Wealth Begins with Childhood
There are two gemoras that require wealth
from a Torah Jew. One is the gemora in Huriyuse 10b, where Rovo demanded from
his students that they achieve wealth, so that they will not be struggling
constantly to keep abreast of financial pressures. The other gemora is Sota
44A, a passage from Shlomo HaMelelch that requires one who marries to first have
a house and a vineyard, in other words, wealth.
First Rovo asked his students if they achieved
proper progress in Torah by learning this and that volume in the Talmud. And
they had learned those volumes. Rovo then asked them if they had wealth, and
they said yes.
Rovo’s disciple Rav Popo, who became
himself eventually one of the greatest rabbis, told Rovo that he had wealth,
and it came from purchasing land. So,
the great rabbis sometimes had wealth. How could such a thing be? People who
must learn day and night, when do they make the wealth?
This question bothered me a long time,
but finally I came up with an idea.
The solution is that a father trains his
child in two directions. One, is to learn a lot of Torah. Two, is to earn a lot
of money. We are talking about young children, so how do they make money? But
the father must see that his child masters a proper amount of Torah, and a
father must see that his child grows into wealth.
This idea is actually, by our present
public-school standards, very strange. Our public-school system, and even our
parochial schools, are designed to educate children in many things that have
nothing to do directly with money. The money, in today’s educational system,
does not go to young children. It does not go to teens. It does not go to
people in college. It does not go to people seeking an advanced degree. At the
end of the line, the person who has spent many years studying this that and the
other thing, may enter the money market and use his education to achieve
earnings and even wealth. But this takes place very far along the road of
education. In fact, those who see money as the result of advanced college
degrees may have to wait years before they see money. And before they see money
after years of studying this and that without earning money, they are actually
forced to pay for the college and the education that they hope will eventually
produce money. And they may be right. If somebody, for instance, spends many
years studying how to be a doctor, when he finally becomes a doctor, he may
make good money. But the money he spent on the colleges, etc. and living for
years without earning but in spending, holds his earning time back for years.
Thus, our idea does not fit in with the
collegiate system. So who is right? The collegiate system or the
train-the-child system?
We know that there are, in America, many
people who came here as adults without knowing how to speak English. And yet,
some of them make good money. How is this possible? They have no college
background, but some of them make good money. An important idea emerges from
this. The collegiate system is not the only way to make money. It is there
because it educates American children to become good Americans, whatever that
means. But if a Jewish child is trained from early age to make money and to
spend even more time on learning Torah, he has learned the moral aspects of
life and the next phase after Torah is money. He doesn’t need the collegiate
system, which in some ways contradicts our system of morality.
Actually, the issue has reached the
Supreme Court of America in Wisconsin vs Yoder, and they ruled in favor of the
Amish that their religious style of training children was more important than
the state’s idea of training children. Here is some of the material:
State v. Yoder 49 Wis. 2d 430 (1971) and
Wisconsin v. Yoder 406 US 205, 32 L Ed 15, 92 S Ct 1526
In this case, the Wisconsin Supreme Court
weighed the state’s interest in educating children against the First Amendment
guarantee of religious freedom. The Court held that a state law requiring
children to attend school full time was unconstitutional because it infringed
on the freedom of the Amish to practice their religion, reversing a Green
County Circuit Court decision. In reaching this decision, the Court
distinguished itself from courts around the country that had upheld compulsory
education. The majority opinion was authored by Chief Justice E. Harold
Hallows. Justice Connor T. Hansen concurred joined by Justices Horace W.
Wilkie, Bruce F. Beilfuss, Leo B. Hanley, and Robert W. Hansen. Justice Nathan
S. Heffernan dissented.
The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme
Court, which affirmed the state Supreme Court’s ruling in a 6-1 decision
authored by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. Justice William O. Douglas
dissented in part from the majority. Justices William H. Rehnquist and Lewis F.
Powell, Jr. did not take part in the case.
In this case, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that Amish parents could
remove their children from public schools after the 8th grade as an exercise of
their right to religious freedom. The Amish separate themselves from modern
society and provide their children with their own system of education
structured in accord with their beliefs. The appellants were the parents of
three teenagers who had attended the New Glarus public schools. The parents
were fined for refusing to enroll the children in the high school in the fall
of 1968. This was in violation of the compulsory school law. The respondent,
the state of Wisconsin, argued that the state had a legitimate interest in
compelling children to attend school and that this outweighed the interference
with religious freedom. In making its decision, the Court weighed the
appellants’ constitutional right to religious freedom** against the state’s
interest in compulsory education. In determining how heavy a burden the statute
placed on the Amish, the Court considered the beliefs of the Amish religion.
Justice Hallows wrote: The period of
adolescence is critical in the religious and cultural development of the child
because at this time the child enters gradually into the fullness of Amish life,
is given responsibilities which would be directly interfered with if he were
compelled to go to high school . . To the Amish, secondary schools. . . teach
an unacceptable value system . . . We view this case as involving solely a
parent’s right of religious freedom to bring up his children as he believes God
dictates. End of Supreme Court ruling for the Amish.
For our purposes, raising Jewish children
to master a lot of Torah and morality, and to earn large sums of money to allow
them to marry and buy a house and property, is exactly what the gemora in Sota
44 teaches. It is Jewish law. It is the Jewish religion. Why should we train
children to learn for many hours things that are remote from Torah and earning
wealth? This seems exactly what the Supreme Court ruled when it sided with the
Amish, also a nation that has its own religious style of morality that
conflicts with the secular American system.
Having said that, I present here a story
I invented about a Jewish child doing exactly the above, learning a lot of
Torah, earning a lot of money, and when he marries, he has the funds to buy a
house and property and live comfortably, exactly as the gemora teaches in
Hurius 10b.
Let us talk about Shimi, a young child
from a farming district, who, as our story begins, is five years old. Shimi’s
father spends time with Shimi to teach him Torah, besides what Shimi learns in
school. But Shimi’s father also teaches his son how to earn money. This is the
crucial factor that will make Shimi an experienced businessman with wealth
after a few years of training from his father. When he approaches the years of
marriage, about seventeen or eighteen years of age, Shimi is prepared to buy a
house and a vineyard, because of his father’s strong training in Torah and
wealth. Let us follow Shimi as he advances in both Torah and wealth.
When Shimi turned five, his father gave
Shimi some fruit from the farm and told him to trade it with his friends in
school. The children soon began to enjoy the trading, as every father and every
farm had various properties that could be sold for profit. Children who made a
few pennies were thrilled, and they wanted more, and more. Thus, the young
children whose fathers trained them in business besides Torah learning were
becoming experienced in business. How did this happen?
One day, Shimi’s father took him to a
house, owned by Shimi’s father’s good friend. The good friend answered the soft
knock of Shimi and noticed who was standing a bit removed from Shimi: it was
his good friend Shimi’s father. The good friend immediately realized that the
purpose of this visit by Shimi as he was observed by Shimi’s father was to
train Shimi, and essentially, to break him into knocking on doors and losing
his fear of strangers. The good friend did his part, and Shimi was full of joy
when he left the house, especially as he swished his fingers into his pocket
where there were a few small coins. To Shimi it was a treasure, and he wanted
more. As time went on, there were more knocking on doors, and more coins
swishing in Shimi’s pocket. But he wanted more and more and more. His father
spent a few months just training Shimi in basic business, to knock on doors, to
feel the coins, to want more. And so things went for a few months.
One day, Shimi’s father gave him a nice
piece of leather, taken from the farm. This time, the father did nothing. Shimi
went out and rapped on several doors before he found someone who wanted to
purchase the leather. The person paid Shimi some coins and took the leather.
Shimi went back full of excitement to his father, but this time, the father was
not happy. “Shimi, that piece of leather was worth $25, and he paid you one
dollar!” Shimi was crushed. He burst out crying. Shimi’s father sat him down
and told him about business.
“Shimi, let me tell you about a friend of
mine, who married into a wealthy family, and was given a very large sum of
money. This money was to support him when he went into business. But my friend
was never trained in business, and had no experience with thieves. So, a clever
crook managed to steal half of his large sum of money. When he realized how
angry his father-in-law would be, he panicked, and in desperation, invested
what money was left in something that he had no experience with. He lost that
too. So you see Shimi, you lost $24 dollars, and you will never forget it. You
will never lose a fortune like my friend did, because you lost $24, but he lost
a huge sum of money that in all likelihood he will never recover. Again, Shimi,
never in your life will you earn something as valuable as when you lost that
$24 dollars. Because it teaches you how to protect every penny and not to make
decisions not rooted in heavy business experience and the knowledge that some
people are thieves. That knowledge will save you a great amount of money. When
you grow up and marry, you will never be ashamed from your mistakes in
business, because you just made the last stupid mistake.”
Not long after this, Shimi’s father took
him for a walk around various properties. Shimi now was very careful and
watched his father and the people he talked to carefully. Shimi listened to the
back and forth as his father struggled with the owner of a property trying to
lower the cost, but his father could not lower the price and turned away. Shimi
asked his father if he wasn’t upset that he had not closed the deal? Shimi’s
father was waiting for that question. He sat Shimi down and explained to him
that in business one must never push the deal beyond a certain point. When two
people begin the final haggling to transfer a property each one wants the deal,
and they know how much to ask for it or pay for it, and within a certain
framework, they know what will probably happen. They also know not to trust
people who offer large sums for an expensive property. It is all part of doing
business. Shimi listened and recorded every word.
Shimi grew and advanced in Torah learning
and making money. He didn’t watch television, play baseball, hang out and do
nothing for a few hours every day. He was always involved with advancing in
Torah and earnings. If he was tired or needed a break he took it, but he knew the
important things and was determined to succeed.
As Shimi grew older he had purchased several
properties. His father had trained him carefully to await the fall of the price
of a property and to bargain down the seller. So he had some good properties,
some he sold and made an immediate profit, and some he used for himself, if
they could develop into a property that created monetary profits. The money he
earned he put away. When he was younger he simply gave his money to his father,
who returned some of it so Shimi would learn the value of money.
One day a wealthy man visited Shimi’s
house. He began talking to Shimi and spent some good time with him asking him
all kinds of questions. Shimi by that time was a sophisticated businessman
besides being an advancing Torah scholar, and he realized that the wealthy man
had come to the house only to see him. He knew that this man had never, as he
recalled, come to the house, surely not to visit him. But he was not the
slightest bit nervous. What could the wealthy man want from him? Surely it
isn’t money. And if he wanted something, Shimi would just sit there until he
decided to spill the beans. But the man finally smiled broadly and said that he
enjoyed talking to Shimi very much but now he had to leave. When he left, Shimi
noticed that his parents were very excited, but they did not tell Shimi
anything.
A
week later the wealthy man returned together with a prominent Rov. Again, they
focused their attention on Shimi and again they were both pleased. This time
after they left, Shimi’s parents took him into a room and told him what was
happening.
The wealthy man was the son of the
prominent Rov. The prominent Rov was getting along in years and was about to
retire from his position at a large shull. The wealthy man also had a daughter
who it seemed was exactly what Shimi’s parents were interested in for Shimi.
Therefore, the wealthy man and the prominent Rov came to Shimi’s parents with
the following proposal. Shimi would marry the daughter of the wealthy man. In
the interim the community wanted to build another shull not far from Shimi’s
parents and Shimi would be the Rov of that shull. If all worked out well and
people were satisfied with Shimi for the next few years, then when the elderly
Rov retired, his shull would go to Shimi.
Furthermore, the wealthy man completely
put at Shimi’s disposal what he suggested as a salary for the two shulls. He
also agreed to leave it to Shimi if he wanted a salary at all. He knew that
Shimi did not need money from a shull, as he was known as a successful businessman.
Shimi even owned a lovely house with a vineyard which was obviously being
groomed for Shimi’s personal use when he married.
Shimi would go into areas with small
value in houses and property, buy up a few properties and houses, and encourage
people to buy there. As more people came there, prices rose. Shimi would make
Torah schools for children and staff them with excellent teachers and Torah
scholars. More people would then come. Gradually, the value of the houses and
the land rose, which brought Shimi financial profit and also great spiritual
satisfaction. Once the Yeshivas and schools became well known for providing the
high level of Torah learning and Derech Erets that everyone wanted, more and
more parents began to move into that district and enroll their children in the
schools there. Children went there for some years and when they reached marital
age there were people there who wanted such students.
My dear friend. All of this is as far as
I know pure fiction. My question to you is: Why is it just fiction? Why can’t
your child and my child grow up wealthy in Torah and money? Isn’t this what the
gemora Huriuse 10b and Sota 44a demand and require from everyone?
So far we have made a story about a child
going to a boy’s Yeshiva and succeeding in Torah and money. But what do we do
about ladies? Doesn’t everybody know about the Aishess Chayil, the woman of
valor, who supports her husband with her hard work and has various businesses? Yes,
we believe in the written Torah, and know about “the woman of valor, who can
find her?” Her many jobs bring success and wealth to her entire family while
her husband learns Torah with the elders of the city.
The Torah is pointing the way for men and
women to become strong in Torah and wealth. What are we waiting for?
Our previous discussion was about
teaching children Torah and wealth. Teaching children Torah, ideally by a
parent, achieves the maximum connection between teacher and student, a parent
and his child. The mother can surely connect with her daughter. We mentioned
before how the “woman of valor” had many businesses and supported her entire
family comfortably while her husband sat with the Elders of the Community
studying Torah. In my family, my wife supports all of us including some funds
for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
I think I mentioned before that several prominent
teachers of children in elementary school told me that our schools have say
four out of 25 students who despite government grants and efforts by family
cannot succeed in our Yeshiva schools.
A dear friend has spent much time
studying the tragedy of students in Yeshiva who at about the age of sixteen
become involved with drugs, sometimes with fatal results, HaShem Yerachem. Another
dear friend who teaches for many years in a major Yeshiva told me that in
Monsey two boys are buried after they killed themselves.
This, that our children are becoming
destroyed in our Yeshivas, is something that requires some thought, obviously.
One person said that a problem with our students is that there is a great
emphasis on producing those who learn deeply with complicated Talmudic studies.
Not every child is able to do that. Do we tolerate a child who is not
comfortable with the deepest lomduse?
A parent who has a problem child has a
choice. Let the child be lost and nobody knows how lost. Or find a school that
is special and let the child attend it. This costs a fortune. Who can afford
it? Who can afford a lost or broken child?
I want to say that the system of
education in America insists on adding many things to the program that are of
no value to the child. This was the theme of the Supreme Court case about the
Amish in Wisconsin. This set the ground for Torah Jews who want Torah and
wealth for their children.
But let us think carefully what the next
step is. I have ten children and I have succeeded with my own flock. But there
is a whole world out there. What can we do to put our children on the right
track, something that requires several tracks, as not all children are the
same.
We have discussed in the previous pages
problems and solutions. I want to present the problems of children growing up
to threaten their lives or sometimes actually over-dosing and dying. I want to
present the most prevalent problems of some children in a large class who
cannot succeed properly in that learning environment. That is the problem. What
is the solution?
Our final chapter here will be: Let every
child succeed. Let us now begin:
Let Every Child Succeed
When those of us who
keep up with the news, the good and the bad news, and come across the title of
this article, Let Every Child Succeed, they may be turned away and even angry
that anyone can be so ignorant as to claim that every child can succeed. So let
us go slowly and steadily. Just keep
your shirt on and you may find some good ideas here. Now, if in the
class with 25 students four are probably going to fail, and we save one child,
we are surely doing the right thing. But I am proposing saving all of the
children. Now, either I am making a ridiculous mistake, or else, I am onto
something. In our work suggesting problem after problem I supplied solutions.
So, I would like to have my ideas here at least listened to, and maybe, who
knows?
Here is idea number
one. This idea opens a door of great possibilities. If we are right about idea
number one, we not only will find that there is here a treasure of ideas for
many if not the majority of all students and all backgrounds. But we are
suggesting that the failures of our students in schools are not the fault of
the students at all. It is the fault of the educational model a school prepares
for its children. The school prepares a very narrow view for the child of life,
a view so narrow that some students, in order to win passing grades, will
struggle to obey the teachers and their wrong ideas. And some students will
just give up and take a loss on life. What we are saying is that we want to
know what the underlying needs of all people are, and once we discern our first
idea underlying needs of all people, we begin to sense that we are about to
open a door, and nobody at this point knows what the door hides. We want to
find out.
Okay, what is our
first idea? Our first idea is an effort at knowing the machinery of the human
being. What is the mechanism within people that causes them to think ideas that
can bring them happiness, and what are the ideas that cause them to turn off?
Inevitably, these
questions require us to think beyond what we have been trained to do, because
our training is probably something that has no true source or it has a source
that serves only a limited range. We want range.
We come to our first
challenge. There are forces within us that are related to the infinite and
forces that are related to the finite. If we begin to talk about the infinite,
we must admit that we talk about the infinite with finite words and
clarifications. Is this not a contradiction?
But we escape this
trap when we realize that we are religious people created by heaven. Heaven
knows how to create people who relate to heaven and earth, because we are all
possessed of an infinite heavenly soul, and a mind that is geared to the
finite. Heaven created us this way, so it must be central to us. Let us not
forget the beginning of the bible, “In the beginning G‑d created the heaven and
the earth.” The exact translation of that phrase is “In the beginning of ___ G‑d
created the heaven and the earth.” “In the beginning of ____?” In the beginning
of what?
That sentence is
confusing and missing something. But it is the first passage in the Torah. We
can take it or leave it. If we take it, we accept that we have within us heaven
and earth, the infinite and the finite. And furthermore, we have within us “in
the beginning of” which means nothing, but it is the most powerful statement.
It says that there are infinite knowledge and finite knowledge, and there is
something else, something that is beyond the infinite and the finite. But it is
there and it is us.
For our purposes, we
want to know what forces guide us in our earthly sojourn with a heavenly soul.
And we note that we have the heavenly infinite to pray to HaShem and we have
the this-world finite to deal with earthly matters. And we have a secret
mechanism “beginning of ___” that is a secret. But it is advertised as being
there and being real. So it must be important. How important? Maybe it means to
tell us that all human beings can easily deal with heavenly infinite and worldly
finite. But the missing word in the first passage of the biblical Torah is
there for us to notice it, and to adjust our lives accordingly, whatever that
means. But it means we have to think about it
Well, what do I
think about it?
Let us say what we
know and what we don’t know. We know that there is heaven and there is earth.
We also know that there is a third dimension which is beyond finite and
infinite knowledge per se. But the missing words in the first passage in the
Torah is very important. But if we don’t have the source to understand it, of
what good is it?
Perhaps it is
appropriate to mention a teaching in the Zohar. The Zohar says that there are
revealed teachings of the Torah and there are hidden teachings of the Torah. This
is true in the pure Kabbalistic realm, that some achieve fantastic revelations,
as Moshe Rabbeinu did, and some achieve lesser revelations. But HaShem created
the world and the Torah for all Jews. Every Jew has a right to seek knowledge
and Torah. Sometimes he struggles to understand something in his personal life
that is not based on some Kabbalistic teaching. And after he struggles, he
suddenly realizes the solution. This is crucial for parents, for people with
businesses, and for all people who need good advice.
Heaven and earth are
two separate dimensions that we read about and understand to a degree. But the
missing word in the first passage of the Torah tells us nothing. But it is the
first passage of the Torah, and the Torah was for all Jews to study. What
missing word was put there for all Jews to realize and recognize? Because all
Jews have the power to struggle to understand and merit divine help and
guidance, some in the deepest levels of mysticism, and some in the ability to
raise children, and some with ways to earn a living. There is heaven and there
is earth. And above all of this is HaShem. He is above the Torah and is the
missing letter, because He is everything for all who study the Torah and
struggle to be good Jews.
Let us now turn once
again to our efforts to know the secrets of the system of humanity.
The fact is, that
most of it is spelled out very clearly for us to begin knowing it. The gemora
in Berochose 35B discusses how people are supposed to conduct their lives.
People live in this world and have to earn a living, and yet are obligated to
learn Torah. The Shulchan Aruch teaches laws of the daily prayers. It then
teaches laws for people who finish prayers and now go out to study Torah and to
make a living. The gemora, and the Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim, and the rabbis
in Pirkei Avoth, state clearly and emphatically that a Jewish man must devote
much time to learning Torah, but if he does not have a job to earn money, he
will end up a thief. Rambam mentions that a person can learn nine hours a day
and work three hours a day. The problem with that is who can earn in three
hours what many people earn in eight hours? But earlier we have presented our
idea that a child must begin earning very early in his life, perhaps when his
father trains him to make money. Such a child after years of doing business,
should have saved up enough money to buy a house and make a vineyard and more.
Thus, great rabbis who devoted their time to learning were also wealthy. How
could that be? Because they began their lives very early, as children, taught
by their fathers.
A farmer once said
that to be a farmer you have to begin as a child. A doctor once said that a
child is designed to sense new things and to absorb them, but a child is not
designed to review and review and create new understanding of his material. A
child is thus designed to succeed with new things. An adult, on the other hand,
is designed to study deeply what he learned already, but is not adapt so much
in learning brand new things.
An adult thus rides
on the success of his childhood. What the child has absorbed and liked is
continued by the adult. But the adult is not designed to readily adapt new
things. But those things the adult has adapted from childhood stay with the
adult and he can think again and again about what he learned earlier in his
life. And something new can emerge from it. But the child is busy picking up
new things and absorbing them. He is not designed to review and review new
things which are becoming old things. After he enters adulthood, that is the
time to think deeply about earlier thoughts.
Thus, childhood is
crucial for young and old. The young can only really deal with new things as a
child. An adult can only really deal with deeper things if he learned them as a
child. But if he is fifty years old and studies something he learned when he
was thirty, that is hard going.
What we are driving
at is that life centers on children. An adult who never utilized his childhood
to seek out new thoughts, will probably never obtain them in a way to really
understand them and their potential. The farmer who said that only a child can
be a farmer might have added, “and not just farmers.”
This brings us to
another aspect of success. A child has potential an adult does not have. But a
child is just that, a child. A child has a potential perhaps denied to an
adult. But what child can pop out of his crib and become successful? A child
achieves potential from parents. This brings us to the delicate and frightening
topic of how to raise a child. The parent wants to have authority. The child is
not born with the obedience to senior people, even parents. How does the father
inculcate respect for himself in his child? If we assume that a child is not
born with the habit of being a perfect child to a parent, and we go further
that a child may behave or misbehave, isn’t it necessary to crack down and to
force the child to behave? On the other hand, any attempt to force a child
against his will is very dangerous. The solution is to be a father who presents
his child opportunities to achieve what the child wants.
Let us go back to
our earlier story of Shimi, a boy raised by father to succeed in learning Torah
and in business. Shimi had a glorious future all ready for him when he was just
ready to get married before he was twenty years old. The entire story is my
fiction, but, why does it have to be fiction?
Shimi’s father that
we invented was a farmer. He trained little Shimi from the age of five to
succeed in the Torah that he learned in school, and to succeed in business
trained by his father. Shimi spent more time learning Torah than doing
business, but he succeeded brilliantly in both endeavors. This is taught in the
Gemora Bovo Basro 35A and the Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim about the laws of
going to work after one prays in the morning and does some Torah studying.
What was the key,
the secret to Shimi’s wonderful success? Shimi was just a little kid, five
years old, and his father began teaching him business. “Shimi, here are some
fruits from the farm. Take them to school and trade them with some friends for
their fruits or other things.” The key is: Shimi obeyed and came home with some
nice things from his friends in school. His father and mother made a big fuss
about it. “Such lovely pears! Tasty looking nuts!” A child who gets that kind
of a response is going to continue selling the next day.
After a while of
this minor selling came a new level of selling. Shimi’s father took him to a
house (the house of Shimi’s father’s good friend.) Shimi was scared, but his
father was standing behind him. He went and rapped on the door. Somebody
answered the door and sees a five-year-old kid. What is this? He notices a man
standing there, and realizes that this is a setup from his good friend Shimi’s
father. Well, he puts his hand into his pocket and takes out some money and
pays for whatever Shimi brought to sell. Can we imagine how happy Shimi was
when he felt those coins swishing around in his pocket? One thing for sure, he
wanted more. And so it went.
The key to raising
children is to find what they would like, would appreciate, with the following
caveat: They must be led to do something that can bring them success, specifically,
financial success. This can work well in a farming community. But all
communities are not the same, and sometimes people must struggle to find a way
to reach their children and train them in Torah and learning.
To bring our
discussion up to date: Those of us in the ultra-Orthodox community are
exploding population-wise. Property in ultra-Orthodox communities that are
being torn down to build on them something much more expensive can go for at
least a million dollars a house. When you realize that an ultra-Orthodox family
can easily have ten plus children and some have much more, you realize that
finding a place for the family to live in not a simple matter. To buy houses in
an area filled with established people is prohibitive financially. So some groups
of Ultra-Orthodox go searching for very cheap land, usually somewhat removed
from established communities, and if very few people live there, the price is
surely cheaper. If a large group of people want to buy up the land for those
easy prices, go for it!
The ultra-Orthodox
marry off their children very early, preferably before the age of twenty. The
parents do all of the work. After they find a match for their child, they give
the choice to the child. If and when it is accepted there are the ceremonies to
establish a marriage. The husband then leaves town until the wedding. My
nephews leave the country. The early settlers in this cheap community buy in at
bargain prices. Gradually, the prices rise.
Where do people in
these new communities work? People may do farming, do away with driving, and
get some exercise working the farm. There are those who prefer farming or some
other work without driving. A person can establish a business so people come to
him to fix a car, to manufacture various things, etc.
Ideally, the
purchase of a large parcel of property requires a leader, such as when a
Hassidic group goes somewhere suggested by their leader. If a group of
individuals finds a property and moves in, and there is no clear director, we
have a situation similar to partnership. And partnership is often a problem.
But in life there are many situations and many opportunities and many problems.
If people have to have new land at the right price, they have to figure out a
way to deal with partners. It is not perfect, but being without a house is also
not perfect.
We have discussed
the physical purchase of a house. But we live in a country that has laws. Some
of these laws give the power of the state over children. This can clash with
the religious values of deeply religious people.
Religious
communities must keep in mind the Supreme Court Case about Wisconsin and the
Amish, which was won handily by the Amish, but only after a lengthy battle
between various courts. We wrote about it above.
For our purposes, raising Jewish children
to master a lot of Torah and morality, and to earn large sums of money to allow
them to marry and buy a house and property, is exactly what the gemora in Sota
44 teaches. It is Jewish law. It is the Jewish religion. Why should we train children
to learn for many hours things that are remote from Torah and earning wealth?
This seems exactly what the Supreme Court ruled when it sided with the Amish,
also a nation that has its own religious style of morality that conflicts with
the secular American system.
We repeat what we said previously, that a
percentage of school children fail, and some take dangerous drugs and some die
from these drugs. Finding a program that offers many avenues to prosper in
life, is a matter of life and death for some children. For others it is a
question of happiness or suffering. Let us be open to the idea of making
programs where many types of children can find their way. Give everyone a
chance. If we wish it, we can find the solutions we need.
In our fictitious story about Shimi, his
father was a farmer and he was raised to sell items from the farm and then to
buy properties near the farm district. Eventually, these properties once barren
of people became filled with people because Shimi had the money and spiritual
strength to build schools for them that taught things critical for his kind of
community.
If a person is raised and taught by his
father, he can become a Shimi. But some children have other needs. Some can
make a living mastering electronics, or selling appliances, etc. and etc. The
key is to never shut the door. Keep it wide open. And encourage every child to
learn what makes them happy. Today we have huge businesses that sell
everything. A child should be encouraged to find out something that can turn
profitable for him, and where to get the training for it. The world is ready
for this. The question is if the schools are ready for this. If the community
is Amish or Jewish Orthodox, the Supreme Court will back them in their efforts
to train the children in morality. I hope it won’t be an expensive court case.
The bible begins with the story of
Creation. In the beginning of ___ G‑d created the heaven and the earth. We
explained that there are three factors taught here. One the heaven, or the
infinite. Two is the earth, or the finite. And the third level of the missing
word in “the beginning of___”. This is the hidden lessons that are revealed
miraculously to those who deserve to understand. This missing word is HaShem, who
is always available to help a Jew struggling with a problem. We need this
knowledge for ourselves, and for our children. Let us wish everyone success in
understanding what life has to offer them and their children and their
families. One who struggles to know, merits divine guidance.
