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<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>On Fri,
Dec 06, 2013, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi wrote:<BR>: Vayigash<BR>: the land was
exhausted due to the famine [47:13]<BR>: <BR>: Yosef collected all the money
in Egypt and surrounding countries [47:14] as<BR>: payment for food
[Rashi]<BR>...<BR>: Was this the action of a despot or the greatest programme
in education? For<BR>: what better teaches than the experience of poverty and
vulnerability?<BR><BR>It sounds to me like Yoseif decided that a time in which
the majority<BR>of the country was threatened by death by starvation,
socialism was the<BR>correct course of action. It wasn't education or tyrrany,
but a shift<BR>in economic philosophy in an extreme
situation.<BR><BR><BR>Tir'u baTov!<BR>-Micha<BR><BR>CC-ing Zev and RnTK, just
because life is slow.... <grin><BR><BR>-- <BR>Micha
Berger
<BR>micha@aishdas.org
<BR><BR></FONT></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<DIV>>>>></DIV>
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<DIV>Life is not slow for me right now but I can't resist a good poke.
Socialism doesn't work at any time, not times of famine or catastrophe,
never. In times of wealth it produces poverty and in times of poverty it
produces utter devastation and mass starvation. Stockpiling food for
emergencies a la FEMA isn't socialism. (But expropriating property
is.)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Yosef let people keep 80% of what they produced. Halavai we should
have such "socialism" in America, with only a 20% tax rate!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>I have to admit that it long bothered me that Yosef, such a wise man,
would have impoverished a whole country. But then I come back to: he
didn't. He gave the farmers seed, and let them re-establish themselves
after the famine ended. </DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But ps I recently read somewhere -- maybe on Avodah? I don't remember --
that under Yosef, a great deal of wealth flowed into Pharoah's coffers, not
only from Egyptians but from surrounding countries, so that the Bnei
Yisrael would be able to take it all with them when they left -- in fulfillment
of Hashem's promise to Avraham that they would leave Egypt with great
wealth.</DIV>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><B><BR>--Toby Katz</FONT><FONT lang=0 color=#ffffff size=2
face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><BR>..</FONT><FONT lang=0
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PTSIZE="10"><BR>=============</B><BR><BR><BR>-------------------------------------------------------------------
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