Like you, we've often wondered why responsible people don't speak out against Kupat Hair and other organizations that promise miracles to those who make charitable contributions. Yaakov Menken, writing at Cross Currents, has the obvious answer:
So what are we responsible people supposed to do? Nothing of course. Until the gedolim come out against the flim-flam artists, we should just sit quietly, say nothing, and continue to allow these dishonest people to publish their snake oil promises in respectable magazines. After all lots of "great work" is being done, and in Judaism the goal always justifies the means.
/snark
HT Baruch Pelta
It is my impression that the Tzedakah itself does great work, the Gedolim give it much deserved haskamos, and given that they neither see nor can read the English-language ads produced here in America, are not speaking out against them.This makes perfect sense. After all, we have no English-speaking gedolim. Indeed there is no one in the entire world who is capable of translating into Hebrew the bogus and fraudulent promises made by these organizations. Should some Hebrew-speaking zealot bring the ads to the gedolim, and provide a loose and misleading summary? Maybe, but now that Leib Pinter is in jail, who is available to do such a thing? Anyway, as Rabbi Nosson Slifkin and Rabbi Nathan Kamenetsky might explain, it is entirely inappropriate for the gedolim to object to a piece of writing they can't examine in its original language.
So what are we responsible people supposed to do? Nothing of course. Until the gedolim come out against the flim-flam artists, we should just sit quietly, say nothing, and continue to allow these dishonest people to publish their snake oil promises in respectable magazines. After all lots of "great work" is being done, and in Judaism the goal always justifies the means.
/snark
HT Baruch Pelta
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