Welcome to Judaism, Demystified, a podcast for the perplexed.
We are joined by Rabbi Jeremy Weeder.
Rabbi Weeder is the Joseph and Gwendolyn Strauss Professor of
Talmud at the Rabbi Isaac El Hanan Theological Seminary of
Yeshiva University and an adjunct Professor of Bible at
Yeshiva College. He is the Scholar in Residence
at Congregation Kahilati Shurun in Manhattan, a graduate of
Yeshiva College. He was ordained by RIETS and
holds a PhD in Jewish Studies from New York University.
Rabbi Weider maintains an abiding interest in Tanakh and
leaning. He's published 2 complete
recordings of the full Torah and Haftara cycle, one in Havarah
Ashkenazit and one in Havarasa Faridit, and is the voice behind
the leaning on yutorah.org. He is a Rosh Yeshiva at the
Rabbi Isaac Al Hanan Theological Seminary of the University
located in Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, NY.
Rabbi Weider was one of the first Americans to win the
International Bible Contest and later graduated summa cum laude
from Yeshiva University in 1991 and received an Ms. in American
Jewish History from the Bernard Revel Graduate School.
Of Jewish Studies. In 2005, he received a PhD in
Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University.
He's a resident of Teaneck, NJ Every wieder has over 500
lectures on Judaism captured on media and available online.
He lives in Teaneck with his wife and two children.
Without further ado, Rabbi Wieder.
Thank you for joining the Judaism Demystified podcast.
Materialism is an existential issue that threatens the Modern
Orthodox community, from lavish Passover programs to over the
top parties to exorbitant yeshiva tuition cost that some
have called country clubs for the elite.
Can you assess the current situation in our communities?
So firstly, thank you for inviting me on.
It's a pleasure to be here. Once again, the our community is
a very wealthy community, although the wealth isn't evenly
distributed. And it like the rest of American
Society particularly wealthy American Society but not only it
is a very consumerist society and and that can and that
consumption fundamentally is very often conspicuous
consumption. It's not something that's behind
doors that people don't see and and in some ways it is it's it's
a bar to people entering when you have this type of wealth in
a community or this type of standard the.
Expectations in some parts of the community are to my mind
absurd. The expectations of what people
will spend on smoke, what people will do on vacations.
And it's a problem not only for the people who stretch to make
those who really can't afford it.
And it's not only a problem for the people who are envious, the
have nots in the community, which is really terrible.
It's also bad spiritually for the people who are engaged in
this. So I would say that the
situation in. Many parts of our community, and
I would say this is true for the Ashkenazi community, It's true
for at least some parts of the of the society community.
I know the Syrian community. This is not a small issue.
I have a a friend who has worked there as an educator for years.
The way he describes it to me is that you can live in in Flatbush
but you also have to have a semi home and deal.
And that's not sufficient because you have to go to the
right vacation spots during the winter and if you don't, your
children are not going to have to do home right.
You have to, it has to be in VI Guess and VI Guess in the way I
would term it. And that's really, that's
terrible, It's terrible for everybody involved.
So I would say that is a very challenging situation.
So regarding, you know, the Torah mandates a redistribution
of wealth. Giving to Dhaka and Masa.
And on the other hand, America is a capitalist system that
focuses on the individual, seems to counter the communal model
that the Tor requires of us. So there are those who are going
to defend the opulent lifestyle by saying, hey, I check every
box of being charitable by the letter of the law.
What's wrong with throwing half of you know I can afford it.
I can have a big party. And there are those who say this
attitude goes against Tor value. So where do we draw the line?
And are the top like 10% that's A responsible for setting a
certain tone? That there's a lot there.
So let me before I talk about the last piece, I think it's
worth exploring very briefly the assumptions, the beginning of
that question which the Torah mandates that a redistribution
of wealth giving mice and stocka.
I don't know if the if the term would be a redistribution of
wealth. I think if one were to step back
and and take a broader view, the Torah economic system originally
that was designed to prevent an inequitable distribution of
wealth, namely the system of Yeova and the system of Schmita,
both Schmita's carcas, but particularly Schmita's stuff in
the this out the the solution of the loans at the end the Schmita
cycle, the fact that all the fields went back to the original
owners in the Yeova year. So that seems to be designed to
ensure that wealth, wealth and poverty are not entrenched.
They don't pass from, you know, extreme concentrators of wealth
and swing concentrations of poverty don't pass from
generation to generation. If you make a mistake, you
mishandle your finances. You have to sell your field at
the end of 50 years, either for you, at the end of most 50
years, for you, for your children.
Those fields are coming back. And something like you mentioned
master and stock up a really step back first like at Chikhan
Peo, which is the are the tourists really original forms
of stock of the tourists certainly also mentioned stock
and purchase array, but originally it's the gleanings in
the field, it's the things that you forget in the field.
So there's a really stopgap measures for people who have
become impoverished in the intro.
But in the long term, in the long term, the Torah designed
that economic system in an agricultural world that was
there. For preventing extreme
concentrations of wealth and maybe even maybe more
importantly or maybe equally importantly, extreme
concentrations of poverty. Now the terrorist system you
speak about America's a capitalist system.
America certainly is a capitalist system.
America's not. America's not.
Pure capitalism is. There's no no country that's
capitalist that is pure capitalism.
Each, every country basically in the western world is some blend
of. If you want to use the term
socialism, it may not be Jordan's technical definition,
but some, you know, mixture between socialism and
capitalism. And I think it's fair to say
that that is certainly where the Torah is.
The Torah may be a little more, I don't want to say, a little
more socialist. It's a bit more communitarian.
It's a bit more communitarian both in the legal sense, in the
philosophical sense, in the legal sense.
So there are, you know, the way what I originally described
Smith and Yovel, which again was in a it was an Agricultural
Society, not in a capital based society, which is a little bit
tricky. How do you, how should we
translate the agriculture, the the, the philosophy that the
Torah is presenting in when we first entered ericseral and that
entire world? How you translate that into
society based upon capital is admittedly not a simple matter.
But certainly the Torah's intent, what Torah envisions as
an economically just society, I think is certainly clearly
there, but it is certainly capitalist also in in many ways.
Now the the other piece when I talk about communitarian is not
just the laws but philosophically speaking.
I think that the the premise which is laid out in in very
powerful and clear fashion by the tour in his introduction to
Hosadaka, he writes that when you give Stacca.
And I'll just put in my little pitch here.
The proper sheer of stucco, if you could afford it.
Is, is, is is a Homesh is 1/5, not, not a 10th, a tenth.
Isn't me debane on this According to the Shahrar, the
Shah Hanar, I think it's Simon Rishman tests and your Adea
rules that you're supposed to give a Homesh.
If you can't afford to give it, that's a different question.
But the the tour says that when a person gives stucco, they
shouldn't feel bad. They shouldn't look at as if
like how can I do this? Eh, eh, Sarmi Mamone.
And my, my, my bottom line in my bank account goes down and I
feel bad about that. I'm I'm giving away my money.
So the tour says you're not supposed to look at it that way.
You're supposed to understand that that what you have,
everything that you have 100% of your money is basically a
picadone. It's a trust that was given to
you by God. You are just a trustee and you
could imagine the tour doesn't spell this out but if you you
know, if you knew had knew somebody who was worth, you
know, $100 million. And they die.
And you're a trustee on the state and you're not an heir.
And and the and the wealthy person who died designated that
money should be given this way to this person, that person to
this cause. It's not hard for you to give
that money away because it's not your money.
So it doesn't bother you. So you're supposed to look at
your money. You're supposed to look at your
money that you have, and of course it's your money.
Halaha recognizes that there is theft.
You have, you have the rights to your possessions in one sense.
But your perspective on that is supposed to be that it's not
really my money. I I think that in one particular
area where this really shows up, and I think this is maybe one of
the most burning issues, is the way we fund our Ushiba's with
parents paying tuition and certainly in the Modern Orthodox
community as opposed to perhaps the Ushiba community where the
bulk of the money is paid by the parents.
It's not, it's not that wealth. Wealthy people give a lot of
money for buildings. They give some money to the
scholarship funds that certainly people are very generous, but
the bulk of the of the tuition that the bulk of the dollars.
As far as I know in in most of modern Orthodox achievement is
coming from parents paying tuition.
Now Halaka does not see tuition as an individual's obligation.
A parent the father has an obligation to educate his child.
Certainly is is such a myth such an obligation.
But the Gaman Basra says that Yoshua been Gand law took that
individual obligation and basically saw that it wasn't
make her filled and he created. Communal obligation.
So fundamentally when you learn the Gammara, Bob Abbasser in the
second pair of what you see, and it's quoted in the Rabam and
it's quoted in the Shulkara. Fundamentally speaking,
education is a communal responsibility and that is not
the way. Orthodox Modern Orthodox, you
certainly think in in this country, we think our model is
like private schools, like Horace Mann, you know, in in
Manhattan, or White Englewood School in Englewood, which are
private schools, which are always which are paid for by
parents paying tuition. But in the United States of
America, that's not how most children are educated.
They're educated in public schools, which are paid for by
the seaboard, not by the parents as they're sending their kids
there. And it happens to be that that
model is much more in tune. With the with halakhas model,
which is a communal obligation, we expect people to send their
children to yeshiva as they have to in a sense, to be part of the
community to educate their kids so that they perhaps don't
completely absorb the surrounding culture.
And yet in the United States of America, for the most part, the
only people who send their their children to expensive private
schools are very wealthy people if you're not wealthy.
You move to a you move to a a, a town which has good public
schools. You bought.
If you can't afford to, you know houses, because those tend to be
more expensive. You buy a small house and you
send the kids to your kids to the public schools and they get
a good education. So we have unrealistic our our
way of thinking about it is, I don't want to call it
capitalist, but it's modeled upon an it's modeled modeled
upon the wrong American. System of education, it's not
upon American private education, not American public education.
So I I assume you probably have more questions to talk about
that, but I think just in talking about what is the Taurus
perspective. So the Torah is much much more
communitarian than certainly the conservative economic view in in
the United States. Now going to the more specific
question of I give my to doctor, let's say this person gives
their homage, they give their 20% and.
Technically speaking, under ordinary circumstances you're
not allowed to get more than 20%.
Although if you were, if you were making $100 million a year,
you were an executive, some firm, and you came to me, I
would probably be willing to give you a coula and allow you
to get more than 20%. And if you were, if when you
were called on your Yom Hudin before Ribona Shalom and you
were called to, you know, to account for that, I will accept
the punishment laws okay. But generally speaking, let's
assume that you get 20%, you give 20%.
So now the question you ask is, well, can I spend on anything
else that I want? And from a technical
perspective, the answer is yes. And my wife always reminds me in
talking about this issue, it tells it.
There's a story of Hasidic rebel who one of the video comes to
him and says Rebbie, you know, I eat every night for dinner.
I just have stale bread and and and water.
And that's what I eat. He wants to show that he's like
the spies person and the rabbit says no, no, you need to eat,
you know filet mignon and you need to drink fancy wines.
That's what you need to do. So when that when the veer
leaves so somebody that one of the people turns to the rabbit
says why do you tell him that? He said because if he is himself
consuming stale bread and water for dinner what do you think
he's going to think the poor people should.
So there is a you know there is a piece that.
It's fair that if you want people to be charitable, they
have to be a little charitable with herself.
But I I would say that a little charitable with themself.
I think that when you talk about a certain kind of conspicuous
consumption, that's out of control.
So it doesn't matter whether you've given Stuck or not.
There's one of the most fundamental to our values that's
missing from this discussion is the concept of kadusha and
kadusha, I think in our community, even even in the
Orthodox community. Perhaps outside the area of
sexuality is nonexistent and it's a tremendous, tremendous
challenge because we live in a culture, we are surrounded.
We by a culture. We are certainly the Modern
Orthodox community and probably even beyond.
Even other parts of Orthodoxy are very much enmeshed in a
Western culture that is described by, you know,
currently moral psychologists, the term weird, Western
educated, intellectual, rich and democratic.
And that particular demographic, which is a tiny slice of America
and an eager, tinier slice of the world doesn't amongst its
values. You simply don't have the
concept of Cadusha. In fact, I think if you were to
go around the fact that I'm saying this from experience, not
simply by guessing, you would go around to large numbers of
people in our community, young and old, and ask them what is
Cadusha and they will struggle for a definition and probably
not get to the correct definition and.
And that's because the culture that we are surrounded by in the
United States, secular culture, is fundamentally AS2
characteristics. It's materialistic and it's
hedonistic. It's seeking goods and seeking
pleasure. And so in that culture, if you
don't harm anybody else, if you're not hurting anybody else,
everything is okay. But Kadusha is so central to
almost every aspect of Torah, and we don't talk about it, we
don't think about it. What Kadusha means in a
nutshell. If if I think of a three
sentence definition, is that human beings we believe are
comprised of two parts. Our angelic side like the
Malakhaya Sharis and our animal saw.
And Kadusha means to be a little bit more angelic and a little
bit less animal like. It means to be precious as the
Ramban describes. It means to be a little bit to
lessen our emphasis on the physical, on the physical world.
So even even if technically speaking I, I the media is the
old glat kosher, everything is glat kosher.
So the as the Ramban says, you can be Zola, the sofa, you can
be a guate and you can drink a drunkard and the the wine's got
a hashka on it's muvosal, it's got 7 hashkahas on it.
You have the meat which is is glot kosher, you know with with
the badats and and the OU and everybody on it and you're a
novel brishore satora. It misses the entire point of
Judaism. So it's not that you should be
in a Senate and completely refrained for any enjoyment in
the world you know it might be that A1 sided nauseir is
considered a hotel. On the other side and us, you're
supposed to be a codosh. So what, We are somewhat
restrained in our behavior when we don't engage in excessive
consumption. That is fundamentally an act of
conducial. So even if it's true,
holacically speaking, you've given you can afford to give
Homesh 1/5, you've given Homesh and now you say, well I can
consume whatever I want. So yes, if you were to just look
at the lines in the Chauhanara. But if you don't read between
the lines of the Chakonara, if you don't see as a metaphor I've
used in other context. If you don't see the forest for
the trees, you're kind of missing, kind of missing the
whole point of thorough duties. I would even, I would even add
sneut to to that because sneut is is actually a concept that
people are very, you know, strict about when it comes to
like covering their elbows. But women specifically, women
specifically, it's a big part of like the conversation of being
religious today. But it's actually missing the
overall point of like what does this actually mean?
Like it's it's actually it should be defining a character
trait, not some a physical, you know, covering of the skin,
right? Right, So, So it's new.
It is one of the most important concepts and I've said a number
of times publicly it's basically become a bludgeon to hit women
with. But snew, it is for everybody,
equally, men and women. And and it is not just a bad
dress, it is very much about consumption.
And if you want to understand the cross between these two,
there was an article recently someone sent me.
There was an article in one of the Jewish newspapers about a
new restaurant opening in Manhattan and it was going to
have the gold like leaf coated hamburger.
It was 100, it's supposed to be $185 I think.
It hasn't opened yet and I I will give the owner the credit
of stating in the article I'm sure that hamburger.
It probably tastes good, depending upon your taste.
It probably doesn't taste any better than a good hamburger.
Someone who knows how to make a hamburger on their home grill.
But the owner was interviewed and said this restaurant, I
think this hamburgers for those who want to be seen.
I think that said it all that really he hit the nail on the
head you got, I got to give you credit for that.
The question is why is a community, is there room for
this in our community? Why is anybody interested in
That's I think what your question is pointing to.
But it is the quintessential violation of Kadusha.
Even if technically speaking it might be more.
So, so my question really was about that person who's in the
top 10%, Are they responsible in a way for like setting the tone
for our values because obviously there's social media today and
then there you know that's new thing comes up there as well.
What work, what do we expect from kind of that part of our
community? So I think we we have a right to
expect, we don't it's not a Holacic.
The issue we have a right to expect that people who are in a
position of influence set an example for others.
Right you can be there's something called I'm not I don't
want to equate this exact in a fashion but there's something
called Jose Omar Desarabin, you you bear with the great
responsibility for the behavior that you induce in others.
So yes I think that in the same way that Tommy de Hahman have to
be a role model has to have impeccable personal behavior
personal integrity so. I don't think people always
expect that from Kviram. But Kviram do set a tone in a
community, especially in the areas that their specialty.
So if the wealthy people choose to not engage in excessive
conspicuous consumption, it lowers the bar for everybody
else. If they choose to do so, it
raises the bar for everybody else.
It's a chain reaction. So.
So I think that, again, from a holaic perspective, does it.
Can I point you to the line of the Shulkaner violates?
No, but it violates everything between the lines.
I just want to say from from a middle class perspective, I
think a lot of the social media and the, you know, lack of mute
in the context that we're discussing, I think a lot of the
motivation has to do with the idea of trying to get your kids
married off. I think that's the prime
motivation and a lot of lot of things that go on a lot.
Yes. And I might point out that that
is very Darwinian. Right.
It's a suggestion that I have resources and therefore I make
it desirable. Late and the way I've often
described the Kadusha and what's called the Kadusha conundrum.
But we have our Darwinian side and we have our angelic side and
and we're supposed to, you know, we're supposed to emphasize the
angelic side, not the other one. Absolutely.
OK, for the third question, one of the most troubling outcomes
of living in a materialistic community is that it creates.
Unrealistic expectations and people feel that they have.
They have to live beyond their means in order to keep up.
People do not want to leave their family and community in
order to afford a modern orthodox lifestyle.
Most people aren't making $300,000 a year and even those
that are 100, they have to spend 100,000 even in Shiva bills and
live month to month. Even with that salary, which is
insane, sadly yeshiva tuition is arguably the most effective,
effective form of birth control. If you make a middle class
American salary, you cannot afford to live a modern Orthodox
lifestyle, which is mind boggling.
Can anything be done about this? That's a big question.
I think that the answer is, let me break this issue down into a
sort of three components. I always used to say it was
true, but unfortunately in the post COVID world, I think
there's a third. There are three things that make
it really, really hard economically on modern Orthodox
Jews. The one that's most recent,
which has always been there, but it's gotten much more extreme in
post. COVID area I can speak just in
my own community in Teaneck is the cost of housing.
The cost of housing was already expensive before COVID, but
something happened and things really skyrocketed and while in
the while. You know, there probably are
still some places. Let's say, just take an example.
I live in Bergen County. There are communities which you
will probably still find the smaller house that's a little
bit more affordable. It's gotten much, much harder.
I think before COVID it was again you you had to make
certain sacrifices, but it was a little bit easier to do.
Now that that particular problem is a function.
Is not really a function of our community other than that Modern
Orthodox Jews, by the nature of their professions and by the
nature of their roots, tend to be concentrated in areas that
are very high cost of living. But fundamentally, that housing
cost piece is American problem. It's not just a Modern Orthodox
problem like America's face. America has a housing shortage
all over in in the city, big cities that people want to move
to. It's particularly acute.
It's a totally separate topic of what has led to that.
But it's a real problem. But it's not a Jewish or
Orthodox problem per se but it makes it hard.
The two that are our problem and it's not one of them.
It's not only our problem but it's in our control are the
question of it's opting for a materialistic lifestyle and you
Shiva tuition and. I want to, for the moment,
separate the two of those. I think that they have sort of a
common route attitudinally or the problems that we have stem
from a common attitude towards money.
But for the moment, separate them for the following reason.
If I choose, I can live in a small house, I can drive used
cars, I cannot go on vacation or I could go on the most minimal
vacation I could go into the city and.
Get a ride to Staten Island Ferry.
Okay, that's a little extreme, but you know, and go go to
places in the city and not spend a whole lot of money.
And I can live a modest lifestyle, but that doesn't
solve the yeshiva tuition problem.
The yeshiva tuition problem is the problem that I can't solve.
The only way to solve that is not really an acceptable
solution as the semi kids to a public school, but that kind of
undermines the whole point. So the the reason I I
distinguish between these two because one of them is an
individual's problem on sun level.
One of them is a comical problem.
Now I understand that even materialism spills over because
it's very hard to raise your kids in a community where they
turn, they look around everybody else is going to Aruba on
vacation and and they you know they go to Vanson Park that is
very difficult but at least you can choose to live with those
difficulties and make that choice.
You can't not pay you Shiva tuition it's not an option and
so. I I think that both of them
require extensive attention and and and particularly part of the
rabbit and talking about these issues.
But I want to at least focus on the Shiva tuition question
because that's that I called the pig in the steak.
That's what's breaking people's backs.
And let me first begin by stating that I want to dismiss
the people have said that that the problem with the Shiva
tuition is a values crisis, not an economic crisis because
people want to spend money on other things.
I'll grant you that there may be some people who fetch about
yeshiva tuition. Some people try to cheat on the
margins and they like to live high but not pay issue with
tuition. I think that's a very, very tiny
slice. I think that you have to think
about a large number of people in the community for whom are
not living high, and that's not what they aspire to.
They aspire just to survive it. If there's one thing they want
to be able to spend money on would be putting it away for
retirement. Put it away for retirement,
which is not, I don't think should be considered a luxury.
You know we have someone has pointed out we have a retirement
price is coming Also all the people who couldn't save because
of having pay Shiva tuition and they weren't going to Aruba and
they weren't going to Miami Beach for vacation.
But if you just do the arithmetic, you know you said
you said $100,000. I disagree with you at least
depends where you are but in Bergen County if you have 4 kids
in yeshiva, OK, maybe you were maybe that number assumes 3
kids. If you have 4 kids in yeshiva,
you're talking about a tuition bill easily.
It could be very much in the for most people, $100,000, which
means to pay that you have to earn 150 pretax just to pay that
yeshiva Commission. That doesn't count a single
penny. A single penny for anything
else, For food, for shelter, for transportation, for insurance,
for retirement, to get vacations, anything, $150,000,
we could talk, we could spend hours talking about what the
implications are. So we have to kind of limit
ourselves. But you ask can anything be done
about this? And the answer is yes, the
answer it. It's a huge, huge lift, but it
can be done. It's not a financial, it's not
financially difficult, it is educationally difficult.
It's about teaching a community to think differently.
Take a very simple proposal. And I don't, I haven't been able
yet to crunch the numbers, but I am actually working on this with
other people. But if every family and again
there, there you can ask 100 questions and how it would work.
There are smart people can solve all those questions.
I have one issue and I get people to fund the yeshivas
commonly. And if every family in Bergen
County gave, let's pick a $20,000 to a central yeshiva
fund, I suspect that maybe the number needs to be 1000 or 2000
more. Maybe it's a tiny bit less.
That could pay, certainly for the entire annual budget of all
the schools. Now there are two advantages.
If everything again, there are some families who can't,
retirees might not be able to. But if you go to anybody who's
got young kids or is anywhere in the tuition cycle and you tell
them could you pay $20,000 a year, the answer is sure, I can.
Now what you have to have in this, for various reasons, is
you have a small tuition. It might be a couple $1000 that
might there might be some more complicated system.
But in principle, in principle, let's say let's say we only have
one school. But you know, it's more
complicated because we have many schools.
You pay a couple $1000 a child and then every year the one,
they're like regular tuition. And then every year, as you're
living in the community from before your children are in
school till after your children have graduated and they have
their children, you pay $20,000 a year, which would be tax
deductible. We can't mandate it.
That's part of the challenge to achieve a fund, and that would
fund the yeshivas if we were to succeed in doing that, which is
going to require educating people, showing people why it's
a much better system, not only because the Torah, the Torah
values issue, but because what it would do.
Potentially for the quality of spiritual and even physical life
for people in our community, that's a game changer.
The arithmetic is not hard to work.
It might be that you that your amount is not $20,000.
I I like the idea that it's it may not be the same amount but
it's tied to your real estate taxes in some way.
It's it's it's scaled to your real estate taxes which are both
public information. Number one, what you pay real
estate taxes and #2 it's a indicator of what you think
you're able to spend on. That money goes, you know, 50%
further than regular tuition dollars because it's tax
deductible and and and you, as you realize it's really funding
like public schools, right? It's over the course of a
lifetime, not in the concentrated period.
That changes the community in so many ways.
It means, I'll start with the following It means to be a
Modern Orthodox Jew, you only need to earn $20,000 more.
And if you're paying tuition and add another ten, $30,000 more,
really. Then people will send their kids
to public schools. Think about what that means
right now. In your peak years of tuition,
you've got to be making $150,000 more.
What kind of professions? Pay that?
But now say you know what it costs to be an old Manor of
docs, two, $30,000 more than your neighbors.
That changes the entire game. It changes the professions our
children can go into. It changes the stresses.
And not at the time when their kids are young.
When you have all sorts of those kinds of stresses in life,
you're not on and you're not at your highest earning, Typically
you're not crushed under this burden of tuition.
My only concern, my only concern though, is that like you see it
in Florida, where there's now government subsidies going
towards yeshiva tuition or some of it is tax money.
Is that the more money? You know, like the more
opportunity there is there for them?
Oh, yeah, Sorry, No, no. No, I know what you whatever
question you can ask. Smart people for your dances
you're going to talk about probably is going to drive up
tuition right. There's more money.
I agree so that that's the problem with American colleges
government the federal government made so much in funds
available so instead of saying oh now we don't have to charge
tuition now you know administrators university say oh
we have another revenue stream if the government is helping
fund people well we can charge even more tuition.
So there have to be there are there are 100 questions this
that's an easy one to answer. The answer is that when you.
When you taking these communal funds, you get probably, you
know the communal fund says Okay.
This is the amount of tuition per kid that we're sending to
school wherever the parents enroll the child And you as a
school, if you want to get that you can't charge more the next
tuition, you know a very smart person I know and finance said
given the differences in New York this might be a New York
thing where you have such a broad range of I mean you have
some very expensive schools. You might have something of a
sliding scale tuition but at the bottom would be this most of the
schools. That would you you pay 2 or
$3000 a kid for tuition and and if the school wants to charge
$20,000 they're going to be forfeiting money.
They're like vouchers. It's like creating our own
vouchers. But there's no question then
that has to be that you know there are 100 rules to work out
that I, I I figured out 100 questions.
I I hear, I've rarely heard from people a question that I haven't
really thought of that's going to be difficult to work on but
my feeling is that we don't have another choice.
And if if we if. If those who are in the position
to influence others, both Rabonen and Balabatan, who are,
I'll call the connectors, using Malcolm Gladwell's term with the
term he borrowed, if we can change the way people think
about paying for it, and particularly those of us, I'm in
that position, we're not paying. You see the tuition anymore,
understand, Even though I paid it, I will, I will pay.
I will be happy to create a future for my children, for my
grandchildren, for other people's children, other
people's grandchildren in the community by changing the way we
do that, so. Your question is a good
question. I agree 100% that one I can
answer easily. There are harder questions to
answer. We will figure those out if we
can convince people that this is what you have.
This is the way to fund our issues, yeah.
I think right the persuade the hardest part.
For sure. The persuasion is the hardest
part. I understand.
Look, I found in conversation I did an event in Bergen County.
I had a very close friend who you know.
Who they They're incredible. They're not high earners.
They struggle to pay you sheet of tuition.
They did and now they're done. And they're not living high.
But they like now you're turning and saying that will you give we
can we give $20,000 a year? And I said two things in that
presentation. I wasn't aiming at him that he
said really made him rethink his his opposition.
One I said this is the Torah way of doing things.
The fact that we've done things wrong until now doesn't mean we
should continue to do things wrong, as the gamar says.
Misha achal shun berejo know Dave, if you ate garlic and your
breath smells terrible, what should you do?
Eat more garlic. So.
But I understand that people have, some people have struggled
and they paid and it's a hard ass.
But the second thing I said, and again this doesn't affect them
but it affects others, is that as I mentioned to you before
this means that in theory you need to earn 2020 $5000 more
than anybody else in order to be a matter of orthodox Jew.
If we can do that, that's incredible.
It's a it's a game changer. And it brings questions with it.
Someone asked me last night and said ah, but wouldn't that free
up income for some people when now they could spend on anything
they wanted. And on one level I would say So
what as long as nobody has to struggle to pay you sheet the
tuition and #2 I agree we have to talk about Kaducha and
materialism. It's not it's not an either or
but if if the price I had to pay.
For solving the yeshiva tuition crisis and getting all those
people who want to take six vacations to Aruba and Costa
Rica and everywhere else during the year.
If the price for that, which they're doing anyway now is that
nobody has to struggle. If that's the price for nobody's
struggling paying yeshiva tuition, it's much better than
what you have now. So it's not it's the Toba Cher
tejos baze Vagami's out on our so that.
But I really think we need to focus on that yeshiva tuition
question because that's really the game changer.
Absolutely Bent. So you want to take the next
question, the 4th question? Sir, you mentioned on another
show that the financial stress is a big deterrent for converts
and Bali Juva. They have a hard time with the
process gouging of holiday supermarket shopping.
Can't afford to go on vacations to begin with.
Do you see a breakup of families, the single crisis, the
singles crisis and substance abuse as direct consequences of
this anxiety or is those? Are those unrelated phenomena?
Well, you're asking me to prognosticate here, which I will
gladly do for you, but I introduced it with the caveat
that these are only my prognostications.
I cannot obviously speak with any degree of certainty.
I don't see those US families, singles crisis and substance
abuse. So I'm no expert here that if I
were guessing, substance abuse is more likely to be a people
who have too much money than people who are struggling.
I mean, I think it's true generally substance abuse you
will find in the very wealthy and then in the people who have
no hope. But I don't think so much in our
community we have very wealthy. I I'm not saying people aren't
struggling under the way, but they're not the people who can't
find any job, you know are in are in rural America, you know
who are struggling, which is different kind of crisis.
So I think if anything materialism is the cause.
Materialism or materialism is a sign of emptiness, typically
speaking in other words, people's.
Lives are empty. They're trying to fill it with
something and substance. Substance abuse is another way.
Alcohol, marijuana and worse are ways of filling an empty voice.
So, So I think that's different. But if you talk about breakup of
families, I think there are many, many causes to that.
I I've been told by people with sitting in the Shiva tuition
committee it happens. I don't know if that's the
primary driver or not. I I always believe, I like to
say that I'm 1/2 Marxist, meaning I buy all the cautions
but I don't buy all the answers. I think economics explains lots
and lots of things. And when you have in a world in
which it's ish tahaska no ish tahas Dana, so it's a much
easier world. It's worth noting that money is
one of those things that too little or too much are both bad.
I'm not going to decide which is worse.
Most people are really poor. Would say, give me the saying of
too much wealth. But I have to tell you there are
people, probably there are some wealthy people, who would have
been much better off being poor. They would have had more
meaningful lives. So I think economics or or as I
like to say that's, you know offer my audience that was
getting two young tigers understand James Carville's 3
words written and written on the War room board and the first
Clinton campaign was 3 words. The economy's stupid.
And I think economics explains a lot of everything that's going
on in this country. Almost everything can be
explained by economics. But so does that contribute to
the family breakup? Yes.
But there's there are lots of other pathologies too.
But the singles crisis to me is weird way the most interesting
one. Very briefly, because that's
it's a different topic. The primary problem in the
singles crisis is a demographic imbalance.
There are far more from young women looking for a should have
than young men. Now, there aren't more from
young women born than from young than from men, because the birth
rates in our community are roughly 5050.
And I'm not 100% sure, but my sense is that if you look at day
school graduates, roughly the same number are graduating boys
and girls from yeshiva high schools in the Mador Fox
community. So the question is what?
Where did all the young men go? That that's the $64 million
question you can ask. Spend all the money you want on
singles events and shot condos and so on.
It doesn't help you short of I say this jokingly of being not
through the Herme Rabina Gero show, because short of that,
there just aren't enough bodies. It's a game of musical chairs.
Again, I want to emphasize I say that only tongue in cheek.
Nobody. I'm not suggesting that we
should be not through the Herme Rabina Gero show, but.
But it's it's it's a it's a numbers game.
It's simply a numbers game and what I think is clear to a lot
of us, there is certainly more gear, more conversion and more
Bali chuva. It appears amongst women.
I know when it comes to gay was far more women than men.
Far. I mean in, you know, multiples
3-4 times the number of women, men and many of them are not
coming because they're attached to Jewish men.
Some are. And my sense amongst Bali Chuva
also talking to people in the field, at least in the matter
Orthodox world, is there far more women than men?
But it's not just that it it seems to be pretty clear that
they're far more younger men dropping out than young women,
and that requires its own sociological study.
If I were a betting man, it's not the only factor, but the
looming economic albatross around the necks of young men,
especially if they're not like the superstars or really they're
going to go into finance for those who sort of can't hack
those careers. They're not.
Students enough to get into
medical school. They're not going to get jobs in
finance, I would imagine. I don't know.
I would imagine for many of them, it's just much easier to
check out than to face that lulling burden, because it's
just enormous. Anybody can do the arithmetic
before you even get the issue with the wishing's expensive.
And then if you're smart enough to do the arithmetic a little
bit beyond that, you realize how impossible it is.
So I I think I don't know. I would like to believe, because
I'm an optimist, that if we solved the issue with tuition
issue and we did a little bit of work on the materialism issue,
we'd have lots of fewer young men dropping out.
Because at least that I think there are other pressures on
them too. But I think that this I imagine
again, I don't say this certainty, that this is a
significant piece of what's intimidating, what's and and
what makes it just easier for them to say check please.
That's the sense that I get. You know, I speak to a lot of
single guys and. Just the pressure of the
expectations, it's just overwhelming.
So I I definitely think that you're onto something there.
And for the last question is kind of ties in financial
pressure causes some people to cut corners or get involved in
businesses that don't have any social utility.
I feel that you should vote should provide classes on home
economics, accounting and career guidance that prepare students
on what they should expect. In terms of being able to afford
a modern Orthodox lifestyle, are we pushing our children in the
right direction career wise? There are several pieces there,
and let me first talk about cutting corners.
True story, I was at a wedding relatively recently after I had
done a. A podcast on this topic that got
around a little bit and a fellow walks up to me, you know, in the
schmore time, introduces himself and he says that he's an agent
for the IRS. So my first response is I paid
all my taxes. I didn't do anything wrong, but
he was coming over to express his appreciation.
And one of the things that he said to me was that he works in
whatever particular group and he's the visible Jew.
He's wearing his key pot. And the guys in his unit say to
him like, what's going on here now?
What? I I didn't ask him for details
and I didn't ask him for demographic.
But what you what? What I walked away with
understanding is there are many ho shakey pop.
I don't know which stripe of orthodoxy.
It could be all stripes of orthodoxy who are running into
enough trouble with the IRS because they're cheating on
their taxes Now are they cheat? The truth is are they cheating
on their taxes just to cut corners because they can't make
it otherwise? Because lots of wealthy people
cheat on the taxes. In fact, I would.
I would bet that it might be even more common there.
And I would certainly say that people who are salaried can't
really cheat on their taxes. I mean, you can cheat on the
margins. You can't do very much.
It's the people who tend to be very wealthy people who are in
business. Some are not so wealthy but who
tend to cheat more. I don't know whether it's
cutting corners to survive or it's cutting corners because of
grief. So I I can't really say for
sure. But but then the next question
is. What kind of professions the
people choose to go into, and that I think is a real concern.
One of the things that's happened in Yu, just as an
example, in the last 10 years. But there was a point where the
one of the people who had gone to Israel, you know, one of the
rabbinic administrators who gone to Israel came back and said to
us for the first time, Sy Sims is larger than Yeshiva College.
Shiva College is the kind of humanities, humanities and
sciences, whereas Sy Sims is the School of Business.
And, you know, and premed amongst the young men has
shrunk, really shriveled up in Yu, which is kind of astounding
in my day. You want to make a lot of money.
You went to medical school, right?
It was really a challenge, you know, getting a near perfect
GPA, doing well on your M cats. You got at the medical school,
you had a lot of years of training, but then you had it
made. It's not whether, it's whether
medicine is not exactly what it once was.
The perception now is you can't make enough money as a doctor,
which is insane. But it also means that more and
more guys feel, and I know that there are many students who feel
they have no choice. Not because they want to.
They have to go into finance, broadly speaking.
Yeah. And there is an important
there's certainly a meaningful need for capital in a capitalist
society. I think it's also pretty clear
that the financial sector has taken on an outsized role in our
economy and has done a lot of damage.
And there's a lot of what's done that has no social utility on a
good day. And it's truly anal safety.
You should be sure and are young people, many of them, those,
those who have the shot, feel like they have no choice but to
do that. And that's terrible.
If someone loves finance, if there's that, you know, leaves
them dreaming at night thinking about it, okay.
So that that's what that's what they're really interested in.
They should behave ethically. Hopefully find the parts that
are a little and more social utility.
But so many young people are being forced into careers that
they don't want to be in. And if there's one place that
this is even the crisis is, it's not looming.
It's here is we can't get educators.
It's true in America generally, but it's acute in the in the in
the Orthodox community. And what I have been told by
heads of school is that it's not Once Upon a time.
It's hard to find modern Orthodox educators.
And Modern Orthodox is high. God forbid your child will be in
the high or rabbi. That changed for a long time, I
think in the 90s and the early aughts.
And I think that after the 2008 recession where the wealth gap
started to really accelerate in America and in our community
too, it became seen as less and less viable to go into clear
career of Clay Codesh. There is a shortage in the
pulpit, there's a real shortage in schools and they can't find
teachers. And not just from the Modern
Orthodox community. From Lakewood, from the yeshiva
world, It's harder to harder to find and and if and I was told,
I didn't verify this first hand, that the Russia yeshiva and
Lakewood told their students that they shouldn't marry
teachers because they don't make enough money.
They should marry OT's and PT's. And if that's true and whether
it actually happened or not, I don't know.
But I'm, I'm told from other places that the young women
don't want to go with the teacher anymore first, whether
or not because of things that Russia yeshiva might have said.
That means there aren't going to be teachers and the shortage is
here. The short it is already a
desperate shortage, and it's only going to get worse if you
change the economic model of our community.
If you she the tuition which even granted educators get a
discount on, but in many places it's still, it's not like it's
100% off. But if you change that model and
your end you have to address the material of this issue, you
might find that you have a lot more people are interested in
going into Hinoch and Favo de Sacodesh.
So, so I think that and so to go to your last question, I mean
which I agree 100%. We don't have financial
education in our schools. It's a disaster.
It needs to be done. There are curricula out there.
It has to be we, we need a financial education for Torahash
Koffa about finances and economics.
We need financial education for practice to know exactly how it
is to be financially responsible, to understand all
the vehicles of savings etcetera.
We have to construct different ethics.
I think business if people are getting you know unfortunate
there's a small segment who are getting involved in like cash
advance and these kind of you know, you know I don't but
that's that's an example of people getting desperate and
trying to make a big a quick buck and they don't realize that
the anti-Semitic you know can that they're kicking down the
road that's going to eventually come back to haunt.
There's enormous need for everything related to money in
our fin of system because right now we have virtually not.
Virtually none. And both from a practical and a
spiritual Holacic perspective, we need a lot of it.
We need both of those sides. So yes.
Well, thank you so much for this.
I think this is a great conversation starter, and I I
urge everybody who's listening to listen to Rabbi Weider on
other podcasts. He talks about this.
You're on the kosher what is it called?
Kosher money? Podcaster Money, Podcast.
And other podcasts like this. So thank you so much for coming
on again and I really appreciate your time.
Thank you guys so much for having me.
Thank you. Hey guys, thanks so much for
tuning in to the Judas and Demystified podcast.
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