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Is it permitted to lie or bend the truth?
No. Rav Moshe has a teshuva about which I do not have time right now to find. He also forbade cheating on the Regents ((HM II:30).
Is it permissible in general to lie to get something you aren’t entitled to?
Is it permissible to break the laws of the country you live in for personal gain?
Is it permissible to steal?Why should the fact the programs are government sponsored and not private make a difference.
Lying is lying.
Many forms have notices of the penalties for false statements printed on the form.It against the Halacha to lie or bend the truth, even without monetary gain. It is against the Halacha to accept any form of monetary benefit to which you are not entitled.
I live in Lakewood, but the cost of living here is outrageous!
You should come to New York
Health, where is the cost of living for a kosher yeshiva sending (for seven children) consumer less expensive than Lakewood?
lakewood is alreaDy cheapest then any out of town community. not just for education but also to make a large affordable wedding for your daughter & get it for a package price everything. but now lakewood has become a big city & is not simple like it used to be 20 years ago, when the entire town was around BMG & the community was solely based on torah. today lakewood has become a fancy business city with many out of towners moving in for work (& not just cause they want to learn in BMG)
I heard it straight from Rav Pinchas Schienberg zt”l himself. In reference to the unlicensed playgroups and businesses “There is NO heter for breaking the law!”
I got the impression from the way this thread was going and the article on the newspage that we were talking about people who couldn’t make ends meet underreporting their income to get funds and programs they had trouble doing without. While I still see that to be lying and illegal, that seems to be a misrepresentation of what the case is really about.
SY
If it was just $10,000 maybe you would have a point, but they are talkign 6 figures. $10,000 is needed just to survive, Six figures is a sign they were for the money
While I still see that to be lying and illegal, that seems to be a misrepresentation of what the case is really about.
I don’t know about all, but at least one family struggles to make ends meet (is in fact in debt). It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re exonerated.
ZD – I am not exactly sure what you are saying. If I understand you correctly, you are saying they stole millions, not just 10,000.
Two responses: The six figure amount was the total of several years of monthly stipends plus insurance. that can add up to a ton even if its only a small amount a month.second: that isn’t what the arrest was about.
Health, are you serious? They were raking in millions through straw owners of businesses.
DY, in debt? They made a million but spent $2 million? I wouldn’t be surprised if money laundering and tax evasion charges are added because of the money funneled from the businesses.
DY, in debt? They made a million but spent $2 million?
Nothing close to that. A simple kollel family not involved in any such numbers or shenanigans. There may be a bigger investigation going on in which innocent, or at least less guilty, people are getting caught up in.
The benefits each family received was several hundred dollars a month in food stamps, Medicaid coverage and some received a monthly rent stipend from Section 8. It wasn’t extremely huge amount of benefits. The media reports of each getting benefits totaling a couple hundred thousand dollars per family was cumulative over a six year period, ’09-’14.
The public reports do not indicate how much income each accused allegedly earned per year, except for one or two families out of the six charged. So I don’t see how anyone can say they weren’t truly needy trying to make ends meet, if you don’t know what they earned.
And that’s even before getting to the issue of the fact that there’s no right to believe the allegations they earned off the books money, despite that being alleged.
SY
One Million is 7 figures, not 6 figures.
The number floating around is about $300,000-$400,000
ZD – that really has nothing to do with the point. Did you understand what I was saying?
BTW, the Vaad statement was completely out of line. 1) Don’t make your educational courses on the backs of potentially innocents falsely accused; make your courses but don’t associate the announcement or timing with these charges. 2) Don’t incorrectly announce that Jews are permitted to accept or believe the judgements of the non-Torah court system that uses far lower thresholds of evidence than the Torah permits in accusations to be proven.
They may have been needy.. but I find it hard to believe that the government is going to take that much into account. Ultimately, if your debt comes from a lifestyle choice (i.e., frum schools, comfortable-sized house, living in Lakewood rather than Cleveland or Detroit etc…), there isn’t going to be a whole lot of sympathy from the criminal justice system. Welfare fraud is welfare fraud is welfare fraud, as far as they are concerned – and btw, even if the numbers were cumulative, they are still large.
to Joseph:
The criminal justice system does not use significantly lower thresholds of evidence. The evidentiary standard for any criminal offense is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” And we are not talking here about neemanus of ladies or single witnesses; this is about documents that prove income and documents that prove welfare applications. Criminal intent is not an element of the offense here, so it doesn’t matter if the accused knew that what they were doing was illegal. , The crime is simply whenever someone:
1. Made “x” amount of money per year, and
2. Was on welfare because said that income was “y”Of course, they may have evidence to defend themselves; that is what a court proceeding will determine. But it is awfully silly to think that the gov’t would waste their time ad money going after people that they don’t have a good chance of convicting.
1. Frum schooling is a must, not an option.
2. Larger housing is necessary when you have two parents and seven children versus a single parent, 2.1 children and a dog.
3. Cleveland and Detroit are not less expensive for kosher living with 7 tuitions.
Note: This comment of mine has nothing to do with the charges or underlying events.
1. Yes, it is an option in regard to free choice and secular standards
3. not true at allThe threshold of evidence required to prove is most certainly far far higher in the Torah system than in the secular system. Many many, probably most, convictions obtained in American courts would not have met the Torah’s evidentiary requirements for conviction in a Din Torah.
Perhaps you can explain why they don’t meet that standard then? (Unless you are counting the fact that pleading guilty doesn’t go very far in a din torah).
I am a firm beliver in Jews should be Ohr Lagoyim and that means not even the smell of wrong doing,
If you want to be on a higher level, than be on a higher level.
Just all at all the threads about Tzniut, Kashrut etc. Would anyone eat someone that might be Iffy Kashruth?
Syag, how much would 7 K-12 Yeshiva tuitions cost in Cleveland and Detroit? How does the cost there of kosher food, kosher clothing and other Jewish items needed for living compare to Lakewood?
The accusation of him having earned “X” dollars in another persons name might be “proven” via (false) single witness testimony that he was the underlying owner/earner, rather than whoever’s name was on the documents.
True enough
From what I’ve heard, tuition in Cleveland is now actually free depending on income (of course this is the same slippery slope…..). And housing in both can easily be under 200K. Clothing and food are always a matter of where you shop.
adlc, to take an example (just one easy one from many many examples), in secular courts the prosecutor can get a conviction by “proving” the accused earned “X” dollars per year based on the testimony of a single “witness” who pled guilty to another crime/case and worked out a prosecutorial agreement for a lesser sentence in exchange for testifying against the accused in another case. If he doesn’t have anyone else to testify a crime against, he doesn’t get a lesser sentence. It is in his interest to “find” crimes he “knows” about and can offer to testify against so that the prosecutor is made happy to advance his career and public perception for fighting crime. Very often such witnesses testify falsely for that lesser sentence.
In a criminal Din Torah case such a “witness” would be disqualified for multiple reasons. Some of those reasons are a) he’s a single witness b) if it’s a she that alone disqualifies c) he’s a convicted criminal, which alone disqualifies him from being a witness.
Just because it might not be against Halacha to take this money, doesnt mean its legal
Where is the Asifa against stealing? How about renting the Barclays Center for such an event
ZD, I’d like to organize that parlor meeting/asifa in your home and invite the neighborhood.
Are we on?
My Studio apartment isnt big enough. We need the Barclays center. Lets make a Kiddish hashem and you are voulenteering to drive everyone to go ..Right?
Okay, ZD, rent the Barclays Center and I’ll arrange rides for everyone to get there.
Health, don’t kid yourself, tuition in EY is not FREE!!!
For BY schools, you can send your girls for free, but most boys’ chadorim that I know of cost $. Not like prices in America, I’m sure, but salaries in EY are no where near what they are in America either. I pay around $150 a month for a boy in last year of grade school and they ask for $300 for boys in high school (no dorm), which includes 3 meals (not the most nutritious and definitely not the most appetizing).
My girls are in private school and I pay about $100 per girl per month. I’m not sure what the chassidishe schools charge or if that is subsidized by the chassidus.
ZD – a studio? Where does Zahava sleep?
Nechomah, what are examples of what salaries are like in EY?
Zahava sleeps on a cot on the kitchen floor.
Not everyone is blessed with extra discretionary funds, Syag. 😀
Joseph, your one witness example is bogus. That witness cant just say shgloime had more income. . He has to have documentation to prove shloime has more income. In addition, you apparently had no problem believing all of the Ivana allegations
Minimum wage is running around 7.50/hour, what with the current shekel/dollar rate. That is what a lot of secretarial positions pay. I have no idea what teachers get paid. Most kollel families have one working spouse who works anywhere from 5 to 8 hours a day and kollelim here are harder and harder to get into.
Joseph, mishpat hamelech can be at whatever standard the authorities deem proper. See Ran in Derasha 11 regarding the obvious practical reasons. The philosophical reason, as I understand it, is that the bet din’s job is to enable the criminal to atone whereas the secular authorities’ job is to maintain public order.
There is no justification for stealing! There should not only be glatt kosher but glatt yosher!
ZD wrote “Would anyone eat someone that might be Iffy Kashruth?” I don’t think there are any cannibals in the CR.
As I stated on the Ivanka rumor thread, there are asifas on educating the community on how to live life legally.
The main comment I got on that line was about the correct spelling of “business” (thanks to everyone for sticking up for me). BUT IT WAS A SIMPLE COPY PASTE, which I erroneously thought was obvious.
Google will verify it – and you’ll get to see some photos related to the event.
(Sorry, I got busy/lazy to follow through with an answer on all of Avi K’s points. And it kind of seemed pointless to argue with him).
I’m reposting this so you don’t have to go thread hopping. (And by the way, I’m really proud of the very few spelling mistakes I’ve made in the coffee room.)
Dror Free @DrorFreeOrg
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Jun 22TONIGHT DINA EVENT:
educating our community on legal and buissness topics. in Williamsburg
The continental 75 Rutledge stTONIGHT DINA EVENT:
educating our community on legal and buissness topics. in Williamsburg
The continental 75 Rutledge stLearn to use spell check.
😉
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