[Avodah] Fwd: re: Who Is Poor On Purim?

[Micha Berger]

: Someone sent me the following, and for some reason thinks that it reveals
: infomation about which side of the scholarship system he is on, so he
: asked for anonymity.

: R' Ben Waxman quoted an anonymous "Joe", who asked:

:> We send our children to day school almost completely on
:> scholarship. ...
:> ...
:> Let me add one thing: my wife insists that we should keep the
:> money and we do need it as we have many expenses that we ought to
:> pay but cannot. I insist that we are not poor, and halacha thus
:> simply prohibits us from taking this money on Purim, even as what
:> is now close to an extra pay check would help make ends meet.

: Let me begin by asking the chevra to focus on the definition of "who is
: poor" (as the thread title indicates) and let's not get sidetracked into
: discussions about the "Tuition Crisis".

: That said, I do not understand Joe's logic, and I side with his rabbi
: and wife. By his own account, "we have many expenses that we ought to
: pay but cannot." If so, then why does he make an exception for the day
: school scholarship?

: He writes, "I insist that we are not poor, and halacha thus simply
: prohibits us from taking this money on Purim." If so, then how does he
: justify taking communal funds to pay for his day school tuition?

: What do others think? Is paying yeshiva tuition different from paying
: the rent or the electricity or the grocery, that one can accept communal
: funds to help pay for the tuition but not for the others?

Li nir'eh that while the father has primary duty to educate a child, one
might argue that if this is for some reason impossible, there is a chiyuv
of chinukh that falls to the qehillah beyond the chiyuv of tzedaqah. See
Rashi on "veshinantam levanekha" (Dev' 6:7) -- "eilu talmidekha", and
then proofs that "banim" is often used to mean "talmidim". A school has
a chiyuv to educate its talmidim.

Second, money is fungable. Is there a real difference between a
scholarship that frees up tuition money so that the family can pay
for home heating fuel, or tzedaqah that pays for the fuel, freeing up
more money for tuition? This may have been what the emailer meant,
but scholarship /is/ tzedaqah, just like any other; it just happens
to be a more socially acceptable way of receiving it. Willingness to
accept something called a "scholarship rather than "tzedaqah", may
prove that it's more about simple ego than the more positive ideals of
self-sufficiency and freeing up tzedaqah for needier people.

Gut Voch!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Weeds are flowers too
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