Kollel Guy Seeking Career Advice

I am opposed to children being raised by strangers. However, when two parents are working support themselves, it’s a little different than a situation where a mother has the burden of supporting the family and is deprived of the joy of motherhood when it COULD be different

It could be different at great cost of the family’s ruchniyus.

What you’re basically doing is downplaying the value of someone spending years learning.

I heard of guys who agreed to work 9 to 5 but later in marriage decided to work longer hours. Therefore marrying a working guy is bad for Shalom Bayis.

“it’s a little different than a situation where a mother has the burden of supporting the family and is deprived of the joy of motherhood.. “

Let’s not forget the children,especially,toddlers, who are being shuttled around and dropped off at babysitters.

DY: Perhaps I have a different perspective because I didn’t grow up in a kollel home. I still feel like I grew up in a Torah home nonetheless. I also feel like there is value to contributing to family welfare, contributing to the best of your ability to the world (whether through Torah or through any way in which you can see your tafkid), and being self sufficient.

If my future husband learns in kollel, I will consider it a reflection on who he is rather than a “social norm” which means little. I do not believe that kollel is a necessity- I think it is wonderful for the right people, and if my husband is the right person then so much the better. But it is the “system” that I have a problem with, not the concept. (BTW, for reference- and to completely destroy any remaining street cred- that kollel would more likely be RIETS than BMG.) If my husband were NOT to want to learn in kollel, or if for whatever reason it simply could not work out financially, then that would just be how it would be. If my parents or his parents wanted to support, that would be their prerogative, and nothing mandated by a “system.”

flatbusher: 1) I’m not denying that there are multiple causes to good or bad shalom bayis. I was just commenting that there is one that is pretty darn near indisputable in whatever form. 2) As far as a career, I consider it a completely separate factor. It is something I’m torn about, but for reasons completely unrelated to kollel.

I didn’t grow up in a kollel home. I still feel like I grew up in a Torah home nonetheless.

Definitely not a stirah.

I agree that you can’t compare someone who completely made the choice to learn in kollel on his own to someone who just went with the “system”, but the “system” has raised the bar tremendously as far as level of frumkeit and commitment to learning, even if not full time in kollel, so don’t dismiss it.

Yes, to a degree, we are victims of our own success, but high expectations are not necessarily a bad thing.

As long as you want to marry someone committed to a Torah home, I respect your choice and right to make it, but I will point out that there’s a difference between whether someone doesn’t want to learn in kollel (and BTW, I don’t mean necessarily a formal kollel, I just mean full time learning) and someone who finds that he can’t.

Daas Yachid, so is it your opinion that people who learn in kollel are frummer and better Yidden with better middos than people that don’t? It sounds like it.

I just don’t see why it’s necessary to make a “better” Torah home.

Forget necessary – is it better?

and as we’ve established, the side effects of that system are pernicious.

Speak for yourself; I never established that.

What about the main effects? What are they?

so is it your opinion that people who learn in kollel are frummer and better Yidden with better middos than people that don’t? It sounds like it.

It is absolutely my opinion and observation that people who learn more, kollel or otherwise, are on the whole (sure, with too many exceptions) bigger b’nei Torah, with all that encompasses. It so happens that the way our society is structured, there’s more opportunity to learn while in kollel, but it’s the learning itself which is the cause.

I don’t think it’s any kind of chiddush that learning Torah has a positive effect on a person or on his family.

If anyone had more to add to the answers already given to the OP, I’m sure they could have.

I agree that having any “system” can have negative consequences for those outside the system, but overall, despite some silly (maybe that’s an understatement) cultural things, as I said, the kollel system has raised the bar for everyone.

I think if someone’s approach to learning is the same (I know a bunch of people who work but are in the beis medrash with chavrusas or learning themselves for hours a day, and Sundays and work holidays for longer) the kids will be just as well off. Those people would love to learn 12-14 hours every day, but can’t because they need to support their families. Shouldn’t everyone want to?

“basic necessities plus tuition”

A Yeshiva education is a necessity.

DY: Not sure what you mean “raised the bar for everyone.” As far as what? As for “Shouldn’t everyone want to”, I assume you mean wanting to learn. That is the wrong question. Learning is an obligation, but some people don’t enjoy it and don’t want to, and one of the nagging problems in our education system is that those who don’t want to are meant to feel inferior or that there is something wrong with them or that they aren’t as good as Jews as the next person. Not everyone is cut out to sit and learn, either for years or even hours a day, but we all should feel that Hashem loves us each regardless of our choices in learning.

In response to Yitzy99: I guess I’m just a Coffee Room rookie who hasn’t picked up on the nuances of this subculture yet. But can you explain why people are advising him on a career path when he clearly stated that he wants to be a PT?