Ask The Rabbi
17 February 1996
Issue #96
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This Issue Contains:
1.  A Clean Scalp?
2.  Yeshiva of Survival
3.  Answer to Yiddle Riddle
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                 This issue is dedicated to the memories of
          Moshe Ben Yakov Baruch (Michael Leigh) Z'L  22nd Shevat
    and Yetta Freida Bat Avraham Gutman (Nettie Leigh) Z'L  26th Shevat
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Philip Americus <americus@ruth.ece.psu.edu> wrote:

>Dear Rabbi,
>
>I have a question about selling tickets.  I attend Penn State and the
>`student prices' on season tickets are very cheap (about $12).  Since our
>football team was ranked #1 last year (or #2 depending on how you rank)
>and every game is sold out, scalping the tickets is extremely
>lucrative...students regularly sell tickets for about $30.  The question
>is then:  Is it OK to scalp the tickets?  I know scalping is against
>school policy, because I've heard of someone getting caught on the day of
>the game.  I also assume it's against the law.  Some students will sell a
>$30 pencil and throw in a free football ticket, so all you are really
>paying for is the pencil!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dear Philip Americus,

First of all, Mazel Tov on your team's first place ranking.  But hold on to
your pencil.  I asked Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, shlita, who said that
scalping is `gezelah' -- theft.

As you said, scalping is against school policy.  The school offers
inexpensive student tickets not for investment purposes, but so that the
students get an opportunity to attend the game.  When students scalp their
tickets the school loses, since the school could easily have sold the
ticket for a higher price.

As for the trick with the $30 pencil, it sounds like those students are
trying to `clean their scalp' with it.  But the school would never agree to
this; therefore it violates the terms of sale.  Moral of the story:  For a
clean scalp, use shampoo.

Speaking of inflated prices, a guy goes into a deli:  "Ten dollars for
Pastrami!!" he exclaims.  "Across the street they sell it for $5.99!"

"So why don't you go over there!" says the owner.

"Well at the moment, they've run out of pastrami."

"Trust me," says the owner,  "When I run out of pastrami, I also sell it
for $5.99!"

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Follow-up to Ask The Rabbi #92:

Mordechai Kamenetzky <ateres@pppmail.nyser.net> wrote:

Recently in Ask the Rabbi (`Ask the Rabbi #92') you answered the question
"What was studied in the `Yeshiva of Shem and Ever being that the Torah was
not yet given to B'nei Yisrael?"

My grandfather, Reb Yaakov Kamenetzky, zatzal, has a beautiful explanation:
Shem, the son of Noah, survived the `Flood Generation,' a generation rife
with immorality and cruelty.  Ever survived the `Tower of Babel,' an era
when heresy ruled.  Together, Shem and Ever established `The Yeshiva of
Survival.'  There Yaakov learned how to encounter Lavan and Esau, and come
out with his morals intact.  It is this teaching which Yaakov passed to
Yosef, who would persevere in lewd, immoral Egypt.

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Yiddle Riddle

Last week we asked:  "Who in Bereshit was his sister's son-in-law?"

Answer:

Yosef.  Yosef married Osnat, who was his sister's daughter.  Yosef's sister
Dina conceived a daughter during her tragic abduction by Shechem.  This
daughter, estranged from Jacob's family due to the circumstances of her
birth, found her way to Egypt where she was adopted by Potifar.  Thus the
Torah calls her `Osnat, daughter of Potifera,' because the Torah credits
adoptive parents as though they had given birth to the child.

Source:
Me'am Loez Bereshit, Parshat Miketz
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