So don't mix it ora, but tell me why it is considered normal for someone to plan a life where they will need handouts...and that they consider it to be normal, citing "there was always zedoko"?? In my book and that of many that's sick. That's not a real life. That's not being an adult. That's not a jewish ideal.
That's a type of childish selfishness and self centered where you do what you want or don't push yourself to the utmost to plan to be independent of charity. That's saying "I do what I want" and I expect you to support my lifestyle choices.
That in my book is dispicable.
That is not a "sudden disaster" or a "sudden situation".
And whether you say "communities should support" which sounds nicer but means just the same thing, a person saying that is basically saying: I can't cope with real life, I can't pay for my choices. and I'm not willing to do everything and anything, just like Chazal entreated us to do in such situations, not to take zedoko. Zedoko is a norm and now you pay up for ME!!!!!
As I wrote that in my book is dispicable and selfish when it is an ongoing life choice and not the result of some kind of temporary disaster in a family.
friedasima now that I see your earlier response I think we more or less agree.
I also agree re: planning for the future, I just feel less strongly about the issue, partly because as I said earlier, I benefit from a lot of things that people elsewhere don't. My plan for the present and future includes benefits - aliyah benefits, heavily subsidized religious education, etc - not tzedaka, but still.
If I had a plan that didn't involve spending the next several years on the "more benefits than cost" end of the tax scale I might feel differently, who knows.
I am in a different camp and I only agree partially. I belive a person doesn't need to plan too much - he needs to daven and do his hishtadlus at the time, and rely on Hakadosh Baruch Hu. We all (or at least most of us) see how we don't know what Hashem has planned for us and we need bitachon in Him.
However, and this is the big however, that doesn't mean ignoring what you (don't) have in the bank/ your pocket. You need to live within your means (barring a real emergency which might need a loan or tzedaka) as you have them now. People need to accept that if Hashem didn't give them the money for it, that means that He thinks they don't need a new car, or a vacation, or a silver chanukiah (menora). If you can cut down on other things, and save - that is a wonderful thing, especially if you are cutting down on gashmius luxuries for chinuch or hiddur mitzva.
What is new (to me at least) is this sense of entitlement - I want x,y, and z, and therefore I am going to buy them, and then I'll figure out what to do about the money.
Maybe this is part of people selling or providing services to some sections of the frum community not getting paid? The consumer wanted the goods/ service so he has to have it. Now you ask for payment - well, now let's see if we have it, and even if we do we're doing you a favour to pay you. Because you HAD to provide us with what we wanted, but we are doing you a chessed to pay you.
This is not at all how our gedolei Yisroel act/ acted - there are bookfuls of stories about how careful they were with other people's money.
I had another thought too. I have seen amongst some chassiduyot that they solicit everyone for money, but only distribute money amongst their own community. Maybe this is how they exist? They have organizations which can give tzedaka to all their community since they are being sustained from outside, rather than within, the community? And have therefore adopted a lifestyle which noone, or almost noone, in their community could afford without tzedaka?
HR zedoko may have always been with us but is it what people should count on? You may have played in empty lots, in Queens where I grew up, inner city kind of queens (think Long Island City, sunny side etc. near the bridge) there were no lots to play in, just building after building with a neighborhood playground that parents would take turns watching the kids because there were druggies in the corner.
What do you mean count on? There were families of poor who married poor and yes, they did "count on it" or their numbers didn't continue.
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What you write about "most people will survive" has been proven by studies of the Holocaust in particular and of long term disaster in general not to be true. They don't. In long term situations many people do NOT cope and survive don't kid yourself.
Many people have shown remarkable strength when pushed to the limits.
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A sustainable life NEVER meant giving up shabbat. There was ALWAYS an alternative. If you are talking about NYC one could ALWAYS peddle, sell from door to door, become a kli kodesh, a melamed, open a stall and close it on shabbos.
The only way my grandfather's family survived was because the daughters went to work. That is why they did it in the end, because their father couldn't support the family and they needed a roof over their head and food on the table. And they didn't live high off the hog.
HR, same in Europe. You had charedim working or with relatives working on shabbes. You had to, that's how they saw it. Were they right? No one here knows. Nothing about them thinking it's a minhag (!). They thought it was survival. They barely made it with this day of work! I'm certainly not going to judge. Who knows what WE would have done!
HR once again you seem to think it is laudable to perpetuate a situation which is an anomaly and was always an anomaly until this generation - living on zedoko as a "normal" way of life. I can't understand for the life of me why...
Yes there were always poor in Jewish comunities in the shtetl or the mellah in North Africa but have you ever read studies - and they exist in droves - of WHY these people were poor? Most fell into three categories. The first were the physically or mentally ill. At the time and in those places there were no health care facilities to care for such people or to give them the help that they would need so that they could become either physically or emotionally healthy. Today b"h we have such facilities. So that takes care of one group. A second group were those who were mentally...let's say...challenged. A generation ago they were called "retarted". Today we have different clinical names for the various groups but you get the idea. The third group were the "abandoned" whether on purpose or by disaster. Women whose husband left them, literally and then they and their children were destitute. Men whose wives died and left them with small children and for some reason they did not remarry (rare) and could not cope.
And then of course there were always the lazy. But they couldn't last long because they also weren't objects of pity and people therefore and certainly kehillos did not really give them much zedoko for obvious reasons, considering the difference between them and the other groups.
but apart from the "lazy" which one can easily get used to being, none of the other groups were "transferrable tragedies" meaning it was not something that went on from generation to generation. Someone who was mentally ill could have perfectly capable children. Same for physically ill and same for the "abandoned" groups whose chilldren would not necessarily go through the same thing. You are discussing something different here, a "sustainable poverty" in the sense of it being generationally transferable by choice.
And again, I find that dispicable.
Shal wrote something very true. You can't plan for everything, but yes many do plan to the best of their abilities, never forgetting that it all comes from Hashem. However all these kehilos which do NOT sustain themselves but rather rely on zedoko from without, maybe the lifestyles and norms would change if they really DID have to sustain themselves completely. A very interesting thought.
HR, same in Europe. You had charedim working or with relatives working on shabbes. You had to, that's how they saw it. Were they right? No one here knows. Nothing about them thinking it's a minhag (!). They thought it was survival. They barely made it with this day of work! I'm certainly not going to judge. Who knows what WE would have done!
I can't judge them either. It was a reality for many people. Early death as well. My father lost two mothers: his biological mom and his step-mom, before the age of 12 I believe.
Ruchel the situation in Europe was very different than in America and from what I learned it was not a norm for charedi Jews who did not give up yiddishkeit to have to work on shabbos in Western europe before the Holocaust, sorry, sources please?
HR people don't realize however that even in America there WERE choices. Not good ones but they existed. It was however a herd mentality, one person who wasn't so keen about yiddishkeit gave up shabbos and then another and then eventually there was a "name" give to it - "minhag america" (read Jonathan Sarna's studies of the topic) and that gave it a kind of legitimacy among the masses.
But it was possible to keep shabbos. As I said, get a wagon and become a peddlar. You don't have money for the wagon? Get a pushcart, put it on your back. My grandparents at one point during world war I or at least my grandmother in Europe peddled towels and linens from door to door and survived like that. Girls in America who wanted to keep shabbos did sewing at home for factories. piecework. Pocketbook linings like my grandmother did, or beaded pocketbooks, lacework and the like. They took in washing. They cleaned homes. People who didn't want to do this menial work and for them working in a factory was more important than shabbos, were mechalel shabbos.
but don't say it wasn't possible to keep shabbos in america and not starve. Because it was. But it meant doing menial jobs and working very very very hard. Like many things, it was a choice.
I should state up front that history is not my strongest subject.
But I think that aside from other major changes, there's also been a huge change in access to education that's made a difference in the approach to tzedaka in some communities. "Back in the day" it was understood that if you were a farmer and had a bad year for crops, or if you were a shepherd and your flock got sick, or a store owner and nobody was buying, etc, you needed tzedaka.
Today the response in some communities would be more along the lines of, "why were you trying to live off subsistence farming? That's not a reasonable plan to provide for a family." Whereas in other communities, it's still more or less acceptable to go into a low-paying field, and people are less likely to question your choices if you need help.
Maybe not subsistence farming. But for example, a hareidi man who supports his family by working for minimum wage in a store or restaurant who needs help paying the bills will be viewed very differently by his community than an MO or DL man in the same position. Is my guess (hareidi culture - also not a strong point, relative to many posters here).
100 or 200 years ago it wouldn't even have been a question - there was no such thing as "why didn't you plan ahead for a higher-paying job" because education for a "white collar" job just wasn't on the map at all for so many people (maybe not in Germany - I'm thinking more in Poland or Russia).
HR once again you seem to think it is laudable to perpetuate a situation which is an anomaly and was always an anomaly until this generation - living on zedoko as a "normal" way of life. I can't understand for the life of me why...
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I'm not sure why you think I'm saying it is "laudable", I'm saying it always was. Please do not add to what I said.
I'm simply stating that there is 1) nothing new in people counting on tzeddakah to live. 2)needs are situation dependent.
I think most of us would say dental care is a need. However if one is being hunted down then what is needed is a place to hide.
I am in a different camp and I only agree partially. I belive a person doesn't need to plan too much - he needs to daven and do his hishtadlus at the time, and rely on Hakadosh Baruch Hu. We all (or at least most of us) see how we don't know what Hashem has planned for us and we need bitachon in Him.. People need to accept that if Hashem didn't give them the money for it, that means that He thinks they don't need a new car, or a vacation, or a silver chanukiah (menora). If you can cut down on other things, and save - that is a wonderful thing, especially if you are cutting down on gashmius luxuries for chinuch or hiddur mitzva.
OK, so what is a need? New glasses because the old ones are broken? If you don't have the money to replace does that mean G-d wants you to wear old glasses? I semi-agree with you in terms of realizing G-d is in charge, but if G-d is deciding because we aren't earning enough to pay for something that doesn't add up to G-d doesn't want us to have.
See I do agree one shouldn't be hiddur mitzvah on someone else's heshbone. But not everything is clear cut understandably need or not need.
Camp is one such, so is a new (to one) car/computer or even outfit (for work).
I don't think anyone should be asking for a silver menorah (or begging food so one can buy it) However, camp may or may not be a need...it is a very personal thing. To some it is a silver menorah. To others it is what can make the difference in their future lives and the life of the family.
Ora you are mixing apples with oranges.
Jews in Eastern europe were not farmers. They weren't allowed to own land. Jewish professions were communal ones, klei kodesh, working as middlemen, business, representatives of the landowners (eastern europe) collecting their bounty, tailors, shoemakers and other melachos. They were not, ever in these areas (or in North Africa, or in asia) employed in work which was seasonal and could be dependent on their livelihood by the seasons.
So that's one argument that doesn't hold water.
Planning also didn't include living beyond one's income whatever it was.
Ruchel the situation in Europe was very different than in America and from what I learned it was not a norm for charedi Jews who did not give up yiddishkeit to have to work on shabbos in Western europe before the Holocaust, sorry, sources please?
HR people don't realize however that even in America there WERE choices. Not good ones but they existed. It was however a herd mentality, one person who wasn't so keen about yiddishkeit gave up shabbos and then another and then eventually there was a "name" give to it - "minhag america" (read Jonathan Sarna's studies of the topic) and that gave it a kind of legitimacy among the masses.
But it was possible to keep shabbos. As I said, get a wagon and become a peddlar. You don't have money for the wagon? Get a pushcart, put it on your back. My grandparents at one point during world war I or at least my grandmother in Europe peddled towels and linens from door to door and survived like that. Girls in America who wanted to keep shabbos did sewing at home for factories. piecework. Pocketbook linings like my grandmother did, or beaded pocketbooks, lacework and the like. They took in washing. They cleaned homes. People who didn't want to do this menial work and for them working in a factory was more important than shabbos, were mechalel shabbos.
but don't say it wasn't possible to keep shabbos in america and not starve. Because it was. But it meant doing menial jobs and working very very very hard. Like many things, it was a choice.
Sorry. My grandmother's family survived because the girls started to work on Shabbat. Other methods weren't working.
Ruchel the situation in Europe was very different than in America and from what I learned it was not a norm for charedi Jews who did not give up yiddishkeit to have to work on shabbos in Western europe before the Holocaust, sorry, sources please?
My father, wanna call him?
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Jews in Eastern europe were not farmers.
My saba, wanna call him?
Or read Holy woman by Mrs Rigler, on Rebbetzin Kramer.
Freidasima, what percentage would you say didn't work on Shabbos? In my family one father told his mechutan to tell his son that he really shouldn't work on Shabbos. The mechutan said sadly, "You tell him." But neither did, because they couldn't offer support, and no one was interested in having them die.
Freidasima, what percentage would you say didn't work on Shabbos? In my family one father told his mechutan to tell his son that he really shouldn't work on Shabbos. The mechutan said sadly, "You tell him." But neither did, because they couldn't offer support, and no one was interested in having them die.
umhm.
We need to really respect those who tried their best and understand that we have so many more options than those who went before us.
fs my argument wasn't "Jews in eastern Europe were farmers." I don't know exactly what percent did what. Replace farmer with "peddler" and the main argument is the same.
No you can't really replace farmer with peddlar. Jews sold to Jews usually, not much to non jews as peddlars and Jewish work was not seasonal.
If you want to read about the tiny percentage of Jews who worked on the land in Eastern Europe read Simon Schama, history and landscape or some of the many other studies about the topic.
As for the business about "my father" and "my grandmother"...This is so typical imamother, or rather internet. Someone says some blanket statement without any sources, and then backs it up saying "my father" or "my grandmother" thinking that is "hazut hakol", an example that summarizes the entire situation. It is not. Ruchel, I hate to say it but there were many many charedi jews in Western europe or central europe before the holocaust who did not work shabbos. Also after. If someone did, it's by choice of not wanting to do the other things he could for whatever reason or listening to the people teling him "there is no choice".
Getting back to what you write Ora, to understand you have to take Shal's argument because that's what always existed. Communities supported their own. So if there was some kind of disaster that meant that the peddlar didn't have money one year for whatever reason, no one had money and there was no money to go around. People under such circumstances left communities to try their luck elsewhere...except under the laws of the Pale of Settlement where you were not allowed by draconian law to move from one place to another and that was just during a very specific time...which is one of the things which caused the great migration among Jews...
There are still fights about the topic in some circles, religious people who think it's irrealistic to expect everyone to be able to not work, never, on shabbes - if only be late when it starts early. I disagree with them, but I see where it's coming from.
As for the business about "my father" and "my grandmother"...This is so typical imamother, or rather internet. Someone says some blanket statement without any sources, and then backs it up saying "my father" or "my grandmother" thinking that is "hazut hakol", an example that summarizes the entire situation.
Scratching my head here. Both of them lived in areas with tons of Jews and heard tons of stories and knew tons of people. Neither of them happened to work on shabbes. Both of them were a bit realistic as to what was going around, though.
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Ruchel, I hate to say it but there were many many charedi jews in Western europe or central europe before the holocaust who did not work shabbos.
