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Chaim, here you go.
Either a parent could work in a camp, if he is underemployed, or better kids could work or volunteer in a regular or kiruv camp, or just spend the summer leisurely between a library and visiting grandparents. Seminary? Some of our daughters hold a grudge that they were not sent there – but they can’t point to anything their peers who went there acquired in ruchniyus that they don’t. Most kids can get a substantial number of clothes from older sisters if ou teach them how to take care of clothes. As our baby says : this is dress is “new to me”.
BTW, for a wedding, you can borrow from your 401k 50K after you got your match, or I heard you can even borrow against the 401k as an asset.
Anyway, given that you are listing camps and such as your spending problems, you are really not stressed at all.
And let’s not forget what the subject was – you are saying that because of some optional spending, you recommend changing ehrliche nice life as a professional, who has time to learn and have time with his family and turn into business where you are risking both money and olam haboh if you succumb to yetzer hora? I mean if you wan to risk it, at least have a high-tech startup with some possible upside.
Chaim> Its not to showoff, its just ingrained that this is what we do. And so here is the key point, the more the rich do things the higher it brings up a standard for everyone else. Its very hard not to spend the money when its the social norm. To your last point, I do not think dependcny is an issue. Thats even more rare.
“not show off, just ingrained” – you are trying to simple re-word and excuse it. It became ingrained because it is popular to show off.
I agree that rich folks are partly responsible, but these days people should know enough not to copy.On dependency – if you take a group of those who are independently middle-class and those who depend on some community help – it is true that the first one often show off even more (as they have more funds available – and I hear it is worse in NY area than in other places), but this group contains a sizeable cluster of people who do not show off – you simply do not notice them when they do not make those lavish simchas. The dependent group is pressed more to comply. It is what I see.
These issues show up in unexpected places – some of our kids insist already 3rd year in a row that they need to give shaloch monos to teachers with a good bottle of wine. Not because they love those teachers so much – this is shayach to any teacker – but because [wide eyes] that is what everyone does. We told them – you gift what you drink – grape juice.
Chaim,
I’ve been to lakewood and know people there, maybe not to degree you are. And I even know people who respond “I am not from Lakewood, I am from TOMS RIVER”.As I said, I agree with you that doing parnosa in Jewish community is often better than in a general one. Although, not always – if you are an only smart Yid in an Alabama village, you can have great business going. But, comparing apples-to-apples. You compare with big corporate world. You can also work for a smaller well-run company or have your own high-tech business (like I do). The focus is on difference in professional level:
compare being a corporate accountant v. being a salesman in a corporation
and compare running your own accounting shop with running your own candy storeand as you are saying – some trends hit low-educated (or generally, business) harder. I have a lakewood friend who was verry successful in RE untill it all got destroyed. But we are both just repeating gemora in kiddushin about trade v business. Old news.
So, family of 6 in NJm with $200K in W2, and $1mln home gets $2K/month after mortgage/transportation/utilities/food/etc, thanks chatgpt. That is enough to have 2-3 kids in private school or all 4 with some squeeze. Maybe suspend 401k or have wife or kids work a little and you are all set.
Chaim,
while you are right that rich people behavior affect the rest, and was it R Gamliel or R Shimon b Gamliel who ordered a modest funeral for himself in order to influence others? BUT a bigger issue is non-rich people cumulatively trying to play it up in front of each other. And, I suspect, dependency is an issue here:If I am independently non-wealthy, but self-supporting, I don’t need to show off. But if I am always looking to people for various benefits – discount in yeshiva; free invitation; a job at school or a mossad; then I need to maintain my image. So, having more people supporting themselves will reduce the pressure to show off.
DaMoshe, what was wrong with Uganda plan, especially for those non-zionist shevuos guys? Would it have been wrong to evacuate Jews from the upcoming murder by Nazis and Commies in Europe?
somejew, everything I quoted is from images with signs held by NK-looking people. I don’t know who of them are true NK and who are not. Maybe you are looking at some other imagers where they did not post everything.
I think some posters, whether Iranian or otherwise, were so frustrated that their posts were moderated out that they decided to take over the moderation.
BUT as Aristotle and Rambam taught us: “everything is better in moderation”.Happy new year to our Iranian readers and wishing you more freedom in Nissan.
somejew, march 7, 2026 demo generates headlines:
#Jews condemning the Zionist attack on #Iran and calling for “Hands Off Iran” at a protest in #Unionsquare, NYC, on Saturday, March 7, 2026.I see on the pictures:
Jews worldwide say: we condemn Israel’s war on Iran
Jews worldwide say: we condemn Israel’s war on Gaza
Judaism demands freedom for Gaza and all palestine
Judaism demands all palestine return to palestinian sovereignty
stop the war on iran
peace with iranujm > Herzl and Zionism were just as okay to have Uganda
just can’t make you happy. When Zs push for everyone to go to EY – shvuos, idol worship .. when Herzl suggested Uganda – you are not happy again. And his idea was rejected. I think this only proves that he tried his best to save Jews, despite his limited knowledge. And, again, explain to me why so many learned people did not see the dangers that he saw, and acted upon.
metoo, this ruling is for his time.
When pareve coffee cream appeared, one would leave a container near his coffee to avoid an impression that he is drinking milk after meat. By now, nobody is having a problem with that.
When Waymos will fill the streets, nobody will be confused.
Flatbush, these are good ideas about takonos – what did your rav say about it?
But there is another way out of this vicious circle – become self-sufficient financially by working. Not only, this increases ability to pay, but also, ironically, decreases a desire for crazy spending. Let me explain: if the person depends on community support – reduced tuition, school principal paying your salary, etc, then there is an obvious desire to show oneself a loyal member of the community. This has good sides, keeping people conforming to religious norms, but it also generates the impulse to show off your dedication, including by creating such simchos. After all, if you don’t do that and don’t invite hoshuve people, then you will not be invited …
my kids brought the idea from school that they need to have special sholoch monos for their school teachers, including a good bottle of wine. Not because they love every teacher, but because “everyone shows kavod”. I suggested that they send to their friends and those kids that may not have many friends. We compromised on the teachers they like and even .. took several of their friends to … math teacher that nobody was planning to visit.
YYA, I just wanted to emphasize that when there is a range of options within these technical parameters, R Auerbach took into account kavod habrius.
on technical issues, I don’t think I learnt this sugya in depth: are we saying that combustion engine is fire? is burning in ICE halachik fire?
rescue, I gave you a reference to one paper, and now we are discussing whether papers are worth reading in general. Maybe give us feedback on this or related papers, and then we will learn more about this interesting subject.
pure, so you still have one source – R Wasserman.
I do not understand how with so much written by and about him, Chofetz Chaim never revealed himself to other people; or other people never reported that. So, if we can’t resolve this enigma, maybe you can compile statements from rabbis who had opposite opinion and we can see if those are more or less trustworthy. And it will be a good exercise for you.n0> This rational was used for Jews in America to work on Shabbos until 95 years ago.
I heard the following story from Canada. The person who told the story said that he saw a person who was always coming to shul on shabbos, sat in his coat in the back of the room, did not talk to anyone, and left at the end of davening. His story: he lost his job during great depression and only found one that required working on shabbos and he had a family to support. He minimized what he could: walked to the job pretty far away, at the end stayed until shkiya to return, etc. After he eventually found another job, he came back to shul, but put cherem on himself for being mechalel shabbos and sat in that corner for a couple of decades already, despite pleading from the kahal and the rav.
I am sure at some point there were Zionists who were focused on “their agenda”. This happens in any organized movement and it is not good.
But original idea came to Hertzl when he got disappointed with the path of assimilation seeing that even assimilated Jews were not accepted, so Zionism was a means to saving Jews as a separate entity instead.There is nothing wrong with this idea at the time when things were getting worse for Jews in Europe, and it is something to be explained – how is a naive journalist from Vienna can see whether things are going better than so many learned people.
AviraDeArah> Rav moshe allowed a hearing aid to be worn on shabbos because it isn’t noticeably zilzul shabbos, which he held was a problem. He held that the other issurim involved weren’t clear, and that while they’re enough to asser in general, for a choleh we can be lenient.
From R Lichtestein’s hesped for R Auerbach, this seems to be more about kavod than just shabbos halochos:
Once I asked him about hearing aids on Shabbat. He permitted them. But he told me:
“Someone wrote to me from America saying that Rabbi Aharon Kotler was careful not to speak to someone wearing a hearing aid on Shabbat, lest he activate the device.”
Rabbi Shlomo Zalman said he could not believe such a thing. “Imagine — it is not enough that Heaven punished him with deafness… the Gemara says if
someone makes another person deaf he must pay the value of the entire person — as if he were dead. And that is not enough punishment?”
“And now when you meet him on the street, instead of saying hello, you speak like this… m…m…m…?”
To him the idea was absurd from the outset.
Some people almost seem to enjoy suffering on Shabbat. He saw this not merely as misplaced stringency but as a harm to Shabbat and to the human being. Life on Shabbat should not be misery compared to weekday life.From R Lichtestein’s hesped for R Auerbach:
But everything reflected intellectual integrity, which of course stemmed from inner moral integrity.
At the same time there was in him — despite his awareness of the world — a certain note of innocence. Once he said to me:
“Imagine — someone came and told me that in America there are people who avoid paying income tax properly.”
He was astonished.
“And they are our people — observant Jews!”chaim> Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach: “In the time of Rabbi Kook, the majority of Torah giants were ‘all as if nothing’ compared to him.
Here is second-hand info, but still interesting and going beyond nice statements that can be made just out of politeness or political necessity:
from R Lichtenstein’s hesped for R Auerbach:
Someone once told me that Rabbi Shlomo Zalman served as honorary president of the Jerusalem Institute. They once wanted to add a certain distinguished figure to the board, but he vetoed it. Why? Because he heard that this person referred to Rabbi Kook simply as “Kook,” without honor. A person who spoke like that could not serve. He would not yield until the rumor was proven false.I understand YYA that he doesn’t want to go circles into debating Zionism, but this thread shows that people base their (sometimes insane) positions about current events on those theories.
Yes, it is possible to separate and say – let’s not debate old issues and look at current events, and it is very reasonable. But the reality is that many people are affected by years of propaganda – on each side of every issue. And when yo are dealing with decisions of life and death, it might lead someone, H’V, to very serious aveiros. This is also true about events in 1920s-40s when so many followed their group ideologies.
See gemorah drash about what word “es” means, and that “yire as haElokim” es possibly can not mean “something else”, but Rabbi Akiva says – it can mean that also “talmidei chachamim”. from this. yireh means something that when applied to Hashem can not be comparable to most other situationms. That, it i surely not general “fear” – it is either extreme fear or awe …
pure > Chafetz Chayim said the zionists are mizera amalek as stated by Rav Wasserman ztz”l)
it seems from your writing that we do not have any other source for such an opinion by Ch. Ch. despite him authoring so many seforim, articles, and private letters. Any explanations? He did not trust anyone except his favorite student?
PS Presenting one witness is a chapter in hilchos loshon horo. If you don’t have two witnesses – do not present info, go home.
So, the simplest way to stop such demonstrations is to invalidate the eruv? Just do it before the time of mothers taking kids to shul.
Rocky> I don’t really understand what a discussion on College has to Bnos Penina
retracing the steps:
my conjecture was that the root problem is parents’ inability to pay for school because the community is lacking good jobs; and a college is a way for having good erliche jobs for a wide swath of population. The other opinion is that people get by pretty well without college and .. hm. then I don’t know why they still can’t pay tuition … So, I am also lost by the claim that is not supported by facts!rescue > Studies are manipulated propaganda from special interests most times and it’s an appeal to authority instead of fact. Observation, real life experience is a much better teacher.
I am not denying that there is propaganda in the world. At the same time, there are studies that are “observations” – conducted according to a protocol. When you read a proper study and look at the authors’ other work, and, if needed, can contact the authors to clarify, and sometimes having data published openly – you can find good observations. So, if you want your opinion to be taken seriously in this debate – you should open some studies and read them inside.
rescue > Look around you? Do the liberals look like they have a high IQ no they don’t.
Not everyone with college degree is liberal, or have high IQ… It is hard for me to judge, indeed – I do not know many people with bachelor degrees, so what I observe personally may not generalize to overall population – that is why I am reading studies.
In my observation, highly educated people have a large subset of very smart people. It is true many exhibit signs of “schooling” – they are way more reasonable when they talk about their profession but less in others. Still, many who are teaching or doing research full-time can have interesting Torah discussions, comparable to Talmidei Chachomim, but much smaller number of non-college educated non-T Ch can do the same,
rescue, as I mentioned: in your – valid – criticism of college-educated people, just compare it with ignorance. Plenty of non-college-educated fall into a lot of logical pitfalls … starting from not being able to understand validity of sources, statistics, design of experiments, scientific method, etc. Can’t understand difference between a well-designed experiment v. anecdotes heard in a tiktok video.
One way to formulate your criticism – there is a difference between crystallized (learned skills) and fluid (ability to think) intelligence.
BUT educational level is positively correlated with IQ – from one study 1-5 IQ points per year of schooling. Is this due to self-selection or effect of college? check the original study or anything else like that.
How Much Does Education Improve Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis
Stuart J. Ritchie and Elliot M. Tucker-Drob
Sage Journal 2018 Volume 29, Issue 8
doi.org 10.1177/0956797618774253yankel> , rescue is influenced by his surroundings to arbitrarily proclaim his own ‘common sense’
R Daniel Feldman mentions “bias bias” – everyone is aware that people have biases. Therefore, when evaluate someone’s position, you correct it for their bias. Now, when you are evaluating your own position, you should also correct for bias – but you usually don’t.
Why? Because you experience your own thought process differently from others. With others, you only see the final output – writing, speech, maybe sometimes you hear them talking out load. You then reconstruct their thinking process and correct for biases. With your own thinking, you have access to all details of your thinking. So, you “clearly see” that everything you think is logical and unbiased. No need to go through evaluation!
Maybe a good example is voice. Do you know that you are thinking that your pitch is higher than what you think it is? You get sound from other people through air – while you hear your own sound through your head, which makes those waves lower frequency. Try recording yourself and listening.
YYA > It’s impossible to be an Ehrliche Yid without BOTH ??? ??? and ??? ???.
yes! and, as you mention, choices between might be different for different people/groups. but what is interesting that proponents of specific directions usually insist that “this is the right way”. Is someone treating the issue taking all views into account?
But, of course, the starting point is even earlier and fundamental from Adam and Hava time – knowing the difference between tov and ra.
Doing ra while you are thinking you are doing tov “is not an answer”.rescue > College isn’t knowledge it’s propaganda
we are talking generalities here. Fill me in some details – how much propaganda is there in the 2nd year of calculus or organic chemistry?
in most technical undergrad programs, they mark up the propaganda – you need to take 2 classes in “cultural awareness” and 3 in “global culture” or something like that. Well-taught kids know what it is – and current administration works on having less of that. It is a waste of time & money, but it is what it is. You can try taking them in a cheap online college or even pull in some Jewish classes to qualify as “diversity”.
Chaim > , Thats no longer true. Corp America has constant layoffs and is not stable.
not. comparable. I was laid off a couple of times rather unexpectedly, and baruch Hashem, it saved me from some years working for businesses that were on the way down. They really did chessed to those who they laid off earlier. Still, most professionals are doing “ok” after such things, even if they lose in status. You can’t argue about general statistics. Your response seem to be that it is different in Jewish community, and I hope it is, and it should be, but it is an onus on you to show those numbers.
> I just think anyone who is motivated can now learn that online too.
That goes about everything – Torah learning too … I am, and I was, internally motivated, but I do owe a lot to some of my professors who showed me different things I did not see on my own. When you are at work, you are focused on very specific tasks and yo can miss the big picture. I mean, two Yidden don’t need to argue that learning is important.phil> it is an all-out war over “maybe and probably ” that is what I am against.
current technology is such that waiting for someone to obtain dangerous technology and to get a 100% proof of that may be too late.
it is enough if someone shows bad intent to act.
See example of Avraham – when Avimelech starts conversation with “who is this woman”, Avraham immediately activates his defensive psyops. He did not wait until Avimelech kills him and takes his wife.
rescue, “if you think knowledge is expensive, try ignorance”
Rambam puts out criteria for a Navi that includes everything positive being fulfilled up to a minute detail. So, if someone claimed to have access to Hashem’s proprietary information and then failed, he has bigger problems with beis din than monetary payments.
Chaim,
on college – there is no one answer. different people have different abilities and interest. Most decent (top 50-100 in US reports) have capacity to teach professional skills. From what I hear, Touro is not there (yet?). YU is somewhat there. Having several good professors with whom you can interact can help a young person move in a right direction. Higher level seminars at top 50 universities give you access to world-class researchers. All weird stuff can be avoided by attending a local commuting college and attentive parenting.We discussed that professional work is less conducive to yetzer hara in mamanos. Another important aspect – yishuv daas. A professional is way more sure of his employment prospects and can focus on learning/family.
Arso, my understanding is that some of the early mussar was indeed focusing on punishment, so maybe LAboy quotes chassidic books from 150 years ago
On AI, see Rashi and Radak on Elisha’s encounter with naarim ketanim. Turns out these are “union members” who lost their water-carrying parnosa when Elisha cured water of Yericho. They are ketanim because they did not believe that Hashem will send them another parnosah and they would rather see people suffer but them keeping their jobs. As you sare saying, AI opens lots of opportunities to do things better and faster. Maybe work a day a week and then learn.
Now, what about AI answering teikus …
> Now you are 22 and single. Should they go to work before they need to?
You don’t have to be. If you are on the way to getting a profession, or in MS/PhD degree, maybe even Rambam will agree that you can get married off student loans :). Maybe with 3.0 GPA.
On your question whether one needs college for more than parnosah. Depends on a person. I think for some people, it would not hurt to learn about the world. R Soloveichik did not seem to regret learning philosophy, that means he found it useful. Rambam knew greek and muslim science and philosophy.
You can see on this site, a certain segment of Jewish velt behaves sociologically very similar to other uneducated social groups – conspiracy theories; rejecting public health advice … so, something is missing in our educational system.on accounting – I know closely my business accountant. He is working for himself, not big 4, serving small/mid-size businesses. He is indeed very busy during various tax deadlines, so I learnt not to bother him at that time.
on college – in theory, I agree with online education – most of my kids do that. But I am suggesting that you’ll get better parnosa if you actually learn “stuff”. Going to Harvard Law after BMG makes sense. Harvard medical school – not so much. But those graduating diploma mills – after having no-English schooling – are not necessarily well prepared. In theory, learning gemora should make you prepared deal with business issues, but in practice, many have hard time passing tests for their professions. There are many online colleges that are not very expensive and have reasonable programs – U of Florida, U of Oregon, Southern New Hampshire, Arizona State. I think they would be better choice than diploma mills for some (again, there are so many different cases, you can’t make one judgment here).
I agree on dangers of in-person college. My daas Torah, who was affiliated with OOT university, recommended sending kids to local colleges (his advice was against his own parnosa, so it was a real one :). In that sense, Touro and YU and Brooklyn college, esp honors, are great places.
Chaim> Please name a field thats part time and earns a decent salary even non college educated.
accountants working for themselves; bookkeepers; SW developers; college professors; nutritionists; physical therapists; maybe postal workers? plumbers;
PS teachers that you mentioned sounds good – even when working full time, you get whole summer when you can learn and a weekend.
chaim> but in our own homegrown economy, mnay get hired with well paying jobs in non colllege degree fields too.
I agree. But as I mentioned, we have similar advantages in other fields. You have Jewish connections and family knowledge in various fields. If a family is 3 generations of lawyers or doctors or MBAs, the kids know about the field and can get internships way better than a random 1st-generation MD. I work in a different engineering field than my father, but he was able to give me a wise advice when I described direction I was taking.
> Fair point re the fact that as a business owner its hard to even survive without being gray
That was my main point. Obviously, not every college-ed is a tzaddik and other way around, but as I mentioned when your value is based on your professional knowledge, the yetzer hara is less. And it affects whole line of business, so even if you are not a business owner, then you work for a business owner who does something shady and you may have to be part of it.
Back to the doctor in Taanis who had 7x more heavenly court visits than Abaye – great things he did are really possible to arrange in our times: treat patients with respect, maintain tzniyut, do not see what they pay. And hopefully do better than bloodletting … If you can become a doctor like that – what better job can you have?
philosopher, there is gemora saying that goyim will be signing praises to Hashem’s protection of Jews more than Jews. Why? Because we often have no idea what they attemted to do to us, and failed – but they know. You focus on Bibi’s failures of seeing an attack, but ignore multiple things he, and IDf in general, did to protect Jews. There are many thing we know and there are other things that we might not know. So, you think that this attack was not needed … and what if there were no attack and then turns out Iran does something bad – you would have blamed them anyway. This is how our minds work when we have no responsibilities and can criticize. Review various complains you had – they are all conspiracy theories made after the fact. were you warning about neglecting Hamas beforehand?
Try making falsifiable predictions (or see if you made any before) and then let’s discuss. For example, you are saying now that bombing will not change anything. Ok, so let’s see if this will come true. It is possible and Trump mentioned this risk analysis lately – in the best case, we will improve situation, in the worst case – new government will be as bad as previous one but a lot of their military will be destroyed. Hard to argue with this, unless new government will be worse – that could be, but it is not what you think, you said everything will be the same (well, all destroyed equipment will not be the same).
It would be ineresting for customers to provide feedback to developers of true and false reports, hopefully enabling them to improve software.
In this case, the feedback seems simple – software that finds tiny errors in someone else’s writing, should be able to double-check that the output is sent to the correct customer.
phil, everyone agrees that Iran wanted to make nuclear weapons, and they openly say who their enemy is. The machlokes is only about how successful they are. Clearly, someone who wants to kill others deserves the punishment. They already killed tens of thousands of their own citizens.
The public arguments is about politics – convince enough people, make sure another party is blamed, etc. It is not relevant to the simple fact that they deserve the punishment.
> success of college, again that was Pre AI and post covid where
post-covid is not relevant. I looked at timeline. Numbers are same as they were 20 years ago. In fact, most interesting that there is just several percentage difference in 20 years – slightly higher for college jobs and almost no change for non-college.
Re: AI. If it will take away all the jobs, then we can all sit and learn and this debate will be over. Realistic prediction – technology trend is such that a small number of people produce a lot of effect. An inventor brings way more to economy than an erliche shop owner. A SW developer develops code that can be used to service millions of people. That is why educated people are paid more – because there are more very productive people among them. So AI will make the small number of very smart people even more productive, and it will pay to be one of them.
Chaim > . Most boys unless they can’t learn need to be in yeshiva till they need a paransa. That’s more more important than establishing a career.
I understand the motivation behind this system, but at some point, thisis ridiculous. How many years of learning, travel to EY, is required to train a person to become observant and a life-long learner!? Maybe something is wrong in families where this is happening. From experience -we moved away some of my kids from a “frum” high school to avoid negative influences, and when some teachers met the kids a couple of years later,bli ayn harah, they were like “wow, you are still frum”. Our kids just stared back, they did not know what to answer… For these teachers, it was axiomatic – someone not following their “system’ is destined to be lost. Not that they tried to contact them in between, invite for shabbos or something …
MO does the same. R Lebowitz somewhere describes MA program in Talmudic studies: parents want them to go to Law School ASAP, and if you have a yeshiva gap year, the law schools will not look kindly at that. So, to keep boys learning for another year, we give them MA … Maybe, it was tongue-in-cheek …
At the same time, I know kids from serious families who have no problem going to a mid-level college and keeping serious seder at the same time. Maybe this derech is not for everyone, but surely this could be applied to more people if the public mood would consider it as normal as other ways.
chaim > Most jobs are 9-5 (college or not college educated).
I don’t think so. There are a lot of p/t jobs and there are a lot of jobs that involve working with multiple clients. It is just in practice, nobody seems to be willing to take 50% load when they can do more. Maybe, we are afraid for future – and most mussar says it is wrong – earn for today and quit …
I am included. I could easily live from what I earn 2 days a week. Not sure about the wife, but she’ll probably be ok. But it seems crazy to reject clients coming your way … not sure what the solution is … I am open to solutions. One option, of course, is to do your job full of mitzvos and learning – either working in chinuch or do like a doctor in Taanis – treat people well – this is way easier in our times. There are so many jobs in health care, police, defense, writing software that is doing something good for humanity.Re: business. A shochet came to R Salanter and said that he can’t bear responsibility any more – one mistake and the whole city would eat treif. He wanted to quit and go into business. R Salanter exclaimed – you are afraid of aveiros dealing with a beheima, and you are not afraid of all potential aveiros doing business?!
Chaim
> That data isn’t relevant for frum jews
Well, it is a baseline. If you have better numbers, bring them. You may be correcting, saying if a Yid runs a store, he will be more profitable … but then if the same smart Yid runs a financial firm, he might also do it better.> where you look at it as shady morally but its completely legal based on the law.
As we are both afraid to bring specific examples, I am not sure if we disagree. In general, US tax law is non-patriotic – there is no mitzva to pay more. So, everything legal is fine. Say, if I can hire my kid and can justify his salary according to going rate, even if he would not be able to find such a job somewhere else, it is fine. But if he is not actually doing anything, that is not ok, even if IRS most likely is not going to check it out. Or count how many miles I am driving for business.> I have the same yetzer hara and I have a college educated career.
Say, I have a professional business. I am paid $100K for my expertise + I earn $50K from profit from my workers + $20K by tweaking car and home expenses. These $20K are 10% of my income. If I want to increase my earning, I’ll be better off hiring 2 more assistants and do more business instead of finding loopholes. If I’ll want to do a worse product by spending less time, I am risking doing a professional mistake and ruining my application. So, I am mostly busy with my yetzer tov, trying to provide better service.Now, if I have a business buying widgets for $900K and then selling them for $1M and paying $50K for 2 assistants – my profits are just $50K.
BUT if I hire an illegal; if I pay my workers in cash; if I use worse quality goods – I can double or triple my income with zero effort. Of course, I am tempted. And if everyone in this business is doing the same – you may not be able to survive working honestly.