Apartments in Boro Park have names?
It is not the joke itself that offends me, in fact I think it is funny as far as jokes go. It is from where this joke comes from that bothers me.
As I said before, the context that you had first stated this joke seemed to me as though you were referring to the fact that many kolleleit are supported/semi-supported by their parents. As I tried to show from my first post, I believe this is atzus hayetzer in order to desensitize parents from wanting to support their children as they do toil in the mitzvh that is k’neged kulam. It will be hard to deny that this is an effect of that joke as I happen to know this joke was told went around his shul among the fathers that have sons/in-laws that are learning.
I am not trying to one-up you in “who lives more frugally”, because frankly it doesn’t matter. I only mentioned those things because the tone of your previous post suggested that maybe I am not aware what it is like to live with difficulty.
I happen to be on in the CR more then normal these past few days because I have the flu, but that is neither here nor there.
Boruch Hashem, although we were receiving help from both our parents the first year, it has been a number of years since then. My wife works and between that, kollel and the lower overhead in E”Y we are usually able to make ends meet. In addition, none of my brothers are married yet, although they are in the parsha.
My point here though was not to discuss my personal issues with this joke, but what I perceive as opposing Torahdig values.
To quote myself:
Yes, I understand that there is some naivety with some bochurim who misjudge their level of bitachon thinking that they do not have to make any sort of plans before they enter marriage.
And maybe that was the original source of this joke. But it seems to be circulating just as much among parents who do support kolleleit.
I would suggest that perhaps it is an outlook that delegitimizes kollel learning because it is perceived as akin to begging or schnorering, that breeds resentment and anger. But this is not true. Hashem built this system into klal Yisroel. Shevet Levi and shevet Yissachar all were forced to rely on other people for their parnassah because they were the entrusted with perpetuating the Torah. They were the Lomdei and M’Lamdei Torah (in general) and the rest of us were the Machzikei Torah (again, in general). We gave terumos and maseros. Zevulun took care of Yissachar. Nowadays, it is the yeshivaleit and kolleleit who have this job.
So again, my issue is not with the joke itself per se, but how I feel it has been used to desensitize parents to the greatness of the mitzvah that they are performing.