What Am I Missing? Seriously.

[onionsoupmix]

Here is link #1. It is about Lakewood Yeshivos in Crisis. This is the 2nd or 3rd school to shut down due to lack of funding.

Here is link #2. It is about how one single Lakewood  fundraising rally resulted in  $250,000.00 for Shalom Rubashkin's  attorneys.

How does this work? I don't get it. What am I missing?

Comments

crime

[ext_242767]

crime pays

[buildin_a_bayis]

I actually just left a comment on the second website, asking exactly that. Good point. I wonder if it will be published.

What are you missing?

[ext_227187]

You could go even further. Drive up and down the nice streets in Lakewood and take a look at the mansions and the really nice cars parked in the driveway. What about the $3000 sheitls and $1000 Shabbos suits? The money is there but the priorities aren't.

Re: What are you missing?

[onionsoupmix]

So what does that mean? These people don't care about this particular school? Or education is not a priority for them?

Or no one has made an asifah? Or it's not as cool to donate to a criminal as to a yeshiva? Is the whole rubashkin funding kind of like a mass cult thing?

[sethg_prime]

If these yeshivos are in crisis because they have not made reasonable budgets, then a sensible donor should not give them money until their financial plans are in order. Perhaps a lot of donors are unwilling to give money to the yeshivas until they are confident that those yeshivas have some prospect for being stable in the long term.

Why the donors are willing to give to Rubashkin’s defense is, of course, a different question.

either way...

[anonymous]

1) If you not coming at it from the halachic perspective - and why would you? After all it's all a made-up game anyways! - then one can simply say that when people DONATE, they have the right to choose the object of their largess without having to worry that something else may also be a worthy cause, or even a more worthy cause. People give to whatever inspires THEM, and you can give to whatever inspires YOU.

2) If one was to think about it from the halachic perspective, then one would say that עניי עירך קודמים doesn't apply here, because giving money to a struggling chedr is not a life-sustaining necessity, but in Rubashkin's case you are literally talking about the man's very life!

Either way, what's your issue?

- cfkaMP

Re: either way...

[onionsoupmix]

Of course people can give to what inspires them, I am just wondering why giving money to defend a felon is more inspiring than sustaining a school.

And why is saving SMR literally saving his life, again? Is he up for the death penalty?

Re: either way...

[anonymous]

hmmm... 27 years in the slammer for a 51 yo man is as good as death, r"l. besides, he is not sitting in camp fed, his safety is at least in question.

As to the "defend a felon" bullshit: In case you haven't been exposed to this novel idea in Law School, here in the US, people have a right to appeal and to due process under the law. Their relatives and friends also have a complete right (and even a moral obligation) to assist them to the best of their ability. This is deemed so important that even our tax dollars go to pay for public defenders for murderers and rapists! (This while the homeless languish on the sidewalks and the elderly spend their food pennies on the unfordable drugs).

So basically you have trouble understanding why the cause of saving a life of a fellow Jew and a father of 10 (who was given a virtual life sentence for forging some invoices) inspire someone more than supporting one of the hundreds of struggling Jewish schools? Is that what's troubling you?

- cfkaMP

Re: either way...

[onionsoupmix]

Did you ever stop and wonder why his attorneys aren't handling the appeal pro bono? Did you ever think that maybe this cause isn't quite all you think it is?