By Reuvain Borchardt

 

 

 

 

The Tu B’Shevat season means the opening of the freezer door.

 

It means a fresh batch of young men entering the shidduch marketplace, a flurry of dates, and b’ezras Hashem, a wave of engagements. It means vorts, flowers, jewelry, talleisim, and sheitels.

 

And for many families, it means financial stress during what should be a time of joy.

 

For hundreds of parents each year, the phone numbers of gemachs and ba’alei tzedakah are just as essential to making weddings as are party planners, caterers, and sheitel machers.

 

There have been a number of initiatives, philanthropists, and halls that have successfully reduced the cost of weddings, both by limiting extravagances and subsidizations. But there are many costs associated with a marriage besides the wedding itself. Though these get fewer subsidies and less attention in public discussion and letters-to-the-editor pages than the actual wedding, these expenses may exceed the cost of the wedding itself and can throw parents into a lifetime of debt.

 

Enter The Simcha Initiative, the brainchild of R’ Yitzy Rokowsky, who personally funds the program, and R’ Tzvi Levovitz, his right-hand man in this initiative.

 

Born in the summer of 2024, TSI sought to not only subsidize vorts but also to relieve some of the stress associated with making a simchah and reverse the trend of these events getting ever more expensive.

 

It did this by offering a financial incentive in the form of significant subsidies to parents who use their all-inclusive vort package of a reasonably priced, b’kavod’dig event without live music and professional photography that were once considered extra but were quickly becoming the norm.

 

TSI Vort initiative proved to be so popular and successful that it soon expanded to add a program for engagement jewelry and bar mitzvahs.

 

In an interview with The Voice, Rokowsky and Levovitz discussed the mechanism and ideology behind TSI and its upcoming expansion to talleisim and sheitel packages.

 

The Rising Costs of Simchos

 

Everyone who’s made a simchah or read a Jewish newspaper in the last quarter century is familiar with the rising cost of making simchos and the various proposed fixes.

 

The most-discussed solutions include mandates that everyone—including the wealthy—adhere to a common set of rules, which would mean that a simchah made by a nursing-home operator would be similar to that of a kollel yungerman. And to the extent that people couldn’t afford the costs associated with the simchah, philanthropists would donate thousands of dollars for the ba’al simchah to use as he sees fit.

 

But the TSI founders believe this is the wrong approach.

 

“The rising cost of simchos has been a slow progression, until it’s just gotten completely out of hand,” says Levovitz. “But it’s not because the middle class is feeling peer pressure from the millionaire. It’s because everyone just wants to keep up with the families in their circle, whether that’s their housing complex or their block or their group of friends. If one guy has hot chicken at his vort, the next guy can’t have less, and maybe he even needs a little more, like beef. So over the years, one small add-on has followed another after another, till we reached the point where kollel and simple working families are spending $8,000 to $10,000 on a vort. That’s just plain crazy.”

 

 

 

Meanwhile, for years Rokowsky was one of the benefactors who would donate thousands of dollars per engagement to those in need. But often, he’d see the ba’al simchah then take the funds and use it make an expensive vort that he felt forced to do because society now considers that the norm, but which just a few years ago was considered extravagant.

 

Rokowsky believes that if someone receives a $2,000 subsidy for a vort, that money shouldn’t be put toward a $10,000 vort, but should cover most of the vort costs. Because for Rokowsky, the goal of giving shouldn’t be to enable a rise in standards and subsidize unneeded costs, but to actually reduce the expenses.

 

“I view giving financial assistance like a business,” he says. “If I invest a dollar, I’d like to see a four-dollar return.”

 

Thus, he decided to switch his financial assistance for simchos to a whole new program, TSI, which would incentivize ba’alei simchah to cut out unnecessary expenses, relieve them of stress, and provide them with the know-how to make an affordable and respectable simchah without a million options and analysis paralysis. He believes that most families, when given the opportunity, would make a simchah within their means if it’s b’kavod’dig, and if they’re provided the tools to easily do so.

 

And that’s how TSI came up with its Vort Package, which has been used over 350 times to date.

 

 

The TSI Vort Package

 

The Vort Package costs $2,500 for the party planner, which includes all the food, drinks, and décor. The hall must be booked separately, and the ba’al simchah brings only the liquor.

 

A ba’al simchah may call one of the three participating party planners and simply say, “I want to book a TSI vort,” and the package is made available to them. There are no income thresholds or restrictions.

 

 

 

Additionally, TSI will subsidize a portion of the $2,500, based on how much the ba’al simchah is willing to keep down overall costs.

 

For ba’alei simchah who agree to stick to a menu of basic cakes, cookies, and rugelach along with a limited number of miniatures, fancy cakes, and potato kugel, TSI will subsidize $500 of the cost. For those who also agree to have no live music or professional photography at the vort, the subsidy is $1,500, meaning that the entire cost of the vort to the ba’al simchah, besides the hall and liquor, is just $1,000.

In place of live music, a USB with a music playlist and speakers is available for $100. And for those wishing to have high-quality pictures, a professional camera can be rented for $75. (The family can also choose to go to a studio before the vort and take professional pictures there, which typically costs $150 for a one-hour session.)

 

This subsidy structure incentivizes ba’alei simchah to keep overall costs down and therefore serves to reduce the total expenses for the affair. This operates similarly to the takanah wedding initiatives that significantly reduced the costs of weddings. “It makes no sense that a family is spending just $14,000 for a wedding but then is forced to spend $8,000 for a vort,” Rokowsky says. “Before TSI, many middle-class families were spending more on the vort than the wedding.”

 

Rokowsky insists that the simchos be set up tastefully and often personally drops in to TSI affairs to ensure that they are b’kavod’dig in every way.

 

The Objections

 

When TSI began, some ba’alei tzedakah objected to its premise, saying, “You can’t dictate to people how to make simchos.”

 

“And our response,” says Levovitz, “is that we’re not telling people how to make a simchah. What we’re doing is offering them the ability to make a vort for $1,000 that just didn’t exist before.”

 

The one aspect of the vort package that the TSI founders most agonized over was limiting the hot food to kugel.

 

“We understand that you might have people coming into your vort from Brooklyn or even farther, so how can you not give them supper?” Levovitz sighs. “We struggled with this question a lot. But say you have 10 or 20 people coming from Brooklyn and 200 people coming from Lakewood. If you serve sesame chicken, everyone’s going to take. So we feel that those people who traveled a long distance can go out to eat after the vort, or if the ba’al simchah wants, he can even set up food for them in his house, since the vast majority of people traveling to a vort would be close relatives. It’s just such a waste that a ba’al simchah has to spend a thousand dollars on hot chicken when it’s only 10 or 20 people who need it.”

 

 

Holding the Line

 

If you simply can’t stick to the conditions for the subsidies, like if you must have the hot dishes or live music, you can still get the TSI Vort package and pay the full $2,500. But that means losing the subsidy in addition to paying the cost of the hot dishes or live music or whatever else you want to add on.

 

Thus far, few have chosen to forego the subsidies.

 

In the more than 350 vorts that have used the TSI package since the program launched, over three-quarters have kept all the conditions for the full $1,500 subsidy, and virtually all the others have qualified for the $500 subsidy. These numbers surprised many askanim who focus on funding simchos, but not the TSI founders, who believed all along that when properly incentivized in a b’kavod’dig way, people will happily choose to reduce the extravagances.

 

 

“That’s not twisting arms,” Levovitz smiles. “We’re making the incentive big enough that people are happily choosing to do it.”

 

And he says the success goes beyond the actual TSI vorts.

 

“Previously, the standards were always going up, little by little. One add-on for an extra $150, then another, and pretty soon, the trend became unsustainable. But now, we’ve managed to at the very least help hold the overall levels to where they were so that the standards haven’t risen since TSI started. Now, if someone wants to make a vort a little better than a TSI vort, it’s still below what it used to be. If chicken used to be the standard and short ribs was a little better, now chicken is a little better. So we’re at least holding the line.”

 

The Jewelry Package

 

Eight months after starting the TSI Vort Package, a Jewelry Package option was added. It includes an engagement bracelet, diamond ring, wedding band, and necklace. (Earrings may be added as an upgrade.) There are various packages available, and they’re as low as $3,200 for those who choose lab-grown diamonds.

 

More than 160 couples have used this package.

 

Rokowsky predicts that “three years from now, 50 percent of the people will be buying lab-grown.”

 

In response to my skeptical look, he says, “For every kallah who uses our jewelry package, we show her lab-grown choices and real diamond choices. And what I’m finding is that it’s the fancier girls with better taste who are opting for the lab-grown, as opposed to people from lower-income homes without the sophistication. They’re the ones who are taking the real diamonds, which are smaller and not as clean as the lab-grown diamonds.

 

“Lab-grown diamonds are identical in every way and offer you a larger and cleaner stone for a much better price. Even a diamond dealer can’t tell the difference between lab-grown and regular diamonds. Why walk around with a subpar diamond for 80 years when you can enjoy a beautiful sparkly diamond?”

 

Bar Mitzvahs

 

Last summer, TSI expanded to bar mitzvahs as well.

 

The total fee for the bar mitzvah is $3,000, which includes a catered meal for 100 people, a dessert reception for another 100, and the condition that no more than $400 each be spent on music and photography. Additional quantities can be ordered for larger families or other circumstances for an additional cost.

 

 

Teens are particularly susceptible to peer pressure, and the TSI founders knew that for this to work, they’d have to find a way to get the bar mitzvah boys on board. To that end, they created a unique financial incentive for the boy himself: if he agreed to have recorded music instead of live, he gets a $400 gift card to a local Judaica store.

 

“I thought maybe 10 percent of boys would take this option,” Rokowsky says, “but I was shocked to see that more than half did. We’re so happy that $400 is going toward sefarim as opposed to being squandered on an unnecessary live musician.”

 

And just as with the vorts, he says that the effects of TSI have gone beyond its 69 bar mitzvahs to date.

 

“I was watching the trend change by bar mitzvahs, even by kollel yungerleit. Not only were they having live music, they were slowly adding a live singer too. And I said that if we don’t change the trend, this will quickly mushroom out of control. But if 20 kids in the class have it, you can’t expect the other four kids to say that they can’t afford it. You need to change the standard to where it’s not expected. So we went all the way to the other end of the spectrum that the people should feel it’s perfectly b’kavod’dig to have recorded music.”

 

The New Initiatives

 

And now, TSI is launching two new programs.

 

One is a Tallis Package, which includes two leather or velvet tallis and tefillin bags, two talleisim, and a kittel for $485. A typical kallah was previously spending between $1,000 to $1,4000 for these items. And, so as not to harm retailers’ business, the package is only being made available to couples who had a TSI vort.

 

The Sheitel Package offers two SARY sheitels for $2,500 (with upgrades available). This package will save a typical family between $3,000 and $6,000, depending on the package they select.

 

To be eligible, kallahs must agree not to purchase any other sheitels until at least six months after the wedding.

 

As part of its mission to use its subsidies to incentivize keeping overall costs down and also to avoid unfair competition, TSI is making the Sheitel Package available only to kallahs who have either had a TSI vort, spent less than $5,000 on their vort, had their wedding in one of Lakewood’s subsidized halls, or spent less than $15,000 for their portion of the wedding.

 

The Costs and the Benefits

 

In the 16 months since TSI was launched, it spent $500,000 subsidizing simchos, but Rokowsky says his return on investment makes it well worthwhile.

 

He estimates that the cost in the coming year will increase to $1 million, but that when you count all the savings that the subsidies incentivized, overall simchah costs will be reduced by nearly $6 million. He plans on continuing to add initiatives with a goal of bringing down the overall cost of making a wedding by $20,000 while maintaining the dignity of the ba’alei simchah.

 

 

 

 

He says his ultimate dream is to have many of the other tzedakahs in town operate in a similar fashion, working to make at least four dollars for of every dollar that’s raised by bringing down the expenses along with subsidizing them.

 

“I finally got frustrated enough that I said, ‘I’m going to do this myself, and I’m going to show you how it works, and then hopefully you’ll take it over.’”

 

This town is blessed with many successful businessmen who are generous with wealth, and the debates over ideas of the best methods to help people with simchah costs is sure to continue. Whether TSI ends up totally changing the way things are done or remains one laudable initiative out of many remains to be seen.

 

But one thing is certain: thanks to programs like TSI, as well as others that employ very different methods and philosophies, people who choose to live within their means are finding that once again, a simchah can be exactly what it should be: a time of joy.

 

For info regarding TSI programs, email [email protected]

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[email protected]