The types of vacations also changed. It became common for entire families to visit Israel on an annual basis, the price tags of vacations often competing with the annual salaries of many Israeli families. be okay; lose your credit rating in America and you are in big trouble. An Israeli can rack up a debt at his local makolet, go to a dozen gemachs and live happily mired in debt (not recommended). Not so in America, where the have-nots live right next door to the haves—driving the same model cars even when Tomchei Shabbos delivers food to their doors. Attempts to reign in the affordability crisis focused on very narrow issues, such as reducing wedding expenses and tuition. Many Orthodox Jews still sent their daughters to seminary in Israel—at the cost of $20,000 or more for the year. They paid ever-increasing air fares and school fees. They faced absurdly high mortgages. Yet the restaurants in many frum neighborhoods were (and are) still full on any weekday during lunchtime. Everyone just hoped that the economy would turn around, but it hasn’t. We have made our lists of potential
solutions. Families are moving to Houston, Detroit and Atlanta. Some Orthodox parents are sending their children to charter schools. All of this is being done in the spirit of mesirut nefesh (or is it the American spirit of rugged individualism?). But hardly a word has been spoken about changing the values that got us to this place to begin with. Note that I did not say changing our lifestyle; I said values. There is a difference between living materialistically and being materialistic. One can be a pious Jew and live in a mansion—that doesn’t make him materialistic. A materialistic person has a need to be filled up by objects. He or she might always be busy adding to his home, not using it simply as a place to live, but as a way to satisfy an urge. (By that definition, many Orthodox Israelis are also materialistic— they just have less money to spend.) Eradicating this materialistic urge which plagues our communities re-
Notes 1. Mortimer B. Zuckerman, “Debate: A Second American Century,” Foreign Affairs (May/June 1998). 2. “Oil Tops Inflation-Adjusted Record Set in 1980,” New York Times, March 4, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/ 03/04/business/worldbusiness /04oil.html. 3. “Americans Ditching the Car,” CNN Money, accessed February 13, 2013, http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/28/ne ws/economy/driving/index.htm. 4. Brad Tuttle, “More Young Adults Are Poor, Live With Their Parents,” Time, September 14, 2011, http://business.time.com/2011/09/14/ more-young-adults-are-poor-live-withtheir-parents/. 5. ibid.
6. Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well? http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/sawhill/200705.pdf. 7. Robert Pear, “Recession Officially Over, U.S. Incomes Kept Falling,” New York Times, October 9, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011 /10/10/us/recession-officially -over-us-incomes-keptfalling.html.
quires a long process of personal and communal introspection and reconnecting to spirituality to fill the void. It requires a set of consistent messages from parents, teachers, rabbis and neighbors. Advertisements for cheaper vacations should be rabbinically endorsed; newspapers should start talking about God’s own natural wonders instead of expensive luxury resorts and thrill-seeking entertainment. Nobody knows why Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast of American shores. We only know of its enormous devastation and inflicted suffering. But we also know of the enormous outpouring of chesed that it produced. Jews everywhere saw the pain of others and found the means to give, even when they themselves might have been in considerable distress. Jews engaged in an ancient Jewish art—the ability to turn devastation into spiritual renewal. Perhaps this is just the opportunity for filling the void. g
I
Summer 5773/2013 JEWISH ACTION 67