Q:
What should be our reaction to excessive luxurious spending by frum yidden?
A:
Our reaction is disgust. Plain disgust. When people spend large sums even on bar mitzvas, we should despise that — even though it’s a simchah shel mitzvah. Expensive weddings should be an occasion of learning a lesson about how silly people are.
Money is a great thing for people to have; we don’t discourage having money but it must be kept, it must be protected. It shouldn’t be spent. If a person wants to waste money, there are many important causes that deserve his money. The yeshivas are waiting for money; they need a great deal of help. If a man can find it within his heart to spend huge sums on a wedding which he could have given to yeshivas, that man is a disloyal treasurer.
The money was given to him only as a pikadon by Hakodosh Boruch Hu; he’s a gizbar, a treasurer for Hakodosh Boruch Hu and he is wasting the money. And he is going to be held accountable for all the money that could have encouraged Torah learning, that could have helped poor boys go to yeshivas — poor boys who couldn’t afford to pay tuition, who couldn’t afford to buy food or buy sefarim. And all these things could have been supported by his money and instead he wasted it on catering to feed people who had plenty to eat at home anyhow.
TAPE # 440
