Question about tzedaka & vacation

JoyInTheMorning

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 12:45 pm

amother wrote:

Joyinthemorning, bungalows that are in a camp are including food In the price. The price for a bungalow with food is between $1500-$2000 a week. So that's about $15,000 for the summer.

So, it's a kind of a sleepaway camp that also has bungalows for families, even for families whose parents are not working in the camp? And the family has all meals in the camp dining hall? I never heard of such a thing. Is it the same price if there are two kids or ten?

I'm curious, but whatever the answer, the thought of a family asking others to fund their summer vacations to the tune of $15K still seems very wrong to me.

JoyInTheMorning

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 12:49 pm

Shishkabob, it is not jealousy. I would never, ever want to be in the position of having to ask others for money, and I hope I never will be.

But you can't expect families like my own -- where we never go on vacation, and don't even send kids to day camp, let alone sleepaway camp, and kids start spending their summers working once they hit their teens, but where, thank God, we are able to pay tuition in full -- to fund other people's vacations, no matter what these other people have decided they're entitled to. You've got to realize that this can't be right.

JoyInTheMorning

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 12:52 pm

amother wrote:

Yes it's a sleepaway camp that have bungalows for families to rent. Theses a family dining room. The price depends on how big your family is. All chassidish camps have this. Don't know about non chassidish though.

Okay, I think in retrospect that I've seen this. Down the road from the bungalow colony that we went to when I was growing up, there was a Chassidish bungalow colony / camp. That is, they said they were a camp, but it looked like a bungalow colony from all the families and babies and toddlers and preschoolers that we saw.

Those bungalows were horrendous. I can't imagine anyone paying $15K to rent those for a summer, even with food.

ShishKabob

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 12:54 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

I totally hear you. I'm in the same position like you. I agree, it does not look right. My part is to be dan l'kaf zchus, to be satisfied with what I have and with what I don't have. Smile

The part of doing the right thing of accepting tzeddaka and going on vacation is the part that this particular family has to decide. I am not going to be in a better position, monetarily if I become upset or angry at this family. I am going to be a more bitter person though.

Amarante

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 12:59 pm

ShishKabob wrote:

I totally hear you. I'm in the same position like you. I agree, it does not look right. My part is to be dan l'kaf zchus, to be satisfied with what I have and with what I don't have. Smile

I thought the issue was whether one should feel guilty about not contributing money for someone’s vacation.

I am not in charge of other people’s money so they can give to whom they please.

However, I wouldn’t feel guilty about not funding a vacation nor do I think the OP should feel guilty about not donating either.

ShishKabob

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 1:03 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

Shishkebob, you *will* be in a worse place monetarily if you decide to give money to this particular family. As will the OP's family. That is the point.

Just for arguments sake, Tzeddakah money is not mine. So I won't be poorer at all.
There are halachos for Tzeddakah just like for everything else. If you want to be sure that you are doing the right thing, why don't you just ask?
Then we wont have the feel guilty thing or not.
I love not having to feel guilty if I don't have to.
Guilt is not necessarily a good growth feeling.

amother

Amethyst

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 1:15 pm

amother wrote:

Let me start that I know it's none of my business, so no one should reply MYOB. That being said, a family friend of ours just married off. Their relatives raised a large sum of money for them to help. They finished sheva brachos & went for a week long vacation & took their entire family of many kids. A relative called me that they're in a lot of debt from the wedding & if I have something to contribute. If they're in so much debt, how can they afford a week long vacation for 10 people??? I told said relative that I'm not comfortable giving money when they just went away right after marrying off. Wwyd?

Hi there,
If it were me and my relative approached me for money I think I would give something. I may not give a LARGE amount, but something. I still get a mitzvah for giving tzaddaka.
But you did what you were comfortable doing.

JoyInTheMorning

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 1:28 pm

ShishKabob wrote:

ShishKabob, suppose you are obligated to give $X for tzedakah. There are now two cases to consider:
Case 1: You give exactly $X. Now, suppose you ordinarily give to organizations that help people who might otherwise be hungry, like Tomchei Shabbos or Masbia. If you give $Y to the vacationing family, you will only have $(X-Y) to give to Tomchei Shabbos and Masbia. So there will be hungry people who will lose out because you decided to fund the vacationing family. To me, this makes no sense. Feeding hungry people should always win out over enabling other families to take vacation.

Case 2: You give more than $X, say $(X+Z). You give $X to Tomchei Shabbos and Masbia, and $Z to the vacationing family. You now have $Z less than you did before, and your budget is tight. You already don't take vacations or buy new clothes for yourself or have cleaning help. There's very little from which to cut. I am saying that in this case, Case 2, it makes no sense to give $Z to the vacationing family, not because of jealousy, but because your family needs it more than the vacationing family.

Regarding asking, and guilt. I don't ask in this particular case, and I don't feel guilty about what I do. I don't ask about where to give tzedakah because I feel that it is my obligation to use my head to make a rational decision about where the money would be best spent. (That doesn't mean that I ignore all outside input; for example, I value the suggestions from the Rabbi of my shul about places to donate to.) And I don't feel guilty about this. Why would I?

JoyInTheMorning

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 1:33 pm

Another crucial point:
It's easy to say that this is not a zero-sum game, and that just because you give $Z to the vacationing family, that doesn't mean you'll have Z less dollars. But this is not a reasonable thing to say.

It is true that we shouldn't think of everything in a zero-sum way. Especially in business deals, things are not zero sum: if two organizations join forces or make an agreement, each can do better than before.

However, in a budget, unless you can prove to the contrary, things are zero sum. If you spend $Z more in one part of the budget, you need to take $Z away from other areas, or else the budget won't balance. We have to start off as rational creatures who can do arithmetic. It is our responsibility to balance our budgets so that we do not, chas v'shalom, become the recipients of tzedakah ourselves.

Last edited by JoyInTheMorning on Wed, Jul 04 2018, 1:35 pm; edited 1 time in total

ShishKabob

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 1:35 pm

JoyinThemorning, I hear you. The question would be: "where am I obligated to give my tzeddaka money to?"
If you feel that you don't want to give the Y money to this family then don't.
My position was not to promote giving tzeddakah to this family, or not to give. My position was basically that we shouldn't judge other peoples vacations, even if they are accepting tzeddakah.

ShishKabob

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 1:55 pm

amother wrote:

Shishkabob, I hope to one day reach the level you are on! Wow good for you, that's impressive today's days!

Thanks for the compliment. I'll take it. Smile

Trust me, I keep on working on it a lot! It helps that I listen to Rabbi Ashear's daily dose on Emunah. It reinforces that no one can take away what is coming to me. And I can't have what other people have, unless it's custom made for me. If I don't have it, it must be for my good. It's not always easy to think like that when I don't know if I can go shopping for groceries this week or not. But it's good to talk about it. It reinforces what I know is true.

mommy3b2c

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 5:13 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

Wow, a condo in Vermont! That can't be cheap. It's not something we could afford. They do it every year, and then they get tzedakah to pay for their child's wedding? That just isn't right.

About your relatives who took your father's 15K and went to a bungalow colony: They can't have spent all the money on the bungalow colony, can they? How much do bungalows cost to rent these days? I would guess $4k or $5K for the summer? Am I totally off base here? Just curious.

Yes. Totally off base. I pay $10,000 for a 500 square foot rat hole. Kitchen, two bedrooms, bathroom. Maybe it’s even smaller then 500 square feet.

JoyInTheMorning

Wed, Jul 04 2018, 5:38 pm

mommy3b2c wrote:

Yes. Totally off base. I pay $10,000 for a 500 square foot rat hole. Kitchen, two bedrooms, bathroom. Maybe it’s even smaller then 500 square feet.

Okay. I stand corrected.

Why do people do it, then? When I was growing up, we lived in an apartment in Manhattan before gentrification had started. Manhattan was noisy and dirty and crowded, back then, not something to aspire to. The air was polluted; there was only one air conditioner in my parent's bedroom, so we were really, really hot; the streets weren't that safe; we really couldn't play outside if we didn't go away. In our bungalow colony, we stayed outside from morning to night and played with other kids, an experience we couldn't have in Manhattan. And our apartment was rather run down, so the bungalow, while a lot smaller, didn't at all feel like a step down for us.

But mommy3b2c, if I recall correctly, you live in a nice neighborhood in Brooklyn, don't you? Do you find that your kids get much out of being squeezed into a tiny bungalow for two months? Or is it the case that all the other kids go away too, so your kids wouldn't have whom to play with?