reason we see a spike in financial crimes within our community is because money is seriously getting to people’s heads. It’s a sickness. we and our children place a person’s value based on his bank account. we’re talking mainly about working families not even people that learn in kollel. To maintain a frum lifestyle a family without luxuries just to pay there bills has to earn an income of over $150,000 a year MINIMUM. Don’t believe me go check out other threads on this site. This is an insane expectation/ burden we are placing on our children for the future. The answer cannot just be to daven and have hishtadlus we have to as a community take realistic actions as to what’s a family’s needs versus wants. With prices going up far higher than salary increases this bubble we have created is going to bust sooner than later.

    #830994
    Bowwow
    Participant

    The “Frum” economic situation is somewhat similar to the problems with the United States Social Security Program. When FDR enacted social security there was an almost equal ratio of workers contributing to the system as there were retirees receiving benefits. Over time, due to population increases, economic shifts etc that ratio has changed to where there are almost 8 retirees receiving benefits for every one worker contributing to the system. With not nearly enough money coming in to the system, it will go Bankrupt without major reform.

    Baruch Hashem our families are very large (much larger than the first post-war generation?) and our first priority is to educate our children in Yeshivos which is probably our largest expense). The answer is that unless we have more people contributing financially by to the system IT WILL FAIL (any yes, all the naysayers will say that everyone has been saying that for years, but it will).

    Plug in whatever numbers you want, but if there is a considerably higher percentage of non-economic contributors to the system it is doomed.

    #830995
    gavra_at_work
    Participant

    What does A MOFES mean?

    Medicare

    Wic

    Food stamps

    Section 8

    Who needs a job? Sit in Kollel all day, and have other Yidden pay your tuition, and the government feed & house you.

    #830996
    akuperma
    Participant

    Compared to 70 years ago (that 1941) or even 1841, our financial situation is wonderful. No one starves. No progroms. We get upset over leaving early on Erev Shabbos at jobs that 70 years ago were closed to even frei Jews (unless they changed their names and/or were baptized). Virtually everyone has at least their own apartment (“boarding” has disappeared, as have multiple families sharing a household). We complain about the high cost of running a car (how many frum Yidden had cars 70 years ago, even in America). Even in countries where the heter to drink Stam Halav exists (and 150 years, that clearly did NOT include America), many people go for Halav Yisrael, and they buy it in stores (no more cows in the backyard). We have so many products that few people even consider deciding what’s kosher by looking at ingredients rather than hecksherim. We even have well patronized kosher restaurants. We even argue about frum Jews in politics (150 years ago no openly frum Jew would dare run for office – we didn’t even get voting rights in all states until around 1830).

    We whine about medical care – but how many families do you know whose children died in childhood or were orphaned when the mother died in childbirth. Have you noticed that most people saying kaddish for a parent usually have the niftar’s grandchildren come to the minyan? Infant mortality is so low that families who don’t buy stuff for the unborn baby are considered quaint. When a woman goes into labor neighbors start planning to send over meals for her – 150 years ago the odds were pretty high it would be for shiva calls.

    After centuries of wanting time to learn, and worry about death and famine (as in starving to death, not just having to buy house brands and skip restaurants), almost all Jews find time to learn. We are enjoying a tremendous boom in publishing. We have more yeshivos than ever before.

    ?? ?? ???????, so stop worrying and enjoy.

    #830997
    msseeker
    Member

    Originial Thinker is giving me the creeps. Secular Spirituality? Badly informed Christian Zionist? Please figure him out for me.

    #830998
    gavra_at_work
    Participant

    Very good points, akuperma.

    #830999
    Bowwow
    Participant

    Akuperma- The Jews in Nazi Germany thought they had it pretty good in the 1930’s as well!!

    Wake Up! How much of the frum community is surviving because of government programs and handouts? Without WIC, medicaid, foodstamps and section 8 where would many people be? We are leaching off of the government and then we flaunt it. Are you surprised by all the anti-semitic vandalism in Brooklyn?

    #831000
    ☕ DaasYochid ☕
    Participant

    We take Private education as a need

    Because it is.

    Kollel shouldn’t be mainstream!! It should be for a few, exceptional people who are the next Gedolei Hador, as it’s been for the past 2000 years.

    You’re in disagreement with many of those very same Gedolei Hador.

    The same way 99% of the readers of this site probably agree that a yeshiva education is not a luxury but a necessity, many of our gedolim have, with their superior wisdom, determined that we need more than a just a few yechidim devoting some years to full time learning, in order for klal Yisroel to function properly (spiritually).

    #831001
    BSD
    Member

    littleapple-“I feel the olam should be spreading things like the Satmar wedding takanos throughout Klal Yisrael.”

    What are those takanos?

    originial thinker-“Stories like Moshe Dayan”

    Moshe Dayan left his faithful wife for a newer model, and when he died, he left his first wife’s house which she inherited from her father to his second wife leaving his first wife and children destitute. He was promiscuous. I can continue on with your other “role models” but you get the picture. Please, we have so many beautiful role models from our gedoloim, why choose this shmutz.

    #831002
    littleapple
    Member

    Thank you akuperma for helping us appreciate the brochas Hashem has showered us with today!! IMHO the way to keep them coming is as I said above doing ratzono shel Makom, (and maybe buying cubic zirconia instead of diamond engagement rings for our dear Kallahs?)

    #831003

    to all those who blame all the financial issues mentioned by the OP on a kollel lifestyle, I just want to make sure I understand you clearly. You are saying that most people who didn’t go to kollel make over $150K per year and can manage fine, right? None of them are unemployed, correct? Most of the forclosures in the US are kollel families, right? Maybe you can try taking your blinders off for just a day?

    to the OP – you bring up a very valid issue, but what to you suggest, especially concerning the private school part? Do you advocate frum people sending their kids to public school? Yeah, I know that in past generations people did that and their kids turned out to be fine ehrliche yidden. But the public schools then didn’t have drugs and guns and they didn’t include immorality in the curriculum. Just minor differences, I know.

    Personally I think what would help a lot is if there was an independent fundraising organization similar to oorah (think annual auction, kars for kids, cucumber communications etc) which would raise millions for tuition assistance for those who don’t make 150K or 200K. This way the entire tuition bill doesn’t fall on them and at the same time the yeshivos will be better able to pay their rebbeim on time. I have to believe that aside from the financial advantages, it can only be good for kids to have parents and rebbeim who are less stressed – I would really expect the OTD population to grow at a slower rate. I have no proof for that but it seems logical, I think.

    And before anyone jumps down my throat, I said I think this would help a lot, not that it would completely solve the problem.

    #831004
    2scents
    Participant

    since today’s economy is different from what there was in the olden days.

    Everyone who is starting to build a family, should start putting away money for when they need it. we call it a savings account.

    #831005
    littleapple
    Member
    #831006
    For_real
    Participant

    DaasYochid

    Yes, they determined that it was necessary to have more people learning to maintain sprituality.

    Now, I’ve been known to be a little cynical, but I know FIRSTHAND that the a large amount (and I think I’m being nice) of people learning in Kollel that, while they may be nice people and maybe even very sincere, they are wasting a LOT of time. Their are so reliant on other people, and for what? There is no shame on making an honest living and being Kovei’ah Itim. That is why the Daf Yomi system and countless other programs were invented. It is an unnatural thing to be able to study for 10 hours a day. Very few people from ANY walk of life or culture have the ability to do it. I believe that most of these “time-wasters” feel they have no chice. The Yeshivos promote Kollel (yes, almost ALL “mainstream” Yeshivos do), the girls want to marry ‘Learning Guys”. We all know people who are thosands and thousands of dollars in debt by the time they are 30-35 yrs old, with little to no hope of getting out of it!

    So yes, Kollel should not be mainstream. Promote people learning to support themselves alongside learning. As so many people have already said here, the system will collapse if so many keep relying on the kndness of others to support them. Forget keeping up a luxurious lifstyle, most Kollel families can not keep up ANY lif-style.

    #831007
    Bowwow
    Participant

    Akuperma- Don’t get to comfortable. Look at the story that was just posted on YWN:

    BREAKING: Highland Park, NJ: Jewish Businesses & Rutgers Chabad House Have Their Windows Smashed

    #831008
    lakewoodbt
    Participant

    akuperma: true most people did not have cars but they didnt live in suburbs where you MUST have a car, u cant live in Lakewood w/o at least one car in the household. I blame Jewish politicians and so called “Jewish” orgs like the federation for the financial crisis. Jewish politicians do NOTHING to alleviate the burden of tuition and the federation take MILLIONS (check UJA’s numbers 300 million) and give it to Africa, Ethiopians in Israel and some useless “workshops”. other orgs like chai lifeline and oorah take money from yeshivas and do there own thing, there are way TOO many frum orgs, how many times are you invited to various auctions and the like? This is because these are businesses go to charitynavigator.org Nowadays EVERYONE is encouraged to go to kollel and if you dont you are a less than, this is the fact, if not were welfare and Section 8 this would not be the case,this is why Jews are Democrats frum get more aid than the non-frum. NOTHING WILL CHANGE, WHO WILL MAKE THE CHANGES.

    #831009
    cherrybim
    Participant

    Don’t worry about money or debts; you don’t live forever.

    #831010
    Thom Finn
    Member

    I’ve been wasting time unemployed on my computer…would rather have spent it in kollel. My halacha txt from yesterday said it’s a mitzvah to go to the beis midrash even if one can’t learn.

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