From My Journal......Old Habits Die Hard

You know the halacha that when you give someone tzedakah, you have to support them up to their standards, even if their standards are higher than yours?
I have often thought about this, as many people must. It doesn't seem fair. Once my family went onto the recieving end, I started to understand. From the "poor person's" perspective, they have to try to lower their standards of living, but from the perspective of the nosnim tzedakah, let me try to explain a bit. My father was at one point a very successful business man. My mother used to shop in the most exlusive frum boutiques, not because she is a fancy person who cared that much about fancy clothing but because she wanted to give parnassah to the shopkeepers, especially those who's husbands are in kollel... Honestly, we are not (were not) fancy people who need so much luxuries, but it happens that when you are not accustomed to watching how you spend, you find it hard to get yourself accustomed to it. Very hard. That is basically what is going on in my family. While we all know that money is a real problem, we are still struggling to pull ourselves out of our old spending habits. I am not justifying this. I am not saying we should spend more than the barest minimum, but I am trying to show you that there is a reason for this halacha (as there is for every halacha). I, personally have lowered my living standards tremendously, and I really am very frugal. But it is very hard. As they say, old habits die hard.