Q:
How should we react to the recent scandal of yeshivos taking money from the government and misusing some of the funds?
A:
We should react by keeping our mouths shut. That’s the way you should react because otherwise it means that you’re happy to help promulgate scandals against Torah people. There’s a lot to be said on this subject – it’s not simple at all. Now, I’m able to talk because I’m not connected with any institutions and I’ll tell you honestly that I don’t think that they’re doing anything wrong by using government funds the way they do.
Now, you have a right to disagree with me; I’m not saying kablu da’ati but if you people would only see what’s really going on. I pass through the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and I see a hundred establishments, a hundred storefronts – Dynamic Youth Corps, Youth Improvement Center, The Civic Improvement Center. And inside are sitting loafers with their feet on the table; all loafers. They’re not doing a thing and they’re sucking money out of the government like nobody’s business. It’s my money! I don’t sit all day with my feet on the table; I have to work too. All of us are working for our livelihood. But the government is siphoning off our money to so many loafers of all colors; all colors, all over the country.
So if it was a situation where nobody was getting free funds and somebody made a grab so we would say, “Feh! It’s not right.” But everybody’s grabbing! So why shouldn’t we grab something too for a good cause? It’s our money! We are the ones who are earning the money so why shouldn’t the money go for us too? We should rather the money go to criminals and to loafers?! That’s where the money is going.
Not only to loafers. It’s being sent overseas to rat holes. The money is being wasted. A tremendous amount of money is being wasted. You have no idea how much money is being given out because of politicians who are crooks. The whole country is in a frenzy of wasting money. So because a little trickle comes by stratagems into pockets of needy people, bnei Torah, so this rasha, a moser, is happy to make a fuss about it? It’s wicked!
Now, I don’t say what should be done or what shouldn’t be done but I definitely say keep out of it. Keep quiet! You don’t know the story. If you had to support a little yeshiva and nobody is able to pay a penny of the tuition fee… Boys come from out of town, baalei teshuvah come, and their parents are dead set against their learning Torah. These boys, their parents would give them a pile of money if they went to college but they come to the yeshiva instead. Or the boys run away from homes where there are gentile daughters-in-law, gentile sons-in-law and they come to study Torah. And the rosh yeshiva, a poor man, he receives them and he feeds them and he gives them a dormitory. So if he makes money from the government for a training program, so what? It’s a training program. He’s training them in being Jews. So the government says, “We didn’t mean that; we didn’t intend it that way.” So we say, “Look, did you intend to train criminals? You’re training muggers. You’re training rapists. And that money is being given like nobody’s business; so to train a few honest people, it’s not so terrible.” I don’t criticize it at all. I criticize the criticizers.
Now, I can speak up because I have nothing to do with it. Should it be done, should it not be done, it’s not for my little head to decide, but what should not be done is to talk about it. Forget about it. And anybody who opens his mouth, he might get burned. Hizaharu b’gechalatan!
These little institutions, they’re doing good work, they’re all doing good work and nobody’s giving them any money. If you would give out big sums to support the local places – some little yeshiva where boys are coming to learn, boys whose parents are against it, and you would open your wallet to help them – so then you could say, “Well, I’m giving you so much money so you don’t need this.” But all you’re giving is criticism, so keep quiet.
(February 1976)
