Spiritually Sinking Via Debt

Hat Tip: A Reader of This Blog

Below is the a Yated article, written by R. Avroham Birnbaum in the August 31 edition of the Yated. It has prompted numerous responses, many of which I hope to post. The article makes many important points, but fails to even acknowledge the big white elephant in the room: tuition, which is on of the driving factors of debt in the frum community. Nevertheless, this the points in this article about the nature of debt, living beyond one's means, etc, ring true. My comments are in orange.

Dying to Borrow
by Avrohom Birnbaum

It was just a casual conversation with an old friend. Commenting on the fact that I could not believe that Rosh Hashanah and the Yomim Noraim were around the corner, I wistfully recalled the spiritually uplifting, intense Elul that we experienced in yeshiva. Despite what Rav Yisroel Salanter used to say, that “The whole year should be like Elul, but Elul is still Elul,” no place can rival a yeshiva during the month of Elul. The days of Elul in a yeshiva affords one a special closeness to Hashem and an intense ruchniyusdike experience.

Looking at me with a pained expression, my friend exclaimed, “Elul in yeshiva? I wish I could have Elul anywhere! I can’t even think about the upcoming Rosh Hashanah. I can’t begin to contemplate spiritually preparing myself for the impending Yom Hadin, because my chovos, my debts, simply do not give me respite.”

“Debts?” I asked. “What debts?”

My friend then proceeded to relate that he owed what to me was an astronomic sum to credit card companies. “I have no yishuv hadaas and I get depressed simply thinking about how I will ever repay my debts and leave behind this spiraling black hole of debt,” he said. “The second I awake, I think about my balances and how impossible it will be for me to earn enough to pay them off. It is terribly depressing to wake up with such heavy, unsolvable issues weighing on one’s heart, every morning. And you wonder why I have no emotional energy left to think about Rosh Hashana, Yom Hadin, Yemei harachamim v’haratzon and teshuva?!” [Many young people are told not to worry about money, Hashem helps, and when things get too tough, and switching gears is extremely difficult. I have heard plenty of Rabbonim talk about the challenge of wealth, yet little is said about the challenges of debt including the spiritual erosion that can happen when a family is overextended. In addition, I've attended shiurim on giving tzedakah, yet I have never seen a shiur advertised that addresses the halachic question and practical questions about who/what gets paid first when the cash just isn't there].

We sat down together and tried to plan a strategy to somewhat alleviate the crushing burden. It soon became clear that every month, he was paying the minimum balance or a bit more on his credit card just to keep the creditors at bay, but meanwhile, the interest was making it impossible for him to emerge from his perpetual state of debt. [It is great to have well meaning people sit down and coach those in a dire prediciment. However, is there a frum credit counseling agency? It seems like this is a void that needs to be filled. . . and fast! I often hear commercials for Christian agencies that specialize in credit counseling. I wish I had the know how to start a frum credit counseling agency].

This particular individual was making enough money to cover his monthly expenses, sometimes even earning a surplus which he paid to the credit card company in an attempt to make a dent in the balance. Nevertheless, he was simply unable to procure sufficient funds to repay the thousands and thousands of dollars of debt that had amassed over the years. [Please read my previous post on getting out of small amounts of debt quick. Once debt is no longer controllable, a complete overhaul and/or bankruptcy is needed. The new bankruptcy laws could very possibly preclude a Yeshiva Education].

I asked him why he does not borrow from interest-free gemachs to pay off his balances and then make a payment plan with the gemach. “It may take time, but eventually you might even be debt free,” I said. My friend replied, “The gemachs are a pain. They only lend you a certain amount and you must get co-signers. The whole thing is so embarrassing.” [Interest free loans can help, but a financial overhaul an absolute must if someone remain debt free].

I convinced him that perpetual debt was a bigger “pain”. Being enticed by the relative ease of plastic was a recipe for disaster, debt, depression and illness. “You are in the throes of that illness already,” I continued. Indeed, the increased reliance on credit cards as a form of taking
long-term loans is a very troubling development.

Jews have reached an amzing level of affluence, residing in the benevolent golus in which we live. This affluence has enabled Yiddishkeit to flourish. Beautiful mosdos haTorah have been built and are sustained, and post-marriage kollel learning has become a norm. [I don't expect the Yated to draw the connection between kollel learning as a norm and the reliance on credit, home equity loans, etc. But, it doesn't take a financial expert to draw the connection].

Simultaneously, affluence and the accompanying lifestyle have also exposed our communities to a culture where wealth has become a status symbol. The house in which one lives, the car one drives, the chasuna one makes for his children, even the amount of support one gives to his married children, have all become wealth barometers that engender envy.

Many less than-affluent people seek to show that they also belong to this elite club, putting pressure on themselves to build status symbol houses and make status symbol weddings, etc. The massive mortgages, the constant pursuit of money, combined with the increased work load and work hours, wreak havoc on families. Parents are so busy trying to earn money that, inevitably, their children and shalom bayis are neglected. [It is shocking that tuition was not mentioned].

One of the most troubling developments over the past several years is the increased reliance on credit cards by segments of our tzibbur. According to prominent askonim, in both America and Israel, the number of families in our communities who live on plastic and revolve large sums of money from one credit card to another has reached dangerous proportions. [!]

Chazal tell us that paying interest is like getting bitten by a snake. The snake bite is tiny, but its venom slowly envelopes the entire body, eventually killing the person. When a person starts leaving a balance, even a small balance, on a credit card, he may soon be doomed to a life of constant debt, bankruptcy and, challila, geneiva. [Emphasis added].

Plastic gives a false sense of security, practically empowering a person to buy something without knowing how he will pay for it. It allows one to pretend that he is also one of the affluent, even though he is not.

Fiscal responsibility is not just a good policy; it is an insurance that one will not be overwhelmed by the crushing burden of massive debts, that one will not sink into depression when he sees no way out or that one will not ultimately stoop to geneiva to try to extricate oneself from a spiral
of debt.

Rebbetzin Zlata Ginsburg, the daughter of the famed Mirrer and Ponevezher mashgiach, Rav Yechezkel Levenstein, was widowed at a young age when her husband, the Mirrer rosh Yeshiva, Rav Ephraim Mordechai Ginsburg was niftar at a young age. She was left with five orphans. This was in 1960, before the times when massive collections were made for widows and orphans. When they stood up from shiva, she had seven dollars and fifty cents in the
bank…

She single-handedly served as father and mother to her children, while simultaneously serving as the family’s breadwinner. She raised them l’shem ulitiferes and merited to see her children become great talmidei chachomim, prominent roshei yeshiva and marbitzei Torah. I once asked her, “How did you manage? How did you support your children and eventually marry them off, all alone, without any help?” She answered with a simplicity that made a lifelong impression on me: “I never spent a penny that I didn’t have. If I didn’t have the money, I skimped and simply didn’t buy.”

She would often say that it less than productive to simply ask people who do have means not to overindulge in gashmiyus; rather, it is even more important to focus on teaching those who don’t, not to have kinah, not to envy others. In pre-war Europe, she said, it was unheard of for a non-wealthy person to mimic the lifestyle of the wealthy. People understood their place in society, their means and lived accordingly. [I'm not sure it is really fair to compare America and Israel. Being frum in America means putting your children in private school, which among the general public, is basically reserved for those with wealth, or is something parents do for a short time. Nearly every one of us has areas that we can cut, but there are also areas that are near impossible to cut. For example, in nearly every community I've lived in, there is no choice but to have a car(s). You can't send young children alone on a bus and the schools are miles outside of the kehillah]. In America, she said, everyone has to be equal. There are ‘equal rights’ and therefore, if people who can afford luxuries indulge by making ostentatious weddings, building large houses or buying fancy cars and expensive clothing, it seems that everyone thinks these luxuries should become the new standard for all segments of society. [In the Jewish community, frum and otherwise, this seems the case, especially the weddings. But I'm not willing to pin this as an "American" thing. My (non-Jewish) friends from high school made plenty of backyard weddings or just headed to the courthouse. A hotel wedding was far more rare. There was plenty of variety in how people spent their summers, put on weddings, etc. There is plenty of variety in America, but it is rarely seen in the frum community].

Parents put themselves into debt buying clothing for their children, because the child is embarrassed to be dressed in a “shmatta” if a classmate is bedecked in a fancy, name-brand outfit or suit. [I would pin the embarrassment as much on the parent as the child. When we are in certain communities, we see even babies, infants, and preschoolers dressed in dry clean designer European clothing. Last I checked, preschoolers are happy to make a choice between two to three items the parent has picked out. The "minhag" of matching Yom Tov outfits for all girls, and even coordinating outfits for the boys, is just plain wasteful, and yet nearly every family that is more to the right partakes of this minhag, even those who I know really shouldn't. This is probably one of the most wasteful things seen in the frum community].

The egalitarian nature of American society has many advantages, but it comes with disadvantages too, one of which is its tendency to encourage unmitigated kinah, envy.
If we want to have yishuv hadaas to serve Hashem; if we want to have the necessary time to learn, daven or prepare for Rosh Hashanah; If we want time to spend time educating our children, learning with our children, playing with our children and not agonizing over new money-making schemes to repay ever growing debts, we must learn how not to spend what we don’t have…even if it makes us socially uncomfortable. [Still no mention of tuition].

In the event that a person is absolutely compelled to borrow money, l’maan Hashem, it is not advisable to borrow from credit card companies whose venomous interest can kill. It is preferable to do all one possibly can to borrow from interest-free sources. Kinah kills.

[All and all a good article. But the failure to mention tuition is huge and the "Reader's Write letters reflect that].