In Israel there are gemachs for just about everything. I remember when I first learned of the "child gemach". Based on the normal usage of the gemach, it sounds like this would be a gemach you would go to when you need to borrow  child for a while. I later learned that this gemach, common at least in Haredi neighborhoods, is for lost children - if you find a lost child wandering in the streets or in the park and cannot figure out where the child is supposed to be, you can drop the child off at the child gemach, and the parents will go to the child gemachs looking for their missing kid, and the gemach people will also spend time looking for the parents. I learned about this many years ago in Har Nof when we found such a child and were directed to such a gemach. The lost child and the parents were reunited a few hour later.

Kikar is reporting about a case in which a mother needed to go out but could not find a babysitter to watch her child. She came up with a brilliant but devious plan. She brought her child to the child gemach claiming she had found the child. She left the child there urging them to watch the child until the parents could be located.

Sure enough, a while later, after "mom of the year" finished her errands or watching her movie or suntanning on the beach or dancing at her friends wedding, she decided to pick up her child from the gemach. But she couldn't. The benevolent people running the gemach would realize what had been done, and nobody wants to look bad like that.

So, mom sent an older daughter to pick up her lost kid from the gemach! Baruch Hashem the child was found safe and sound!

The article does not say who said what to who and how the story became known, and that is a point I would really like to know. Did the gemach people find out they had been grossly taken advantage of? Did mom feel bad about what she had done and want to know how to make it right and if it was really so bad? Did the older daughter tell her friends and then word spread? Somehow else?

The cased was brought to a few rabbonim. The question asked was if it is ok to use such a gemach for such a purpose. In the halachic paper in which it was published, the case is made that it is clear one cannot take advantage of other people's chessed in this fashion. The question remaining open though is if mom would need to pay, after the fact, for the babysitting services she took advantage of, and if yes, how much - at what rate?

Rav Nussbaum, Rav Stern, and Rav Klein all paskened that mom must pay the going rate for a babysitter. The chessed family was not offering to provide free babysitting services for moms in need - they only watched this mom's kid because she falsely presented herself as having found a lost child.

Rav Yitzchak Zilbershtein paskened the same question differently. Rav Zilbershtein, Rav Weiss and Rav Monderer paskened that she does not owe them any money.

I would like to know the logic behind each opinion. I suspect the opinion to pay is based on the halacha that you have to pay for services you received, even if there was no agreement of purchasing said services. The opinion to not pay might be based on the fact that the only service offered is a free service. This is only a guess and I would like to hear more details to explain.  Personally I would think such a mother taking advantage of such a service like this should be fined by a beis din and have to pay even more, both as punishment and as a deterrent from turning it into a babysitting service.

this gemach notice appeared in a local ad booklet..

HatTip to Shui Haber

this raises a number of questions in my mind..
1. what is an amber gemach - what is amber, and how does it prevent jaundice?
2. Let's make a deal - isnt giving out 9000 frum songs for free stealing? Are the various artists getting paid for this music? Have they all agreed for their music to be distributed free of charge for this lofty purpose?
3. does it matter how many non-Jewish music files I have? if I delete 10 songs, will I still get 9000 frum songs or is it on some weighted scale?
4. what does "also applicable if you own only Jewish music" mean? - what am I supposed to delete to get the 9000 frum songs? delete all my Avraham Fried songs to get them back plus more?

The extreme temperatures (on the heat side) of the past few days has instigated the creation of a new gmach (though it has been seen before.elsewhere).

In Bnei Braq someone started a "cold water gmach" and put out on the street a number of bottles of cold water and cups, for use by the overheated public.


source: Kikar

It is only 3 bottles, but the person behind it probably goes out and refills them every now and then.

As I mentioned, such gmachs have been seen before. In RBS, there is someone who puts out a cooler of water for the public during the hot summer Shabbos days. I am confident that this happens in other places as well.

Entirely new or not, it is a big chessed and very thoughtful of the person behind it.

Keep cool, and drink a lot

If you are scratching your head wondering what the picture is of, it was posted on Twitter as being a new "parking meter g'mach" for a certain street in Boro Park. The way it works is, if you should get a parking ticket on that street, you can contact the g'mach and look for a parking receipt (from someone else who donated it), with which you can "prove" that you had paid for parking and thereby challenge the ticket in court.

I should note that civilly this is illegal, and is outright thievery, and halachically as well, as much as I can figure out. I have not yet been able to think of a reason it should be allowed to do this.



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Will the institution known as the "gmach" be coming to an end? I don't think so, but it looks like the government is fighting the free-loan phenomenon.

The truth is that it is not fighting the free-loan aspect of the gmach. Rather, many gmachs have gone way beyond what was the original purpose of their existence, the interest-free loans, and have been expanding their services to include all sorts of services on the edge of what might be considered actual banking.

The problem with offering banking services is that with no regulation, the person giving the money to the gmach is at extreme risk of losing it. There have been some very public cases of such organizations (sometimes gmachs and sometimes not) going under, causing serious loss to many investors.

The Marker has revealed that a new directive is being put into place by which any organization that holds deposits will not be able to be granted a certificate of proper administration - "Ishue Nihull Takin".

The main problem is with the gmachs in the haredi sector.

The reason for the change in the directive is due to being in the middle of a process of putting the gmachs through a legal process to make them official. For the meantime, it was decided, they will not move to dismantle these gmachs but will refuse to grant the ishur nihul takin.

The problem with these organizations for which they cannot be given such an ishur is that by taking the deposits of money, and by giving out loans to more than 30 people, they have entered the category of banking transactions, and as long as the gmachs have not yet been declared legal institutions for such transactions, the organizations running them cannot receive the ishur nihul takin.

Not having this ishur means the organization - not just the gmach but the organization running the gmach, will not be able to receive any governmental support and will not be able to provide any services to government offices.

I don't think they will close the gmachs. I don't think they will be able to close the gmachs, even if they were to try. The gmachs, the interest-free loans, help a lot of people, and it is a mitzva as well. People will find ways to continue giving and getting these interest-free loans. Perhaps they will need to be decoupled from the larger organizations, or separated somehow by forming subsidiaries or whatnot, but they will find a way to continue operating the gmachs and circumvent this problem.


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In religious ocmmunities in Israel, one can find in the local directory a multitude of free services offered under the category "Gmach". There is a gmach for almost anything you might ever need in a pinch, or as a one-time need.

One of those gmachs, one I was always surprised to see, is a medicine gmach. Somebody starts a medicine gmach storing unused medicines, often prescriptions that were filled but not taken or remaining medicine after the recommended dose was used. The gmach will usually be accessed when no pharmacy is available, such as late at night or on Shabbat. Someone gets sick, so you go get your medicine and then after Shabbos you go to a doctor, get a prescription, fill it and replace the medicine. Sometimes it might include selling medicines that are very expensive and not included in the "basket of subsidized medicines" at discounted prices.

I never really understood how someone could run one of these medicine gmachs. There is so much liability. If someone should overdose or have an allergic reaction, or a bad side-effect, it is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Besides for the fact that it must be illegal to distribute medicines like this, without prescriptions, by someone unlicensed.

Anyway, the news is reporting that the police today raided the house of someone in Rechasim who was operating a medicine gmach. They suspect that he was collecting scripts and filling them at the pharmacy, after which he would distribute to people who needed medicines. As well, he would collect unused medicines from sick people.

The investigation began after a complaint to the Ministry of Health. I don't know why this fellow was singled out - it doesn't say that medicine that he distributed caused someone to get sick or some other harm.. 

Either way, I have not heard of this happening before, and these medicine gmachs have been around for a long time. It was long overdue that someone would complain and force the authorities to step in.

Will we soon see the end of the medicine gmach?



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Among the variety of gmachs that one can find in a religious neighborhood is a medicine gmach. These medicine gmachs carry basic medicines and needs, so that if someone should suddenly run out and not be able to get the pharmacy right away, or if one suddenly needs something during the night, he could get it from the gmach. He might later have to replace the medicine he took, or some gmachs might require seeing a prescription (depending on what is needed). It is also a way people can get expensive medicine for little or no money, as people who only use parts of medicine packages at times donate the remainder to these gmachs for the benefit of people in need.

I don't think this would ever go over in the United States, as it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. Yet in Israel it is fairly popular.

Rav Chaim Kanievsky recently went to visit the office of an organization that provides such a service. This organization also collects unused medicines and distributes them to the needy.

During the visit, the director of the organization asked Rav Kanievsky if a person is allowed to dispose of unused medicines, since he cannot return them anyway to the pharmacy. According to the report on Kikar, Rav Chaim Kanievsky responded that it is prohibited as bal tashchis to dispose of unused medicines and they must be given over to be distributed to the needy.

When asked for further clarification as to whether this is something that must be done or if it is simply a recommendation, he reportedly repeated that it is bal tashchis and they must be distributed to the needy.

To me, "Davening G'mach" sounds like it should be a gmach where if you cannot make it to davening one day, somebody else would daven that day for you (I would so overuse that kind of a gmach!).

Actually, it is not that, but read the email below that was sent to a local email list... and here you have the "Davening G'Mach"...

Chazal tell us that if someone davens for the needs of his friend, and he
needs the same thing, he will benefit first.
Many of us have something which we daven for (health, parnassa, children, etc) and there are others that need the same thing.
We have created an anonymous tefillah exchange program. Let us know what it is you need, and we will give you the name of someone who needs the same thing. You daven for them, they will daven for you. It is free, and completely anonymous. Email us at KolHamispalel@gmail.com

This was just announced in my neighborhood in various shuls.

Somebody has started a cholent G'mach.

That means, if you chose not to make a cholent for shabbos lunch because the weather was too hot, but then you decided that you really want one, you can run over to this guy's house and pick up some cholent!

If your cholent burnt, go to the cholent gmach and get some non-burnt cholent! Did your cholent undercook? Nothing to worry about - just head on over to the cholent gmach and pick up some cholent!

You gotta love it!