How do "kiruv couples" afford 50 ppl each shabbos?secret?

amother

Thu, Jul 04 2019, 9:49 pm

I bh can pay for basics and I know how to cook/bake kugels cakes....myself which saves money bec im not buying it ready made....BUT FOOD STILL COSTS A LOT...so if im making a broccoli kugel, it costs for broccoli which is high or even the simplest dishes of fish and chicken served on shabbos costs a lot....so when I read about a rabbi working in kiruv and he hosts 50 ppl every shabbos....(of course I think his wife is amazing for hosting...) but I wonder how they afford all the expenses of food...??? Im wondering the secret bec I would love to buy more for my family shabbos food and would love to also be able to afford having guests....

I just dont get it....I mean if the wife is a lawyer or they own a nursing home or shes an administrator...but a teacher and rabbi...how do they afford it....(this thread is curiosity and not jealousy but im also trying to help myself bec maybe im missing something such that I can spend more for my family....)

Eta: I grew up with very little money spent on food (yes bh we ate and didnt starve ) but we really didnt have what to spend for us to be able to eat a "regular" shabbos meal, and my dad was a professional but with 12 kids and tuition....so im really wondering how these ppl can afford the food for so many ppl...they are not servinh meager bare bones...

amother

Bronze

Thu, Jul 04 2019, 10:09 pm

Oot community Kollel rebetzin here. Everyone does different things. We personally live off my job, which bH is a well paying job. Food is not cheap. I buy sales and freeze everything. Once every few months, I go shopping in a cheaper larger community and freeze meat, chicken, dairy, frozen bodek vegetables, etc. I have a large freezer so that works. There is plenty of good food you can make using cheaper ingredients.
But bH we are very lucky. BH I have a good job, so that really makes things a lot easier. This is only my personal experience. I don't know what others do.
Also, I don't usually have 50. More like 20-28 not including us.

Eta: I just looked at the price of all the chicken I put in the oven. Wow. It's expensive, even with cheaper cuts and sales. But we consider hosting an important part of what we do. I do make cheaper sides though. And much cheaper food during the week.

trixx

Thu, Jul 04 2019, 10:20 pm

Fundraising. And guests might send checks after Shabbos (the menshlich ones who realize).

Also the dishes made in bulk are usually cheaper and easier for ex chicken with a sauce using cheap ingredients (honey, soy, ketchup, or simple bunches of herbs etc) and sides like roasted potatoes, rice/quinoa. No one's serving broccoli kugel to 50 people (esp if you actually check it and frozen is too expensive), it's potato or sweet lukshen kugel or cheap roasted veggies like mini peppers which doesn't involve peeling, cutting or checking.

The actual cost of poultry is high yes but for a meal that big you cut corners, too. Plated salads with small cubed salmon on top. Big sushi salad. These are all catering tricks.

A better question would be how to have 10 guests every single week because you can't get away with as much as an obviously communal meal of 50.

amother

Natural

Fri, Jul 05 2019, 12:02 am

I have between 3 and 15 guests most weeks B"H, plus my own B"H not small family of big eaters.

We buy fish and chicken in bulk. I only serve gefilte fish rolls, no salmon. I make a lot of cheap salads, beans, potatoes, pasta, spaghetti. I check my own romaine hearts, I don't buy with hechsher. I make a big pot of soup with 2 pieces of chicken and Matzah balls. I use only chicken leg quarters usually because they are cheaper. I make cheaper kugels, lokshen kugels, sometimes pineapple kugel, potato kugel. Sometimes sweet potato pie. Most ingredients I use are not expensive. I shop at Walmart for most groceries, and make my own challah.

We fundraise, but not so well unfortunately... But this is an integral part of why we're here, so I consider it a non-negotiable expense.

amother

Orchid

Fri, Jul 05 2019, 12:39 am

The kiruv families I know all get sponsored. I've been wondering the same thing for the longest time until I asked the hostess and she told me that they get money to buy the food.

What makes me wonder more though.. back when I was in sem, there were families who hosted up to 20 sem girls and I doubt they got money for it. And since housing is so expensive in yerushalayim and jobs don't pay well.. I really don't understand how they did it. Especially one family stayed in my mind, their son had been very sick and they decided to never say no to anyone asking to be hosted as a thank you for the son recovering. I don't know how they managed but if you're here reading this, it was such a wonderful meal and such a great atmosphere I never forgot even 12 years later!

amother

Crimson

Fri, Jul 05 2019, 12:56 am

amother [ Mauve ] wrote:

There probably isn't a factual answer anyone can give you. Hashem provides and thats all. Maybe the rabbi had a yerusha that was invested, maybe he won a law suit. Hashem knew He needed a Rabbi to do kiruv so He provided the means to this rabbi....

Since hashem provides in practical ways, the question is how? Do you think the kiruv rav finds money in the street every shabbos? Does he win a scratch off lottery every week? And while hashem provides.....how do you explain the instances where yiddishe families are suffering financially? Would you say hashem doesn't provide? And what about the people suffering with illness, older singles, depression, and childless? There's this absurd rosy image we are given since we are small children that we are trained to picture hashem as. Hashem's way are mysterious. Sometimes he provides, and other times he cause people to suffer. The chabad rabbi and his wife were murdered when they were doing shlichus in Mumbai around 10 years ago. Did hashem provide and take care of them as they dedicated their lives to spreading torah? It's ok to not understand or have the answers to these questions. I guess I'm just bothered by this cult like foolishness that so many have in their naive belief that they understand hashem's ways.

amother

Natural

Fri, Jul 05 2019, 1:06 am

Knowing that what Hashem does is good, and trusting that if we are doing what Hashem wants He will provide, is not the same as expecting that everything will look rosy.

It reminds me of a woman who, having heard about the concept of Hashgacha Protis, was sure she understood very well. A few weeks later, she got stuck in a traffic jam and missed her flight. She spent the next 4 hours repeatedly calling the airline to find out if the plane had crashed yet. (No, it didn't crash.)

KNOWING that Hashem is providing for you does not always mean having a full bank account, or having the yeshuos come on your personal schedule or in your preferred way.

Hashem is running the show, Hashem is not your ATM.

(We have had many financial crises, but we are here in a home with the rent paid, the electricity, heat, water, internet, cell phones, etc. not shut off, the tuition miraculously mostly paid, etc. - yup, all nisim.)

amother

Crimson

Fri, Jul 05 2019, 1:37 am

amother [ Natural ] wrote:

[u]

It's great that hashem made it work out for you. What would you tell the young woman I know who is on dialysis? What would you tell the family that was indeed evicted and forced to move in with family and have children sleeping on cots on the floor? There are obviously many example where it all works out.....and plenty of examples where it doesn't.

To your first point: In order for something to be meaningful and have value, we have to understand it. You say that if we do what hashem wants, he will provide, yet it might not look rosy. This is impossible for a human mind to grasp. It's like saying 1+1=3. Can you give me an example where a person is suffering in a certain area can also understand how hashem is proving in that very area? Take a 50 year old single woman who desperately wants to get married and have children. How can she understand that hashem is in fact providing for her with regard to shidduchim and children?

byisrael

Fri, Jul 05 2019, 1:38 am

I grew up in a kiruv home and considered doing it myself and had a long talk with my mom about this....

My parents did kiruv for 15 years - they stopped in 2008 when the real estate investments they had that they where using to fund the kiruv lifestyle stopped bringing in income (they ended up selling them all at a loss). They still do kiruv but on a non- official capacity and it fluctuates with there financial situation (the more money they have the more they do).

It's a lot more then just the food - there are events that need to be pay for, kids who want to go to Israel to yeshiva/seminary, parents who are willing to take kids out of public school for a high- quality education but aren't willing to fund tuition, members of the community that are struggling, therapy for people who start becoming frum because of mental health/ emotional issues, lawyers for couples divorcing when they spouse doesn't see need for get....

My father also fund-raised a lot but in 2008 most of the big donors also lost a ton of money. They did work for an organization but they only got money for big shabbatons, not for regular shabbos. Also according to my mom most of the organizations (especially those being funded by Wolfson) pay you according to people becoming shomer shabbos over a certain amount of time; my parents believe kiruv is valuable even if it means that there is a stronger sense of Jewish identity and more mitzvah observance even if the family doesn't become fully frum ( besides for the fact that lots of times the children of people who become more involved but not observant DO become observant). This creates a bigger financial burden.

So how do people do it?
- fund-raise
- organization + other job/financial resources
-organization + debt
- All of the above (most common I think)
-

amother

Natural

Fri, Jul 05 2019, 1:49 am

amother [ Crimson ] wrote:

It didn't always work out for us, at least not the way I'd like it to.

Our electricity was shut off last week. Not for the first time either. DH was stranded once on a desolate road (kiruv-related trip) because his car ran out of gas because he couldn't afford to fill up the tank. Cars broken down, with and without all the kids inside, on trips to bring matzah or menorahs to Jews in the middle of nowhere. Borrowing from pushkas and paying for things in nickels and pennies. Health issues. Kids out of school for months because there was no way we could afford tuition. My teen son home for the summer because we can't afford camp.

Knowing that Hashem is taking care of us transcends my immediate understanding of why THIS is good.

Of course we always daven that Hashem should make it the kind of good we can easily see and understand. But it doesn't always work out that way... at least not at the moment.

Take the miracles of Purim. During that horrible year, the Jews were legitimately suffering. The gentile nations were taunting them and threatening them. Certain genocide was hanging over their head. The Beis Hamikdash was in ruins. I imagine that the financial situation didn't look too good either. But the whole time, Hashem was setting the stage to turn the tables completely.

Bitachon is not a pat answer, it's an avodah. One I work on too. But the certainty that HASHEM IS GOOD and HASHEM HAS A REASON and HASHEM LOVES ME and TEVA HATOV LEHEITIV (the nature of One Who is good is to do good)... those foundational beliefs are there to carry me through the rough moments until I can SEE that it was on the path to good the whole time.

amother

Crimson

Fri, Jul 05 2019, 7:28 am

amother [ Natural ] wrote:

[u]

I suppose I get stuck at the bolded. As I said earlier in order for something to have value, it has to be understood and make sense. While I can blindly say that hashem is all good, and he loves every single yidishe neshama, but then I see a family including young children c'vs was wiped out in a house fire, it loses it's understanding to me and therefore has less value.

ivfhelp

Fri, Jul 05 2019, 10:56 am

I guess my answer the crimson is that who says Hashem has to provide everything to everyone. Tzaddik vra lo (not saying I'm a tzaddik) is one of those unanswerable questions. No one's particular mission is the same and part of having bitachon is the realize that Hashem wants my life to be like this and for whatever reason this is the best for me. I have one miracle ivf baby after some years. I have literally been told by multiple doctors that they can't help me anymore via ivf or anything short of donor/adoption. Is Hashem providing me with children? Not exactly. Yeshuas hashem keherif ayin, but it's probably safe to assume that my mission is not to be the mother of 10+ kids. Was this how I envisioned my life? No. But why am I guarenteed children or anything else in life? My mission is to take this life and do the best that I can with it. And if it's to focus on other mitzvos than that's what I have to do.