How would you respond to this?

A Guest Post by Rafi G

How would you respond to this?

In this weeks parsha sheet "Eretz Yisrael She'Lanu", Rav Yaakov Yosef said it is preferable to buy, when possible, from religious Jews. He says if you have two stores, one of a Jew and one of a goy (or of a Jew who acts like a goy i.e. he is not religious), we are obligated to purchase specifically from the God fearing Jew. He bases this on a passuk in the Torah. Rav Yaakov Yosef also related that it was well known about the Chazon Ish that he would walk far to a makolet to buy items, rather than purchase from the makolet nearby, because the one nearby was owned by a non-religious Jew, and the one farther away was owned by a religious Jew.

I had the radio on for a moment, and caught the end of a discussion regarding the above psak. The broadcaster was criticizing it saying that with saying such a psak, they [haredim] cannot then come and tell [the establishment] that when they are learning instead of serving in the army they are learning for all of Israel. They are divisive and only look out for their own, and they should not then try to sell us stories of how they are concerned for all of us and learn for all of us.

(Again, I missed most of the discussion - I just caught the end of it which was that one statement)

How would you respond to that?



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