Q&A: Exploiting the Law
Exploiting the Law
Question
The law provides a certain allowance for disabled people. If someone is extremely lazy and also a generally strange person, is it moral for him to cause himself a disability in order to receive the allowance? Is it reasonable to deny such a person the allowance? If it is completely legitimate for him to cause himself a disability, then if he demonstrates serious intent, would it be proper to give him the allowance without his having to harm himself?
Answer
There is absolutely no permission to do this, but there is also no justification for giving him an allowance, except perhaps in the sense of saving suicidal people. But if he gets himself into a serious situation that is not a matter of saving a life, that’s his problem. And since he should not be given an allowance, there is no point in doing it, so there is no need to forbid it.
Discussion on Answer
I hadn’t heard about that. But on the face of it, it sounds bad.
Is this similar to the action of our modest president, the train-riding man with Betar-style splendor (whose name I happened, purely by chance, to use), who sold his house, and thus, as a president with no home in his ownership, the state rents him an apartment for the sum of 18,000 shekels per month
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