B’nai Torah Economics 101: The Road to Ruin

There is a joke circulating in the Orthodox Jewish community that G-d asked the Lakewood Yeshiva to accept the Torah. They asked, “What’s in it?� “Six days you shall work,� G-d answered. Lakewood declined.

What is true about Lakewood in the U.S. is true of the charedim even more in Israel, where poverty is experienced by a substantial percentage of charedim.

In order to justify the horrible modern practice in Israel of ultra-Orthodox leaders’ rejection of economic realities, a True Torah precedent must be fabricated.

In this week’s Torah portion “Torah Economics,� Big Aish Rabbi Noson Weisz explains,

Secular Western society is a world devoid of bracha consciousness. The secular worldview regarding the proper management of resources is economic. Economics is defined as the study of the distribution of scarce resources. Prosperity is always relative, and it is a consequence of successfully optimizing the distribution of these scarce resources.

We all know that nature has limits; the upper limits of natural capacity are determined by, (1) the basic resources available in various parts of the world, (2) the amount of knowledge concerning methods of exploitation of such resources, and (3) the effectiveness with which such knowledge is implemented. Limitless plenitude is impossible by definition under natural law. Mankind must learn to distribute the limited resources available among competing claimants without destroying itself in the process.

Economics does not recognize the power of bracha.

So? Why should they? They are economists, not theologians.

Every Jew is a blessing; he is a descendant of Abraham, who was promised by God that he would be a blessing. Whatever their level of observance, all Jews somehow know that they were born into a non-economic world of limitless blessing.

All ostensibly very lovely ideas, Rabbi Weisz. But what’s less lovely are the ramifications of this nonsense that Jews are not somehow not subject to economic laws. What is perhaps less lovely still is when charedim and BTs are encouraged to cast aside concerns over natural law in favor of faith. The result is, in fact, not always limitless blessing, but poverty.

And when that happens, do you think the wise men of Aish HaTorah are going to be surprised? Are they going to stay up nights pondering how could it be that Bts who defied economic laws are not enjoying “a non-economic world of limitless blessing� but shockingly, a lifestyle greatly reduced than the one we grew up in where economic laws were considered applicable?

Don’t bet on it!

What would be more reasonable is to demand generous behavior and Torah study within the parameters of economic laws.

But Big Aish is not reasonable. Charedism is frequently unreasonable.

And poverty is abundant in all communities that deny economic realities. Jewish or gentile. Secular or fundamentalist.