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gavra, I don’t know if it was the local currency of Mir or the currency of the bochur’s family – which may have been another country. The point was it was a very considerable sum.
gaw, I think that using CPI doesn’t give the full picture. The CPI is heavily manipulated. Consider that a house in NYC in the 1920s would easily go for 1,000 or less. A penny bought as much or more than a dollar of today. I don’t know what the true comparison is, but $50,000 sounds closer than $6,750.
squeak:
Could be, but the point is the same. It is a large sum, but it does not create doubt in the truthfulness of the story. There is no reason why the money could not be raised in a short time or found by someone determined.
Squeak, only would’ve been a problem had the friends been male
😉
$50,000 in 1992 is $76,225.53 in 2009 and would have been in the $5,000-$6,000 range in the 1920’s-1930’s.
$500 in 1920’s-1930’s would have translated to about $3,500-$5,000 in 1992.
Still a great story with a lot to learn; but needs updating.
gavra_at_work: Had I seen your post; I would have saved myself some research time.
You seem to be missing the currency conversion.
10-20,000 years? Uh-oh…
;a-)
as customarily reckoned by the geologists in this area.
<<<10-20,000 years? Uh-oh…>>
the point being it was not, by any stretch, manmade.
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
— Joyce Kilmer
That goes for ponds, too.
— ronrsr
The dowry always existed. I believe the basic problem today is the attitude. If I am not mistaken, Chazal word the dowry as being “kdei sheyikpetzu aleha tovin”, it was offered by the girl’s father to make her more desirable, and it was part of the package of her yirat Shamayim, looks, personality, yichus, etc. I am not sure if in previous generations men demanded a dowry and made the shidduch dependent on that. Unfortunately it has become a status symbol and not just a means to support a budding talmid chacham.
Back to the point, a dowry is the fathers responsibility and if the choson demands an apartment, it is not the community’s problem.
The mitzvah rabba of Hachnosas Kallah certainly applies to the dowry.
BS”D
The Admou”r meCreedmoor just solved chassune problems.
What he does is to have the couple and all guests sign a one year lease on the chassune zal before the chassune. He then requires the baalei simcha and all guests to apply for section 8 for their seats, and the baal simcha pays only the difference between the section 8 and whatever he feels is the true cost of the chassune.
He used to just require guests to burn down the heavily insured hall at the end of the chassune but he ran out of insurance companies lately because so many are in financial difficulty. Instead, he switched to the never ending pocket book of Fetter Shmeel who pays for so many young couples anyway.
Sometimes I receive solicitations for Hachnosas Kallah funds, and when they describe what they provide the kallah with, I find myself musing, hmmm, I didn’t get this, nor this, and not so many of that, etc. I feel strange donating to these places.
And since tzedaka is humiliating and a last resort, shouldn’t they be aiming to cover costs of just basics?
I’m obviously talking about your average needy kallah. I understand that for a yesomah or girl from a troubled background, it would mean a lot more to them if they could at least get married with extra nice things.
yes, when we were looking to give some tzedekah for our wedding, we looked at the possibility of sponsoring a wedding in Eretz Yisrael, perhaps one the same day as ours. The cost of one of those weddings was higher than our wedding! My bride was reticent to sponsor a wedding much nicer than our own. She felt more comfortable sponsoring something more practical, like kitchen utensils, etc., for a new bride.
One thing I noticed, too, is that when you are shopping for simcha components, the price goes way up when you mention the word WEDDING.
We told the hotel where some of our guests were staying that it was a family reunion (well, it was that, also!)
When I needed some rented transportation for a friend’s wedding a few years ago, I called a limo service that specializes in weddings, and I also called a funeral director who had a few nice cars usually reserved for mourners.
Guess which one was 1/2 the price of the other?
I didn’t know that about the dowry. Can I go back and negotiate retroactively?
ronrsr: So let me guess… you went for the half priced transportation, and the wedding guests showed up in a hearse.
Wow! The answer finally on how to save money on those poor brides. 🙂
Except I don’t think it would work with other purchases. “Could you maybe give me a discount, I’m buying this bedroom furniture set for my just departed great-aunt…?”
no, they were limousines every bit as nice as the limo rental. Same make and everything.
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