Monday, January 13, 2014

decadence

I took a count of the number of ads for Pesach resort vacations I saw recently in a Jewish newspaper and stopped when I got past 20.  I was just on a “fum” website and was immediately hit with a pop-up ad for “Shabbat in Cancun.”  Mind you: some of same places running these ads won’t run an ad or article with a picture of even a modestly dressed woman because, after all, “hatzne’a leches,” we have standards of tzniyus, but running ads for decadent luxury resort vacations is somehow OK.  (My wife recently blogged about a book that mentions a Rothschild who had an entire separate Pesach house.  Perhaps that’s the next level of escalation.)

I guess if you make a million dollars a year, blowing a few tens of thousands on Pesach is really not a big deal.  It’s a matter of proportion.  But then I start to think that judging by the number of these programs, there must be plenty of millionaires in our community (baruch Hashem!), and I start to wonder why are our yeshivos all struggling for cash.  There is obviously something wrong with my hashkafos because every one of these programs has a litany of Rabbis offering lectures and shiurim and daf yomis -- not only do they approve, they participate. 
 
I've posted about this in the past and realize it is a lost cause.  The trend is to offer more luxury to the kosher consumer, not less.  My hunch, though, is that you won't find someone who knows Ketzos sitting on a beach in Cancun -- it's a delusion to think you can live in both worlds. 

4 comments:

  1. If the rabbis just teach and don't explicitly approve, it may just be for their own livelihood.

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  2. From what I've seen, the אין נאה לאור ולחושך שיהיו משתמשים בערבוביא is just אין נאה, not impossible. This is demonstrated daily in Bnei Brak, in Yerushalayim, in Monsey, and in Cancun. I salute the atzilus that underlies your assumption.

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    Replies
    1. The problem here is that most of the world would say what i think is choshech is really ohr.

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    2. I do not think that it is really a confusion of choshech and ohr, but I do find it troubling that it seems that way in terms of the priority with which money is being spent. It is sickening that schools are buckling from financial burden while families spend chagim in fancy hotels.

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