One of the stories my father told me about his experience in concentration camp was his relationship with the Klausenberger Rebbe of blessed memory. I remember him telling me that the Rebbe refused to eat the non kosher soup they were given to eat. Instead he relied on the one small morsel of bread he was allowed some days. My father would trade food or cull a favor in order to get some extra pieces of bread to bring his starving Rebbe. He told me that no matter how hungry the Rebbe was he would always ask "Velvele, how did you get this bread? Promise me you didn't steal it from someone else."
We all heard the news about members of our community that have mismanaged their businesses, borrowing other peoples money for their lavish lifestyle, or plead guilty to charges of swindling investors.I am not going to judge them and say they are guilty or not. But we all knew there was probably an issue with the way they were making money. But the Rabbis that took money from them didn't seem to care. One organization even jokingly said to me at the time that it's no big deal for one of them to give because it is probably not his money. They paid for the honor of hosting famous Rebbes, basking in the notoriety of having such a holy guest. A Rabbi that has the ability to give blessings and pray for the health of his followers surely has the ability to discern whether the money he is accepting is Kosher or not. These organizations are to blame for standing by the blood of a friend. Perhaps if they would have tried to direct their donors to an honest path by asking them point blank if the money was obtained legally, or if the money was theirs to give, they could have steered them away from resorting to crime and our friends wouldn't be in the trouble that they are in now.
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