I pride myself on thriftness and while I live in a Jewish neighborhood right now and I hope someone is eating out, buying prepared foods, doing dry cleaning, etc., I really do not use these services; and as a girl gowing up in the wilds of surburbia we did not really have or use the Jewish stores - and they would come and go, and the rabbi would request, from the bima, that if there was a Jewish alternative, we should be using it !!!

So - the question is - should I be buying take out food once in a while, eating out, etc ? I mean from me, the Jews don't have parnossa, you know?

In general I would say no because you should not feel under any obligation to buy anything that you don't want. But I would ask if you do want take out and are deliberately denying yourself. If which case, if it won't break the bank, then sure, get take out every now and again. But also remember that shopping somewhere "every now and again" isn't really giving someone parnassah. It's the regular customers that come in weekly or even daily that count the most.

Ah.

Gotcha.

No, you shouldn't specifically buy something just to give someone Parnosah.

On that note, I guess I'm very bad. I rarely, if ever, shop in Jewish stores (except for groceries). I can't afford the Jewish store prices, nor their (lack of) service. I'd rather buy me a sweater for 40 bucks instead of the 250 it can cost me in the Jewish store.

I think the rabbi meant if you were going to buy X anyways, instead of buying from non-Jewish option, you should buy from Jewish option.

If you didn't need shoes and there was a Jewish store, i don't think he expected you to buy shoes you didn't need.


Where I live, we wish we could have the Jewish shopping alternatives they have in NY. The tznius factor is hard to overlook.

So you need to work it a bit harder on finding things you can wear from non Jewish stores (Lord and Taylor is one of my favorite stores for clothing), but you can manage. If you'd see the price tags on the 'tznius' clothing (which, incidentally, many are far from tznius), you'd think otherwise.

Yes, but where I live Lord & Taylor is more expensive. The issue isn't so much the shirts or sweaters, it's to find skirts below the knee (even when sitting) and nice normal Shabbos suits.

L&T is more expensive than most other shops like it. But still way cheaper than the Jewish stores. Way cheaper. I don't buy my skirts in the non Jewish stores for that reason (I'm tall as well), and have to resort to the Jewish stores, but I don't buy skirts too often as I tend to stick to black or navy and use them over and over.

I agree with TDP's comment " No, you shouldn't specifically buy something just to give someone Parnosah. ", that there isn't an obligation to buy something from someone that you don't want just to give them parnassah, although I would offer a caveat that it may be a form of tzedakah, where the profit is pure tzedakah, and not only is it tzedakah, but it's a very high form of tzedakah. So if you buy a DVD from someone who's selling it in his home, and you don't really need the DVD, the profit to the seller may essentially be simply a high form of tzedakah.

But that issue aside, I'm not sure there's an obligation to patronize a business you have no need for just because the business is owned by a Jew. On the other hand, as others [FYI and TDP] have mentioned, if you want a good or a service and you have two options, a Jewish or a nonJewish proprietor, then there's a mitzvah to davka patronize the Jewish proprietor, provided that 1. the Jew is not charging above the going rate and 2. the nonJew's price is not significantly better than the Jew's.

This is discussed in ArtScroll's Journey to Virtue on page 487.
http://www.artscroll.com/Books/jtvp.html

Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou for writing this. In the back of my mind I always felt a tad guilty even though I knew that I couldn't afford the 'jewish prices'.

The ArtScroll book doesn't give a cut off. It does however have some examples:

a Jew offers 200k for a house, and nonjew offers 201k, it's a mitzvah to sell to the Jew. but if the nonjew offers 220k, there's no mitzvah to sell it to the jdw.

market value of a computer is 500,. a nonjew offers 500, a jew offers 480. the owner doesn't have to sell to the jew.

in short, if the savings are slight, then go with the jew, but if the savings are considerable [whatever that means] then you can deal with the nonjew. however, if there's a going price, and the jew overcharges even slightly, then there's no mitzvah to buy from him.


That said, please read it in the original so you are not mislead by my interpretation.

Makes sense to me. So, I guess if you were going to eat out, you should eat at a kosher restaurant

(What about a kosher restaurant owned by a non-Jew that employs Jews?)

I think one of the bigger issues I have are the (no) return policies in Jewish stores vs. the easy return policies in any other store. As well as service.
KYO in Monsey is one such restaurant.

That's a very good question. I would guess that just because the store owners ignore you while serving Nechama Dina who came in after you doesn't trump the requirement to patronize a Jew.
On the other hand, I would guess that a return policy almost has a monetary value and that the ability to return something to the nonjewish store means the store is effectively offering the merchandise as a value added. I'm not sure how one would calculate that value added, but I would think it would be worth something.

I know of several such restaurants. I'm curious to know if this is addressed since your patronage would effect the Jews working the restaurants abilities to earn a living. But, it isn't quite a "Jewish establishment."



Perhaps offering a return policy could be interpreted as an added service on top of the goods?

Could be you're right. I'm just guessing here. But I think someone would be willing to pay extra if they could then return the item, which sort of makes it a value added, rather than just a service added. But you could be right. I have no idea. It's just that it seems to me that the right to return the item for a refund [rather than a credit note] almost has a value, as opposed to being served before Nechama Dina if you came in the store first even if Nechama Dina is in the proprietor's tehilim circle.

and see whats been happening to it these past week!?!

You misunderstood. By service I wasn't referring to just looking at me or not ignoring me. I was referring to them giving me service by taking returns for, say, 90 days, or if a toy breaks, they give me a new one, or if the phone is not working as well as I thought it will, they are willing to let me exchange it for a different model. In the Jewish stores, you get none of that. Once you paid, you're stuck with it, no matter what happens to it, or how unhappy you are with it. That, to me, makes the product lose at least 40% of its value.

Tehe. I don't want to go into that. Suffice it to say, it's not as black and white as they make it out to be.