CASH ADVANCE BUSINESS: Does The Torah Allow Jews To Take Advantage Of Gentiles?

the truth is rabotai that unfortunately right now we have a situation where many of the amalik are being provoked in different ways by Jews part of it is because we're making that same mistake that we made a couple of thousand years ago at the time of puim where we think that because we are called The Chosen People by God himself therefore we can do whatever we want to anyone that's not part of the chosen we could take advantage of them we could fool them we could uh cheat them lie to them there is no mistake greater than this says in the ninth Paras and he says with Heaven and Earth as my Witnesses I testify that whether it's a Jew or a man or a woman male or female everything is judged based on their actions and that's how thees can be upon a person meaning that anyone Jew or Gentile could actually getes if they act in Holiness but Holiness based on the definition of God the god of Israel not Holiness based on Yos or Buddha or some other Pikachu we're talking about Holiness based on a himself he says whether you're a Jew or Gentile male or female if you're a servant or you're a master don't make a difference if you're a holy person you could even acquire KES meaning of that when it comes to AEM he's not looking at you in an unfavorable way just because you weren't born a Jew or you were born a Jew by default you're favorable he's looking at you based on your actions he's not looking at your color he's not looking oh he's black so I'm going to give him some favoritism no he's white I'm gonna give him some favoritism no he's tall I'm going to give him some favoritism nobody gets favoritism doesn't care what color you are doesn't care what gender you are who doesn't care how tall or short you are how rich or poor you are he doesn't care about those things he cares about your actions if your actions are holy you become holy if your actions are not the contrary now when a person understands that anyone can acquire which is virtually the highest level of spirituality a person can get to in this world other than prophecy itself automatically he starts treating the world around him differently and he starts taking the into consideration of how to do business with non-jews because we're surrounded by them there's almost 8 billion of them in comparison to 15 20 million Jews so nonetheless you're you're going to end up dealing with non-jews which is not a problem as long as you're not a problem now the Y which is about 500 years ago he was one of the in a generation where there are some extraordinary stories about him where there was one time a a who married a woman and swore to her that since she's his first love he's always going to be with her but as hem would have it one day this woman became very sick his wife became very sick and she made him promise to her make a n make a n that he won't remarry he won't marry anyone else after she dies and the husband foolishly said yes but of course he didn't understand what he's getting himself into now she died and he found himself as a single father with three kids having a very very big difficulty doing it himself and he came to the and asked him if he could get an if he can get an A leniency from theor to nfy this said your n is void I don't even need to nullify it it's void it's it's it's it's not a valid n why you're not allowed to make such a n because you are obligated to have a boy and a girl you had three boys with your first wife which means you did not fulfill the full mitvah you have to marry again plus it says in the Tor that it's not good for a man to be by himself meaning you have to marry another woman you have to at least try so the Nale that you made the swear that you made the vow that you made to your uh wife your uh that passed away is not a valid n you can go ahead and remarry now this a found a woman and after after a short period of time they decided they're going to get married on the day of their wedding on the day of their wedding suddenly the guy that's about to get married passed out and died the whole Community is an uproar ah we see that's what happens cuz he made a n to his to his wife and I'm sure his wife probably was really upset about it in heaven and she caused him to die so it's really risha's fault so this word came to the rav he said to them please make sure that when you're going to bury the body bring it back to my house first past you know where you're carrying the body in those days the whole Community would be involved they would carry the body and they would walk it all the way to the cemetery he says pass by my house first stop by my house with the body so now they pass by his house Lua comes outside takes the talit off of his face looks at the face mumbles a few prayers and puts a note inside the talit right next to the body he says bury him like this but don't put the sand on top of him leave it leave the uh thing open leave the uh leave him out there like that put him in the hole but don't cover it okay the Rabbi says the rabbi we do they took him went to the uh took him put him in the hole everybody did cried and everyone left but they didn't cover the hole which is the last step you're supposed to do the next morning the next morning everyone sees the walking in town the guy that died the day before they seem walking in town what are you doing he's not people resurrection of the Dead resurrection of the Dead the guy says no no resurrection of the dead it's just that I went up to sh they said yeah it's your time said yeah well you're not allowed to come here though what do you mean but you said it's my time because it was your time buta wrote a letter to us in he put it on you and he said listen whether it's his time or it's not his time what you're doing right now is going to cause a why they're going to think it's uh something that has to do with this n not allowed to allow not allowed to take him doesn't agree with the B of sh we have to go so you have to go back and live for a bunch more years now the poor guy everybody was scared of him now the guy just dead now he's alive okay it's a big miracle but people are scared to marry him the girl doesn't want to marry him now this guy's I don't know he's a zombie or something so the guy was having a major difficulty SOA saw this a real story and I'll tell you how they found the story SOA saw this that's causing a big commotion so he did a special cabalistic prayer or some type of act that made everyone forget the whole town forgot what happened so how do we know the story 500 years laterad kadisha when they get a body they write down who it is his name dat of death how he died all the details they write it down so they have when the guy finally died years later it's like wait a minute this guy's already here and at that time they said the Ra was RA they looked into the books of R his personal Journal told about about the whole Act of everything that happened that he made everybody forget and that's how they publicize the story so now if R says something you going listen to him or no this is what he says this what he says shalom in his SE uh the seph that he wrote by the way this whole story is y uh oh no no this is SE I'm talking about right now so this is actually in his personal writings in his personal uh writings that's when he wrote this but in hisam in per the 10th peric commentary on theak in s 18 he says the following one could benefit from the mathematical error that leads to a financial benefit of a non-jew but only if you're not causing the error so this is a Clarity on the issue where there is an ala that says if a non-jew if a Jew loses something or makes a mistake you have to give him back his money you cannot take advantage of another Jew but some people think that if a non-jew makes a mistake I'm by default allowed to uh take the money wrong wrong Raa clarifies one part of it he says if the non Jew makes a mistake let's say for example he gives you change you did a deal with him he gives you a bunch of change instead of giving you let's say uh 20 uh 20 uh uh doll bills he gives you $200 bills instead of $20 he give you 2,000 so Raa says first and foremost no if you're the one that caused them to do make the mistake by confusing him by tell no no use this one and you know he's making a mistake forbidden 100% it's 100% stealing you're not allowed to cause the non-jew to make the error because he's uh especially if he works for you he's under you it's forbidden even if the is never going to know about it but in fact even further if you see him counting the change and he gave you $2,000 instead of $20 doesn't have to necessarily be that much I'm just give you examples and you know it's a mistake and he you didn't cause him to make that mistake he did it on his own you're still not allowed to take the money until you tell him listen you should double check or I'm just relying on what you did meaning you're giving him the warning signs to double check his work to make sure that this is okay like you have to give him warning signs you have to make sure to be honest with the guy and not just say oh no he made a mistake it's his problem why because if the non-jew makes a mistake and the Jew takes advantage of it it not only looks bad for business and now also looks bad for Judaism even if you're not a religious Jew because the non-jews don't look at religious Jews or non-religious Jews differently they look at everybody as Jews like today the uh uh the thing they had in Belgium the anti- parade they had in in Belgium today with all types of caricatures making fun of Jews they didn't really care if the Jew is a religious Jew or a non-religious Jew some of the costumes were costumes of religious Jews with big noses and big ears and big things making fun of Jews some of them were just making fun of Jews without it it didn't make a difference to them they ate everybody alike whether they're religious or not religious they were dressing up as as Nazis regardless now now the rambam in chapter 11 Al number four says that a mistake a mistake in accounts meaning a monetary mistake that is made by non je is considered like a lost item and it's permissible to benefit from it but this only applies if he makes the mistake by himself meaning the same thing that ra Lua said 500 years ago he was just quoting the rambam from 900 years ago it wasn't really a by but in essence you see how the continue working off of each other they're not uh bringing new Torah to the world now it's forbidden to cause a gentile to make a mistake further he elaborates he says that a gentile's error means that you have to tell him I'm relying on your account the rambam says and if he still doesn't correct himself then you could take it because then this guy's insisting on just losing money but if you correct him and he still and says no no just take it then it this guy is either you know something's wrong with him this guy just wants to give you a gift but if you tell him over and over again he still insist now you have a serious issue so what does this have to do with cash advance when I spoke to a few people that were in a cash advance business and I told him listen it's an unethical business you're charging the average person that's in a desperate need for money for his business enormous interest that's three four five 10 100 200 times the industry average only because they can't get the loan from anyone else if they were able to get their loan from a regular Bank from Chase Manhattan or JP Morgan or Wells Fargo or some normal bank and get a loan for six s% they never go go to these thieves at the C Vance business they never go to them but they coming to the cast Advanced business and they're signing off all types of documents that tell them listen you're going to pay 80% interest 90% interest 100% interest 400% interest in some places some guy says no no we only charge 40% only only 40% as if it's allowed I said you're not allowed to do it you are taking advantage of the people that are desperate then he responds to me goes yeah but they're choosing to sign on their own and they're not even Jewish if they were Jews then okay we're not even allowed to charge Jews interest at all but he says you're allowed to charge non-jews interest you're allowed to charge them so they're signing the contract I said no wrong first of all you assuming you're allowed to charge interest to non-js is already a mistake by itself there's actually criteria of who you're allowed to and who you're not allowed to and who is allowed to charge and who's not which we'll get to in a second but further than that you know you're taking advantage of them and just because they're signing the agreement and making the mistake doesn't mean it's allowed why cuz you are the one that's leading them astray you are the one that's tell them listen I'm going to get you $100,000 in 24 hours I'm going to get you $200,000 save your house save your business save everything in in three days you're going to get it you're going to get it you're enticing them to do this mistake to make this mistake that's not allowed by any standard Jew non-jew even a cow you're not allowed to lend money that way you are the one that's causing their error it's not like they're just doing it on their own now the r in the commentary on the Mish chapter 12 section seven M number seven sees says stealing from non-jews is number one a transgression against hashem's will Hashem does not want you to steal from non-jews know that two reinforces un undesirable character traits meaning you're stealing from people it's going to get you to start eventually steal from Jews you're stealing from non-jews eventually going to steal from Jews too you're charging non-jews interest eventually you're going to charge Jews interest three you're G to end up leading to desecration of hashem's name especially says especially if you look like a religious Jew you're going to lead to [Music]