Take a good, hard look at the images in front of you. Not at the prizes—the dirt bikes, electric go-karts, and “trip of a lifetime” vacations—but at the message behind them. We have commercialized chesed. We have twisted tzedakah into a transaction. We are teaching our children that the only reason to help others is if there’s something in it for them. What happened to Yidden being gomlei chasadim—doing kindness for its own sake? What happened to the values we are supposed to instill in our children—that we give and help raise funds for tzedakah because we care, not because we expect to be rewarded? When did we decide that a child will only collect money if we bribe them with extravagant prizes? It’s no longer about giving to those in need. It’s about winning. And what happens when there’s no incentive? What happens when a child is asked to help someone but isn’t offered a reward? Brochures like these make the answer is terrifyingly clear: They won’t do it. The organization running this glorified sweepstakes—Mishkan Yosef—who are they? What do they actually do? I asked around, and no one seems to know. The only thing we can say for sure? They are in the business of incentivizing kids to raise money for them. They are not alone in this. We have entered an era where tzedakah is packaged like a game show. Give enough money, and you get a bigger prize. Raise more funds, and you might win an electric ATV. Work extra hard, and you could be flying off to Eretz Yisroel in luxury. We have taken something that should be pure and noble and turned it into a competition for material gain. The results are threefold: 1. A child will collect for an organization they don’t even know, rather than one that actually means something to them. 2. They will knock on doors, not to help, but to win. 3. They will stop caring about tzedakah the second the prize catalog disappears. We are raising a generation that won’t understand why we give. Instead of feeling the responsibility of kol Yisroel areivim zeh lazeh, they will associate giving with personal gain. If a child has never been taught the joy of giving without an incentive, how will they learn to be adults who give out of love, compassion, and responsibility? How will they ever truly understand what it means to care for another Jew, simply because they are a Jew? This is not chinuch. This is not tzedakah. This is a corruption of the very foundation of our values. I challenge every school, every organization, and every parent to take a step back and ask: What are we teaching our children? Are we showing them that chesed is a way of life—or are we training them to be fundraising mercenaries? We need to stop dangling prizes in front of our children and start teaching them the beauty of giving. We need to remind them that helping others is the reward—not the grand prize at the end of a contest. Because if we don’t change course soon, we won’t just be losing a generation of gomlei chasadim. We will be raising a generation that never knew what it meant to give in the first place. Signed, Yerachmiel R. The […]