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KOLLEL is the reason why i get so much tzedaka mail everyday. WHY do WE, WORKING PEOPLE, have to support kollel, its enough supporting our own families?? When someone is in kollel and there is no money he opens up a yeshiva with 10 guys. why do we need so many yeshivos??
I would like to know the link of the source. To have such a site bookmarked would be nice. I tried Googling some of the quotes but it only returned YWN.
I think the problem with Kollel today is that it puts a stress on society at large, which puts pressure on others who want to support Kollel to do illegal things to keep up donations. No, its not everyone, but it happens. I wonder if taking money for learning that causes enough stress on the donor to steal is better than the kollel man learning part time and working part time.
But I do agree, if someone voluntarily gives money to support Kollel and the man is learning properly, that is his job.
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.
All that talk about “women not being the mashgiach… dont harass the boy” is pointless here and it isnt your place to say these things. A boy who should be in kollel should NOT be on YWN or VIN. They get a stipend and this is how they spend their time? People look up to those in kollel, and if they knew you were on here…?
Sorry about my assumptions.
Some of my comments were not directed solely at you. The first one was and I was wrong to assume. Everyone has their reasons. I was upset at the general idea that “women should not be on top of their husbands’ learning.” If he is on VIN or YWN during times when he should be in kollel, well there seems to be a problem with that. It is wasting other people’s money. If he was working and was spending time on non-work activities, then that could be gezel ect. same with kollel- they are getting a stipend for a reason.
Once again, I am sorry about any pain I might have caused you as I know you would do your utmost to learn in kollel.
Joseph, I had the zechus to learn in kollel. It was one of the most wonderful periods of my life. It starts off the family on the right foot, and imbues the home with a sense of ruchnius. When a person dies, a person isn’t asked how much money he made or how many initials followed his last name. I actually agree with most of the article. the problem, however, is that it includes a few krumkeits which ruin the entire article.
1. MOST people aren’t on the level of Rabbi Shimon Bar yochai. Putting pressure on everybody to attempt to be this is one of things causing kids to go off the derech. The kiymu vekiblu of Bayis sheini caused more learning than the kafal aleihem har kegigis by Har Sinai. This pressure is causing kids to feel that if they can’t learn all day, they can’t be frum yidden.
2. It’s a mitzvah to support Torah scholars. However, the article comes across with an “es kumt mir” attitude which has been deletorious to the Torah community. People in shidduchim make excessive demands of the prospective in-laws because “es kumt mir”- we’re learnign we deserve the best. Like you said, Torah comes from the bei aniyim, which the Maharal explains (IIRC) because aniyim aren’t established in this world due to their lack of gashmius, and Torah is the opposite of gashmius. Many of today’s kollel yungeleit live a fancier lifestyle than is necessary, putting an undue burden both on their parents and in-laws and on those who married a bas talmid chacham instead of a bas am ha’aretz with money.
3. the article implies that the chiyuv is to learn, but there’s no chiyuv to impart that knowledge. Yet, The gedolim of the past felt completely differently. One way you know a hashkafah that isn’t 100% correct is its lack of sustainability. Both TIDE and Torah Umadda have their best and brightest go out to the working field, and the mechanchim and rabbonim come from more yeshivish circles, making it hard to continue the derech another generation. A derech where one learns but doesn’t teach is unsustainable as well. We say in shemonah esrei, “Ata chonen… umelamed”. As Rav Baruch Ber ZT”L said, Hashem is a melamed. This is the biggest thing. The act of giving over Torah to the next generation. The chazon Ish said one can be selfish until he’s 30, because until then his torah is like a cistern (limited) instead of a fountain (unlimited). After 30, one has a chiyuv to teach.
Someone I know suggested that you were no longer in yeshiva. I disagreed with him, but you admitted it when you say you hadn’t the zechus of learning in kollel. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as not everyone has the support or zitzfleish to learn. That doesn’t mean there is no chiyuv to learn what he can now, and I do thanl you for bringing it up. We will all be learning in kollel when moshiach comes, but it will be the “yomim asher ein bahem cheifetz”. Learning Torah and doing mitzvos now is like buying stocks on March 8, 2009. Everyone laughs at you, but you have the last laugh some months later.
Joseph, Rav aharon kotler ZT”L did not have a selfish “es kumt mir” attitude, as he was involved in Being mezakeh the rabbim and tzorchei tzibbur. His kollel was NOT gashmius-oriented. His shita of ONLY learning, however, was his owen, not one he got from his rabbeim, as the slabodka kollel was limited to yechidei segulah to prepare them to be klei kodesh in being mezakeh the rabbim. The selfish “es kumpt mir” expressed in this article (a complete distortion of the baal middos a kolel man is meant to be, as an elevated eved Hashem) is NOT what Rav aharon kotler ZT”L meant.
Torah is the best sechorah. Bad middos can ruin good sechora like a fly in good ointment.
The Rambam also clearly writes very negatively about people who take communal funds to sit and learn.
I think you are all missing the point…discussing where you take your funds from to be able to learn.
The point is..if you are learning–and taking money from other sources…are you taakeh learning –do you deserve the respect you are getting? Or are you just wasting everybody’s money and time? Rather go to work if you are not cut out for learning…but if you are taakeh growing in learning–KOL HAKOVOD! GREAT IS YOUR ZCHUS!… Try to stick it out whichever way–as long as possible! Every minute of your learning is precious!
To Joseph. I believe you’re right about taking money for learning. I started – am trying to save for Shabbos but probably won’t succeed – reading last week’s Yated chinuch roundtable, in which one of my favorite members suggests funding more generous stipends for kollel men to allow the wives to stay home. He doesn’t mention this, IIRC, but it would seem to me that the only way to achieve this would be to downsize kollelim, establish some sort of merit standards, etc.
Joseph, what if the would be learner insist on wearing blue shirts?
?. ?? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ????? ??? ???? ????? ??????? ?? ????? ??? ?? ??? ?? ??? ???? ?? ????? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??? ????? ???? ???? ?? ????? ??? ??? ????? ?????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ????? ???? ??? ????? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ??? ??? ????? ????? ??? ???? ??? ????? ???? ?? ?????? ???? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????? ?????? ??? ???? ??? ?? ???? ????? ?? ??????:
??. ???? ????? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ???? ???? ?????? ???????? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ????? ???? ?? ????? ????? ??? ???? ?? ????? ??? ????? ???:
Rambam Hilchos Talmud Torah 3:10-11
Avos 3:17.
The gemara in berachos 35b.
It’s all nice and dandy to say we should all sit and learn, but we live in the real world. We can’t.
Joseph, can you please post the Hebrew of the Rambam purportedly backing you from Hebrewbooks.org?
They have a Rambam link at the top.
just to clarify, I am fully in agreement that the ikkar is to learn, and that’s why were created.
Yated had an intertesting article in the Sukkos issue about the White Plains kollel. When it started, it was for 5 years only, and then they went out for klei kodesh.
The only criteria to merit joining Kollel, according to the Rambam, is being a Jew. IOW, the Rambam clearly states that every Jew is entitled to choose to join Kollel. (Obviously, it goes without saying, he must actually learn [not batul] in Kollel. But the Rambam imposes NO requirement that he be a “better learner” or whatever.)
I do not believe that the word kollel was part of the Rambam’s vernacular. Additionally, the Rambam found it distasteful, maybe even forbidden to make money
from Torah. As far as I understand the term Kollel as used today is about 150 years old, tops. Please provide sources for your statements.
it says in kiddushin Daf chaf tes that if someone doesn’t teach their child to work, it’s like teaching him robbrey
So far, the only Rambam actually quoted here is AGAINST Joseph.
Learning Torah, however, IS an ikkar. Working is like going to the bathroom in Yeshiva- it’s a temporary petur from learning, but it’s not learning.
Kollel is wonderful, and if someone supports you, it’s even more wonderful. but nobody has a chiyuv to support you, and nobody has a chiyuv to go into debt to support you. The extortion that goes on for shidduchim today is ridiculous and lacking menshlachkeit. Learning mitoch oni does wonders for one’s commitment to learning.
Joseph, if Torah comes from the poor, wouldn’t supporting Torah scholars beyond the most basic needs harm their learning? Certainly one should then avoid supporting them “to the point of affluence”, as you advocated above.
joseph, kudos to u uve got teh patience man i hope u use it well and others be influenced for the good!
Joseph, when engaging in a rishcha deoraysa in yeshiva, you don’t say “there’s a befeirus <insert favorite acharon or rosh Yeshiva sefer> against you, look it up”. Hamotzi michaveiro alav haray’ah. You are the mara deshmaytza, it is your achrayus to show your proof. Otherwise, no such rayah fakert. Plus, you’ll be mehaneh and mezakeh the oilam with a shtickle Toyrah, no matter who it’s going like.
Joseph, the only thing I saw is the Rambam that one is not allowed to support himself from others. The halacha is in Choshen Mishpat that if a toen says he has eidim or a rayah and he doesn’t bring them, then the halacha is paskened against him, and lu yiztuyer he brings his proof then hadar dina.
With all the mareh mekomos sited, unless one has been there, it is like discussing shchita with a vegetarian.
No, it simply means that until YOU have lived a life of a yungerman in Kollel, struggling with parnoso, having a tired, exhausted wife who ekes a living as a teacher and still cooks for you, does your laundry, and takes care of your children, all living in cramped appartment, YOU cannot preach Kollel to others, since many aren’t able to live like that.
It is not a question of hypocrisy, necessarily, but of being totally unaware from the inside of what it entails, what the consequences for the family may be, and how the yungerman himself will be able to make a living once he leaves the Kollel. Hypocrisy it may be not, naiive ignorance it surely is.
Lastly, if it were a commentary, idealistic as it may be, it may be excusable.
This very supposed ligitimacy of non-Kollel lyfestyle is being decried by none other than you, when you paste all those statements from gedolim that have, in THEIR time, forbidden college education. Any time someone tries to either point out that there were other great gedolim that disagreed, or that today people go to college to find a parnassa, and not to study Greek mythology for its own sake, YOU are the one who immediately pounces with yet more quotes, more stories, and more arguments to silence those who disagree.
Please, not everyone is cut out for Kollel, and most of those who ARE in Kollel will NOT become klei kodesh, and need to have a legitimate, clean way to make a living, not relying on handouts from the government or other Jews, and of those, MOST aren’t interested or capable of becoming computer programmers, even without having to move to India. Of the rest, most do not have a shver who will suddenly make them a manager of his business, and don’t wish to open yet another store selling gatkes or jewelry.
They still DO need a way to make a decent living, enabling them to pay s’char limud for their children, and not having to depend on glossily advertized tzedokos that so many detest. With Yeshiva trained minds, do you really expect them to become shoemakers or stock shelves in some tiny frum grocery? THIS is why they go to college.
So, if you DO recognize the ligitimacy of other ways of making a living, without calling it a lifestyle, commend those who chose to have some schooling. And if you don’t, at least admit it.
Kavod HaTorah is enhanced by only allowing full time Kollel status to those who do the “profession” of the modern Shevet Levi honor.
Learning has to be open to all, but not full time Kollel status.
The Yated on parshas Noach has an interesting vignette in the article on Rav Shimon Shkop ZT”L, a maggid shiur in many yeshivas ( including Telz, Grodna, and YU). Some talmidim spent time talking to him in learning. They apologized for taking so much of his time. He responded that just like maaser is a segula for being rich, giving of one’s time to be melamed is a segula for acquiring knowledge. By giving, one gains.
I also heard from a rebbe of mine that Rav Shenur Kotler ZT”L, when he was very sick, made a mecha’ah against those claimed his father was against being Marbitz Torah. In other words, Rav Aharon Kotler ZT”L did NOT change his mesorah of being Marbitz Torah and helping the klal. Only later talmidim “shelo shimshu kol tzarcheihem” claimed such a thing.
Joseph: Thank you for your multiple posts. Although I didn’t read the whole megillah,
I gave it a quick scan and saw many important points that you brought up.
Someof which I only touched upon in some shidduch threads.
However, you were very creative and specific in clearly bringing out these points.
which are totally ignored in their respective seminaries.
They all want, not future Gedoilim and Roshei Yeshiva, but current ones,
with them already assuming the position of Rebbetzin/Balas Mussar to their
husbands, dreying them a kop if they are running a little late for shacaris,
or if they step out to bring in the mail without their hat & jacket,
and garetel. (if heimish)
If even some girls will read it and open their eyes that guys are human,
you will have done a great service to them and their husbands in their current and future lives on the path of building healthy Batei Ne’eman B’yisroel.
“They all want, not future Gedoilim and Roshei Yeshiva, but current ones,
with them already assuming the position of Rebbetzin/Balas Mussar to their
husbands, dreying them a kop if they are running a little late for shacaris,
or if they step out to bring in the mail without their hat & jacket”
They are expecting from their husbands what has been expected of them.
In many girls’ schools perfection is the minimum standard.
In the Yated Neeman stories how girls are rejected in Shiduchin because of percieved imperfections (“lack of sensitivity in the area of …”) re-inforce this minimum standard of perfection.
The workplace, even frum workplaces, is not a place for a good Jewish boy. We have to be there, granted; we have to make a living for our families – which is a Mitzvah in itself – but we need to realize the price we pay for those necessities.
That’s why I always felt that if a Jewish woman or wife works, the last place she should chas vshalom work is in a goyishe worlplace. V’Hamayvin Yovin.
MM, another point in the case that Kollel is for the select few, not a “default” path for our sons.
There are no defaults in life.
Kollel is for all those who desire it.
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