The Special Investigative Unit of the Rabbinic Council busted ’tween boys and girls for outsourcing their mitzvah projects to other students.
In a scene eerily reminiscent of the Great Recession-era criminal investigations of fiscal wrongdoing, numerous ’tween boys and girls were perp-walked out of their Hebrew school classes by the Special Investigative Unit of the Rabbinic Council on Thursday.
Their crime? Outsourcing their mitzvah projects to other students.
“It was quite a scheme,” explained Duddy Kravitz, the spokesman for the SIU. “Using a formula one of them developed to estimate the cumulative prospective monetary gains from their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, the group then hired people to complete tasks for them, offering a premium for the deferred payments.”
In a clear case of past performance being no indicator of future returns, the mitzvah malfeasants’ misdeeds came to light when one of them, Howie Spira, didn’t honor an agreement to exchange his prize gift — an unopened set of Magic: The Gathering Cards that includes the rare Black Lotus card — for carrying out his mitzvah project. The project — a scooter- and skateboard-powered version of Uber for low-income youth — was to be called Jewber.
The SIU began its investigation after receiving a tip that the beatdown that followed Spira’s reneging was project-related. Kravitz said the probe is ongoing, with more arrests anticipated as the Bar and Bar Mitzvah celebrations heat up.
*This article is part of the Exponent's Purim shpiel edition.
