Joseph, thiese quotes sound like one shouldn’t work:
Sitting and learning all day is the ideal. “Talmud Torah kneged kulam.” Chazal say, one word of Torah is higher than an entire lifetime of doing these Mitzvos. Chazal often mention that Toroso Umnoso is the ideal, that we do nothing all day but learn. Nowadays poskim say that w cannot reach that level, but clearly the closer the better. Also, Shulchan Aruch Hilchos Toalmud Torah, in the Shach ad loc, says that nowadays learning all day is the ideal, and that if someone has the ability to do it, he should. The Shach adds that regarding learning all day in general, nowadays we cannot reach our potential in learning the way the Rambam etc. did, since we are not on that level. Therefore, we should learn all day if we can.
The Rambam writes that a “working person” is someone who learns 8 hours a day and works 3. Not works 9am to 5pm.
A few other falsehoods that need responding:
1) All Chazals, such as Im ain kemach ain torah, just means that if you have no food, you cannot learn. Other Chazals say that if you have no food and you try to learn anyway, you will end up having to steal to eat, and what good is that. None of this has anything to do with Kollel. If you are supported by your parents, in laws, Yeshiva, or wife, you are not in a situation where you have to steal, and you have fulfilled the Chazal.
2) All Chazals that encourage people to work are also fulfilled by our Kollel people, and only exclude someone who has no means of support. Learning in Kollel is 100% a legitimate parnasa. If I become a baseball player and I have people pay to watch me play ball, thats OK, but if I become a scholar and have people pay me to learn – that’s not?? If I got a job in a think-tank thinking of stuff all day, that’s wonderful – but if I get a job in Kollel thinking of Chidushei Torah that’s not?? Why should learning be any less? B’H today we have people who specifically want to support Kollelim, similar to Yissachar-Zevulun. If I were hired by these people to dance for them, I would be considered having a job. And it is no worse if they hire more to learn and provide them with Olam Habah instead of entertainment.
The exhortations in Chazal against being unemployed refer to those who have nobody who wants to pay them for anything, and are forced to take money form what was designated for the poor, which they do not have to be if they would get a job. But Kollel is not Tzedakah for aniyim. There is a big difference. Kollel support is support in return for learning. Tzedakah is support in return for nothing. As long as I am earning your support – regardless of whether it is through defending you in court or learning Choshen Mishpat – I am employed.