We have all seen and heard about the string of Ponzi’s and dishonest business dealings in the frum community. It’s been published and discussed on YWN, Lakewood Alerts, and now a magazine has placed it on their front cover. But have you wondered why? Why are we getting hit over and again by financial scammers? Did something happen, has something changed? There have been numerous frauds exposed in just the past few weeks; 20 years ago, five frauds being exposed in the frum community would take years. What happened to us? I’d like to suggest a theory which I think also serves as a serious bit of mussar for all of us, myself included. The theory is simple: Materialism has become our Avoda Zara, and the pursuit of it requires a literally endless amount of money. Everyone has to go to Miami with their families for midwinter vacation, draining many of tens of thousands of dollars they don’t even have. Everyone has to go to Orlando for Pesach, squeezing them for another $25,000 or so, at minimum. Everyone has to go to Eretz Yisroel for Sukkos – tack on another $35,000. Everyone has to own a home in the Catskills. What’s the big deal? Just a few more hundred thousand dollars. Oh, and weddings! The engagement through Sheva Brachos gotta cost a minimum of $200,000 – you don’t embarrass yourself, right? You’re making a bris? Beautiful. Make sure it costs at least $10,000, otherwise you might look like a neb. Don’t forget your Tesla, magnificent house, and two full-time housekeepers (who of course come with you on vacation). Don’t you think it’s become a little disgusting? We’re stuck in a rat race – a bottomless pit of trying to outdo each other, show how successful we are, live a pompous lifestyle to impress everyone else. And none of this is being done for our own enjoyment, either. We have to do it because everyone else is. And everyone else? They have to do it because you’re doing it! See how this works? Everyone is chasing everyone else’s tail – an endless and pathetic game that leads to nothing but insecurity, inadequacy, and sadly, people winding up in prison. Just take a look at what’s become common on Purim. When one person who stumbled into a fortune makes a million-dollar Purim party, every other guy who found a nickel on the sidewalk feels the need to do it too. And who is attending these parties? For the most part, it’s teens – impressionable bochurim who are implicitly absorbing the concept that money and materialism is all that really matters. And as an aside, how pathetic is it that multi-millionaires feel the need to spend millions on impressing teenagers who are less than half their age? The psychopathology behind that has got to be fascinating. Regardless, the impression that these parties, and all the other materialistic garbage we’ve allowed to become mainstream in society, are truly ruining us. The worst part? Barely anyone can actually afford it! I personally was involved in a story in which a family’s home was destroyed in a fire days before a yom tov. I approached the family’s rav and asked him to endorse a fundraising campaign to help the family rebuild. The rav couldn’t believe that the family needed money, telling me how clearly wealthy […]
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