Dear Matzav Inbox,
This past week, two frum podcasts featured young frum men discussing the fraud they committed and the consequences they now face. I’m writing this letter as a call to action for the frum community. If you think these are isolated cases, then you have your head in the sand.
Why, and how, are we allowing this to happen?
Have we forgotten to teach our children the basics of honesty? Why do we assume, “I won’t get caught”?
Perhaps the problem lies in what was mentioned in one of the episodes: “All we talked about in yeshiva was the guy we knew who left kollel and, in less than two years, owned 15 nursing homes.” Why are our children idolizing people with wealth?
Why has the assumption become that to succeed, one must “wheel and deal”? Why do we all feel the need to “get rich quick”?
Those who understand the basics of business know that 99% of these “gvirim” aren’t truly wealthy. They’re burdened with staggering amounts of debt, stacked precariously in a financial tower where one bad hand – rising interest rates, a few months of bad tenants, etc. – can make it all come crashing down. It’s an illusion of wealth!
Before anyone suggests forming an organization to vet investments as the solution to our problems, let me let you in on a secret. It already exists! It’s called education! We have schools, and all our children attend them. Maybe, just maybe, instead of cutting secular education and pretending that every child will be the next gadol hador and spend his life in chinuch, we should actually educate our children. The two goals are not mutually exclusive.
We need to start educating our entire community about reality and the laws of the land.
C.J.

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