The ninth definition in my Webster's dictionary for `hot'
gives `recently and illegally obtained.'
The proprietor of my local grocery store recently mentioned
something that bothers him a lot. But first, we need some
background information. Quite a number of the small grocery
purchases on an average day are made by young children.
Mothers have run out of bread, milk, cheese, rice, flour or
any other household staple and quickly dispatch a child to
buy it and bring it home.
Most families have an account with the store; the grocer
knows the children by face and name. He tallies the purchases
and jots down the amount on the family's index card. And now
we come to the problem:
During the summer, a typical grocery or minimarket has at
least one freezer case for ice cream. Included are a variety
of single-serving fancy ice cream specialites such as candy-
coated cones and chocolate-covered deluxe popsicles. These
are luxury items and can cost several shekel apiece.
My grocer told me that a number of times this summer, a child
has come into the store, selected one expensive ice cream
treat, and brought it to the counter. "Does Ima know that you
are buying this?" he has asked the child. The answer is
affirmative and said with conviction.
The grocer marked it down and the child departed -- after
opening the ice cream, of course, The grocer's last glimpse
of the customer revealed a contented young fellow savoring
one lick after another, even before reaching the door of the
store. Half an hour later came an irate call from the mother.
"How could you have let my child charge such an expensive
item? Surely you knew I didn't allow it!"
Says my grocer, "I don't have the time to call every mother
and see if she really sent her child for the items s/he is
buying. There has to be some element of trust."
Please realize that we are not dealing with juvenile
delinquents. These are five and six-year-old cheder
boys. As I mentioned, it took less than 30 minutes for the
scenario to play itself out. Child `buys' and eats ill-gotten
ice cream, regrets his deed and goes crying home to mother to
confess what he did.
The question on the mind of my grocer, my mind and now yours,
as you are reading this is: Why is this happening? We didn't
have such problems even a few years ago. What can we, the
current Jewish society, be doing wrong?
Can it be that we have `successfully' internalized the
Western concept of `living on plastic' -- buying things we
cannot afford by charging them to our accounts? I know that
in one new frum neighborhood that I visit frequently,
the local minimarket has a firm policy of allowing its
customers, mainly couples in their 20's and early 30's --
only a 50 shekel line of credit.
In other words, if you are checking out at the cash register
and come up short, you can only charge a maximum of fifty
shekel over the amount you can pay in cash. This is a
cumulative fifty shekel. If you already owe him that amount,
it is cash only until you have paid up.
This margin still allows for little Chanale to run in for a
bag of milk on Monday, five apples on Tuesday and a kilo
flour later on in the week, but the accumulated balance has
to be paid quite regularly in order to keep the system going.
Considering that fifty shekel is a small limit, I suspect
that this grocery had trouble with large unpaid debts and is
weaning its customers away from the credit habit the hard
way.
Why does he continue to stock the expensive ice cream items
in spite of the current problem? The answer is simple. There
is an American yeshiva a few steps down the street. Many of
the boys have come to Israel with a big appetite for sweets
and a generous allowance. For them, the ice cream is
affordable so they buy it regularly.
Getting rid of the temptation is therefore not an option.
That leaves us with the problem of dealing with young
children who can't seem to resist the lure of these goodies.
What is the best way to teach children anything that we want
them to learn? By example.
We should get back into the cash-and-carry mode. If we go to
the store with the money that we have budgeted for groceries
and only buy an amount that falls within our budget, we can
pay for our purchases with cash. If a child asks for a treat,
we can simply explain that by buying that item, we will have
to leave something else off the list.
We can involve the child in the deliberations. "Let's see,
Yossi. We'll need to have a good breakfast, so we certainly
can't leave out the oatmeal. And bread, too, since we all
need sandwiches for school. Cheese? No. We have to have
something to put on the bread. What are we having for supper?
French toast. That means we have to buy eggs and margarine.
It looks like everything here in the basket is important. The
treat will have to wait for another day. Perhaps we can buy
it for Shabbos or Rosh Chodesh. Let's wait and see."
A young woman I know told me that her parents brought up
twelve children on a cheder rebbe's salary but they
always managed to give treats every Shabbos and Rosh Chodesh.
The children not only didn't feel deprived; they thought they
were downright wealthy!
With proper chinuch, our children can live truly rich
Torah oriented lives -- and even have some ice cream, once in
a while.
