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Ep 111Money in Yiddishkeit Today: Cost of Living, Israel, Kollel and Rolex Raffles
1:02

Cost of frum living · 1:02

A couple was furious their parents stopped supporting them in kollel. Here's what the Rosh Yeshiva told them.

I don't think you are entitled to be upset at your parents for not wanting to support you. I think it's a beautiful thing to support your children.

Rabbi Chaim Zvi Senter

Ep 111Mar 25, 2026

Money in Yiddishkeit Today: Cost of Living, Israel, Kollel and Rolex Raffles

with Rabbi Chaim Zvi Senter

It's much easier to tell your child I can't afford it than I don't want to.

Rabbi Chaim Zvi Senter

More moments · 4

0:37
Are people giving tzedakah, or are they gambling?
0:56
It's much easier to tell your child 'I can't afford it' than 'I don't want to.'
0:39
I told a very successful parent: don't come visit your son. He listened.
1:04
An Israeli grocer put back the ice pop I was buying my daughter and taught me a lesson.

Try this · top 3

Quotes

“I don't think you are entitled to be upset at your parents for not wanting to support you. I think it's a beautiful thing to support your children.”

Rabbi Chaim Zvi Senter

“You can't take an entitled child and then say to him, okay, this I'm not giving you.”

Rabbi Chaim Zvi Senter

“There's some things we just can't afford, and that's okay.”

Rabbi Chaim Zvi Senter

“We could afford it, but that means we're not going to afford something else... you're living a life of choice.”

Rabbi Chaim Zvi Senter

“When you put money into a raffle for a Rolex... you're not giving. You're taking.”

Rabbi Chaim Zvi Senter

Takeaways

  1. 1 Housing in Jerusalem has become very expensive: over $1 million for a small apartment in Har Nof, and large homes around 15 million shekel. Rabbi Senter is moving to Neve Menachem, near Givat Ze'ev, so his married children can afford to live near him.
  2. 2 Americans in Israel often live an American lifestyle there. The goal is to take the simpler Israeli way of life back home.
  3. 3 Parents are not obligated to support married children in kollel. It's a beautiful choice, and children should respond with thanks, not demands.
  4. 4 A year in Eretz Yisrael shouldn't be a necessity. Most of his own learning was in America, and his son thrived in an American yeshiva.
  5. 5 Out of about 40 first-year boys, all but one had a parent visit: roughly a parent a week. Visits often disrupt the boys and put pressure on other families.
  6. 6 His own yeshiva pays almost $1 million a year in rent and is 'barely getting by.' Tuition is not a racket.
  7. 7 Borsalinos, custom suits and shtreimels strain the middle class. Every purchase is a choice that means giving up something else.
  8. 8 Emunah needs daily work. Anxiety, including about retirement savings and a 401(k) going up and down, is a sign it needs strengthening.
  9. 9 Rolex and car raffles send children the wrong message about what adults value and make giving feel like gambling. Incentives are fine; making it about the incentive is not.
  10. 10 Guilt-based giving to neighbors and fundraising links is still real giving. A lottery ticket for a luxury prize is closer to taking.
  11. 11 Anyone can have a microphone now, without the rabbinic boards magazines once had. Voices need guidance and a willingness to take fewer views.

Full episode

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