What could you accept in terms of "taking"

Tamiri

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 3:41 am

After the poll on clothing, I am curious what people WILL take from others without having an issue with it. What is considered okay, if taking clothes is not. You can respond anonymously.

greentiger

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 3:47 am

Maybe you can make this a mulitple choice poll?

Tamiri

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 3:49 am

I put in three or four poll lines, but it only accepted the first two. Any reason why? Can someone tell me? What do you think should go on the next lines? I had combos: Wic etc WITH used clothing, and WIC etc WITHOUT used clothing

HooRYou

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 3:49 am

I think it depends on your circumstances. I am not embarrassed about taking clothes and I have friends I regularly swap with. Have I taken other things? Sure but only when I really needed them. Like the time I was out of work and the company I was working for hadn't paid salaries in a few months (they went bankrupt, it was terrible). I took unemployment and even took some tzadakah (B"H for Kollel America) to make Y"T while waiting for unemploment to kick in. Does this make me a taker? Probably some will see it as such but all of these services are available for a reason, for people who really need them. IF you take when you really need are you a taker? I don't think so. Besides, most people give back in a different way like fund raising or collecting from local pushkas for the org that helped them.

catonmylap

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 3:56 am

Accepting clothing that fits you are your kids, that you are going to wear is perfectly normal and okay.

I should hope that I/we would never be a situation to qualify for wic etc. They are for very very poor people. If I qualified, I would probably need to take it keep from starving. I don't think it's morally right to learn in kollel and take wic or to be purposely unemployed so you can take public assistance...

Tamiri

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 3:59 am

What constitutes taking from others and it thus "not to be done"?

Tamiri

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 4:00 am

I upgraded the poll, please forgive me for duplicate but I am not so poll savvy.

The thread was merged with my new poll, but the now poll got lost in the merging. I don't think we need the poll anymore, I forgot what the options were. embarrassed

Last edited by Tamiri on Tue, Jul 22 2008, 11:23 am; edited 1 time in total

grin

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 4:06 am

maybe ask the mod's the delete the original (or change the thread title on your own to s/t like "please ignore")

catonmylap

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 4:06 am

The poll is what you would take or what is wrong to take??

zufriedene

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 4:06 am

what bothers me is the extravagance that ppl spread out with sending 75 plates of mishloach manos and then stand in line for kimcha dpischa.
Dont splurge on mishloche monos, ceratinly not 75 plates and you still might need help preparing for pesach because the expenses are enormous, but at least dont out do your budget with showing off.
sometimes, at the time of a simcha or yuntif, u'r budget isnt enough and u need help to pull thru, or to pay for orthodontics or eyeglasses for three children at the same time.
BUt why must your children be the first ones to have a digital camera on the class field trip??
Its okay to ask for help, to receive help. but do play fair.

grin

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 4:08 am

I don't understand - do we check the one we would take or the one we wouldn't? and you can only check one.
(I want to check both used clothing and a g'mach in event of unemployment.)

Last edited by grin on Mon, Jul 21 2008, 4:13 am; edited 1 time in total

Tamiri

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 4:09 am

Check what you could easily take. It's the way a poll is , which is why they are totally unreliable in the first place. You can't write what you really want to, you are swayed by what the poll taker wants you to say!

Tamiri

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 4:11 am

Last edited by Tamiri on Tue, Jul 22 2008, 11:24 am; edited 1 time in total

freidasima

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 4:18 am

First of all the premise is difficult for me to absorb. "Charity", "Taking" and "not to be done" are three different things.

This is a spinoff from the used clothing thread so let's start with that. Not necessarily clothing from family, friends, etc, but from a thrift shop which sells for charity, such as Wizo etc. here in EY. What exactly is wrong with that? It's like giving zedaka, not taking zedaka as all proceeds other than overhead of the WIZO store go for education and welfare of women and children here in EY...I've done it all, taken from friends, neighbors, bought in thrift shops - heck my entire childhood wardrobe was bought by my mother either from the 57th street thrift shop near where she worked or hand me downs from friends kids. Is that bad? I had an Oscar de la Renta white blouse in the early 1970s for Elementary school graduation and let me tell you had my parents had to buy me a blouse from a store it would have been bargain basement's best...and my parents friends kids had gorgeous clothes, much nicer than my parents could have afforded for me, and I was so happy to have these beautiful things that their 14 and 16 year old daughters had outgrown which for me, at 12 were a dream of shabbos dresses... I also passed these things on to my younger cousins and they must have passed them on as well, just as I still have my children's baby things and pass them out to new mothers who usually need the tiny tiny sizes only for about six weeks, they must have gone through 40 babies already, ken yirbu! And I pass on my own things that I "outgrow" (diet, Freidasima, diet!)

So I take, and I give when it comes to clothes. Doesn't feel like charity, just the opposite.

Furniture? I've taken from the incinerator rooms in buildings I lived in as a kid (in fact in our living room we have this tiny bookcase that my parents schlepped from America 35 years ago that my grandmother, the "famous" Freidasima" rescued from the incinerator room in our building 45 years ago! Soon it will be an antique...it's already been painted about six different colors over the years... I've also given lots of our used stuff that we didn't know how to fix but that so many other people with "better" hands than us would know what to do with..."Meir Panim" comes regularly to our neighborhood to collect used furniture and when we got a new fridge years ago we gave the broken one to them as they said they would try to repair it and give it to a family that needed a very old fridge and if not, they would sell the parts and give the proceeds to zedaka.

So we take, and we give.

Unemployment. Yes, there were five months many many years ago when dh was between jobs until a teaching job opened up in September as a stopgap, but it was Pesach and the educational establishment where hd had worked had suddenly bankrupted (why didn't anyone know a Talansky in those days!) and as we were eligible and we had little kids and couldn't have lived without those five months of unemployment, he took it.

He had also paid bituach leumi for years before and was getting back what we were legally entitled to. Is that "charity"? I don't think so. It's legal and allowed.

Everything is relative. If you have kids to feed, and are suddenly in a situation where you can't make it without help, you aren't going to let your kids starve. Guess what, if you have to, you will also steal food for your children, yes you will, not to see them starve, if we take it to an extreme. So let's not get all huffy about taking food stamps, medicaid etc. if you need to.

the problem is "milechatchila" and "bediavad", meaning are you planning to live your life like that milechatchila, always only taking and not giving in kind? Are you having a large family, planning to have them live on food stamps forever with no one working, and not using the food stamp possibility as a backup if necessary but not "milechatchila"? That's a different kettle of fish.

What is "not to be done"?...well there are these three yehareg ve'al yaavor's that we know...but in dire situations I can see doing everything to keep your children alive, to keep them from starving etc.

Let me end with a very very extreme example. Youngest dd has an acquaintance in school whose brother needed a kidney. Transplant list here in EY is very long and he would not have lived to get one. they had money and went to China and bought one and had the transplant there. Yes, they knew that it would be taken from a convict or someone being executed for some kind of crime, yes they knew that there was a big moral dilemma involved. No they aren't frum and yes they knew however that it would be from a non Jew hence the dilemma is moral but less halachic.

And yes, they went to China and did what they did and this Jewish young man is alive and well back in EY. As I wrote, parents, to keep their children alive, will do almost anything. And "take" almost anything if necessary.

The question once again, to me is whether there is equal giving and taking in kind and whether you do it "bediavad" or "milechatchila".

Tamiri

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 4:30 am

I don't think that used clothing is anything but doing the world (and the giver and the recipient) a favor.

Ruchel

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 7:19 am

what's number 2?

Tamiri

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 7:21 am

It's basically welfare, under more politically correct names. What people take because they can't feed their families (WIC), can't afford housing (Section 8) and can't afford medical insurance (medicare). I want to know if taking those is okay, but taking used clothing is not (based on the thread, of course).

Ruchel

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 7:49 am

aren't these things by the person's name? how would you borrow it?

Lady Godiva

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 9:42 am

I think that the negative connotation of "taking" can be applied to either when an individual is unemployed due to laziness and accepts anything and everything he or she can possibly "take" or to those who make a lot of money off the books and "take" government and personal handouts just because it's available for the "taking". Other than that, if a hardworking person has the need to supplement in order to provide for the family, I think that "taking" in that case would not be a derogatory action but a matter of necessity.

Starhavah

Mon, Jul 21 2008, 11:34 am

This is an interesting thread. A similar question came up recently in shul. I go to a Young Israel and none of the families are full-time learners (that I know of). Most of the families have at least one BT parent in fact. The Rabbi and Rebbitzin are very lomdish people. The have 11 kids the youngest of whom is about 10, so most of them are grown. Of the three or four who are married, one of the boys is a full time learner (in a Kollel, planning on staying for life) and the others are all working or in graduate school. The one who is in both dental school and learning for smicha I am putting in the "graduate school" category (since he will be supporting himself one day). My Rav is talmid of Rav Aaron Solevetchic (spelling). Anyway, you see the kind of shul it is. My Rav is supporting his son who wants to be a full time learner, but the rumor (and I did not hear this from either the Rav or the Rebbetzin) is that they feel he has made an inappropriate choice. They are happy to support children while they get smicha and go through college/graduate school but they feel there should be an end to relying on Mommy and Tatty's money. Ok, now we get to the part where it is like the thread here. One of the congregants asked the Rav if it is really tzedakah to give money to someone who is a full-time learner and wants money to throw a wedding for his daughter. The reasoning that it might not be tzedakah is that the family is not doing their hishtadlut because the father is a full-time learner and the mother is home raising children. Now the asker of this question is FFB but very modern. Both she and her husband work (although she works very part-time). They have one child who is in kindergarten, but I am sure that they are planning on limiting their family size (although perhaps not to one).

So if you are talking about a full-time learner do the answers to the above change? Is it only tzedakah if the family needing help are doing everything possible to support themselves? One of the arguments here is that the highest level of Maimonides 8 levels of charity is to help someone get a job *so they will not need to rely on tzedakah any longer* and that requirement is not being fulfilled here because a life long learner will always need more help financially.

I am NOT challenging those who are full-time learners! I am not commenting on that at all. I am only relaying a conversation that S/O ELSE brought up in shul that bears on this. PLEASE do not flame me.

Star Havah