I told God, every month I worry about this, I don't have the strength. You worry • A provision from heaven I Chapter 4

April 18, 2025   

The final chapter in this series will address the question of the economic conduct and planning - or lack of planning - of Haredi households, as part of the implications of the 'miracle concept' that we described in the previous chapters.

In conversation with the experts in the preliminary study, two significant insights emerged regarding the question of economic planning, and were later confirmed in interviews: the first concerns the absence of economic planning as an overarching concept in Haredi society. And the second concerns the absence of economic planning as everyday behavior.

We will present these two insights below.

Lack of planning as a common perception

The heads of Haredi families want the household to be run properly and for their children to lack nothing, at least at a basic level. This is the primary aspiration. But how will the sources of income required to realize this aspiration be obtained? This is another question, seemingly secondary at the conceptual level, but which greatly preoccupies the heads of families in their daily lives.

M., a former senior advisor at the Mesila organization - which supports Haredi families who have encountered financial difficulties - explained: 

In the general public, there is a trend where most working people keep a tidy account, with the aim of having income in excess of expenses. In the Haredi public, it is important that 'the house flows', that raising children 'flows smoothly'. It is important that the children receive what they deserve, and they do not care how much it will cost and how much it may affect the deficit. This does not mean that secular people do not care about their children, but that their ability to care for a smaller number of people is greater.

I have to tell you: This is the source of the mistake of many academics and politicians who thought that if you cut the ultra-Orthodox's allowances, they would have fewer children. This is ignorance, and this is nonsense. They will continue to have children exactly the same and will take care of them financially. How? They will find allowances from other sources. They will obtain disability benefits from the National Insurance Institute, they will work illegally. In the end, they will manage, they know how to take care of their children because it is important to them.

The economic advisor's insight is important; according to him, the Haredim certainly care about their children, but they live in the 'here and now.' If their benefits are reduced, they will improvise and find other sources. They have no long-term worries about the size of the deficit, about being caught in emergency situations, about a personal financial catastrophe, and the like.

In a conversation we had with D., a senior Haredi researcher at the Natoni Emet Institute, a similar insight emerged in the past. In her remarks, the researcher referred to the phenomenon of Haredi parents who commit to paying the young couple a certain amount for the apartment, but when they are actually required to do so, they do not fulfill their commitment:

The main problem, I think, is the lack of long-term planning. Everything is from heaven, everything is divine help… It is very much related to this, and I think it causes a lot of problematic phenomena, including what you mentioned, which is promising and not promising to keep… It is part of this thing. There is such a model of living without planning. It is not a bug, it is a feature.

One of the interviewees briefly described her point of view regarding the 'miracle concept': "I want to explain something. Today, most people live in poverty, most people live in the red. Today, being in the red is not poor. We go to the refrigerators and fill the cart with groceries, even though we have a red in the bank. And that's all of us... I mean, we are a different generation that doesn't live in poverty, we have learned to live in peace with the red, and most families are like that. It's a bubble. The equivalent word for miracle is a bubble.".

It seems, therefore, that reliance on miracles and help from heaven often leads to a lack of economic planning in many areas, including economic management of the issue of child marriage.

When Benyahu, a teacher in Haidar and father of ten, was asked in an interview how he would marry off his children and how he would pay the down payment he had promised his sons, he replied:

I don't have an answer. There won't be an answer because I really don't know where it will come from. Maybe I'll win the lottery.. I don't know. In the meantime, he helped me, he'll help me... I really don't know, maybe I'll cry to God... I don't have an answer that I'm keeping, I don't have an answer... I have a brother who doesn't even work. I still earn 10,000 shekels, but I have a brother who is a beggar, whose entire income is 2,100 shekels. Now his daughter is engaged, he pledged 400,000 shekels. I said to him, tell me, are you okay? How did you pledge 400? He told me, I went to the rabbi... [one of the judges in the city] and he told me – 400,000 can be pledged. He asked the rabbi – but from where? The rabbi said – God helps everyone, he will help you too.

Lack of planning and financial management as everyday behavior

The lack of planning leads to a large extent to a set of everyday economic behaviors unique to Haredi households. When we spoke with the manager of one of the Haredi gamachim, he opened his private mailbox and took out a Haredi kommun. He opened the flyer at random and presented us with an advertisement for a Haredi retail chain that spans two pages. He asked us to read the small print that appeared below the ad: "We accept Card Shop cards; Shefa Card; Haim Card; Food for Life; Ayon Parsha; Yiddish Card; Esh"l Jerusalem; Chasdei Yaakov Ar; Rachel's Tomb Institutions; Ministry of the Interior food stamps.".

M., a former consultant for the Mesila organization, reported large bread distributions that take place once every two weeks in Haredi concentrations, with crowds standing in line to receive loaves of fresh bread. Milk is also distributed through various "food cards," as are salads left over from feasts.

During the days of 'Bein HaZaman' [the yeshiva students' vacation], notice boards display offers for lunchtime meat dishes for only 13 shekels for the whole family. This does not mean that every Haredi family enjoys or lives off these charitable distributions, but the fact that they are so popular on the Haredi street is indicative of daily conduct.

""This is an entire industry that perpetuates the norm of cheap shopping by ultra-Orthodox families and does not allow them to get out of the problematic economic cycle in which they are trapped," the director of the GMAH concluded.

In one of the lectures given at a Haredi economics conference organized by the Yad Shimshon Foundation, the lecturer – Rabbi Israel Felner, one of the heads of the large charity organization Kupat Ha'ir – said that holiday expenses do not require special preparation from the organization, as most Haredi families manage to receive assistance from the various foundations and associations that provide financial assistance along with food products for the holiday.

Relying on loans as a 'constant buzz''

In one of the preliminary interviews with experts on the Haredi economy, M., a former consultant to the Mesila organization, told us: "Everyone here has debts. That's where your mistake is if you try to check who is and who isn't.".

The monthly debt payments of the Haredi families who participated in the study ranged from 1,000 to 13,000 shekels. The average was 4,900 shekels, which constitutes 24.61% of total monthly expenses and 22.11% of total income. We would like to reiterate that this study is not quantitative, and therefore these numbers do not reflect a representative sample; the rationale and explanation for these numbers are what is important and relevant to our case.

The overwhelming reliance of Haredi families on loans – in what we call the 'constant hum of the financial burden’ – came up in many interviews. For example, in an interview with the couple David and Sarah, who repay debts to several different banks every month:

We have two open loans, about 100,000-120,000 shekels. I can look into it, but something like this… We give an instruction to this bank to transfer to this bank and that bank.

While Naftali said:

You asked me if I have any bank loans. I have an overdraft in three bank accounts. In total, it also sits at about 100 thousand shekels. And besides, I pay interest every month, 13%, I don't know how much they take, these thieves..

In this chapter, we do not seek to emphasize the loan itself, but rather the widespread preoccupation with it. In Haredi parlance, this phenomenon is called 'rolling debts' or 'rolling over loans', meaning taking a loan from one bank to another, from one bank to another. It seems that relying on loans and dealing with them as a tool that allows one to 'make ends meet' - as opposed to productive income or orderly financial planning - is a (partial, at least) projection of the 'miracle concept'.

The recognition that at the end of the day, 'it's possible to manage', and that the deficit can be covered with assistance from one or another government agency, enables the economic conduct described in the previous chapters, even in light of the high gaps and debts that accumulate following child marriage.

For example, Michael, a 34-year-old Abrecht man and father of seven (unmarried) children, recounted what happened to him during the time he contracted the kissing disease (mono): "I had mono, and you're completely done for, and now the 20th of the month has arrived, and it was a time when a lot of things went wrong for me on the 20th of the month. Every time I had to raise loans or something so that nothing would come back. Thank God, I've been married for 12 years and I've never bounced a check, and my bank account is completely fine, thank God.".

Yedidia, a father of six, told of a "miracle" that happened to him, which also involved a loan. It was the day he realized he was in debt of 8,000 shekels that he could not repay. He turned to God in prayer:

I told him [to Kedush Baruch Hu] – Every month I worry about this, I don’t have the strength. You worry about this. [And that day] I come home and hear my wife finish a phone call and say: Okay, I’ll ask my husband, I’ll get back to you. She tells me that she just spoke to her sister, and that she said that they have 8,000 extra shekels in the account, if we need a loan. I told her – call her and ask her if there’s a possibility that it will come to us today because we need it. And so it was.

Jonathan, a father of nine, also linked the loans to divine assistance: "I took out loans together, both for the apartment and for my daughter's wedding, in the same month. The same month I got my daughter engaged, I signed a contract for an apartment. I took out debts worth a million, and I managed to pay off debts of close to two million with them. I have no idea how, this is the miracle we're talking about.".

According to Rabbi Yaakov, director of the loan service: "Except for the exceptions, everyone who marries their children, everyone needs a loan service. Of course they need a loan service. This is one of the ways of faith.".