A Chasidic View of Parnasah
transcribed and edited by Yaacov Dovid Shulman
A Few Introductory Words
The import of the following essay is that throughout Jewish history Torah learning has always been of preeminent important: “and you shall study it day and night.” Yet at the same time, the normative role of the man has been to earn a living to support his family, and only a small elite of scholars has studied full-time.
The purpose of this piece is not political. It supports full-time learning when appropriate and takes no position on issues such as government aid to chareidi families and the like. Its purpose is simply to provide a Torah-based and historically informed perspective on a Jewish man’s obligations to learn Torah and to support his family, and on the interplay between these obligations.
The essay is based primarily on a shiur by Rabbi Mordechai Zilber, the Stutchiner Rebbe. Rabbi Zilber has been delivering a series of shiurim delineating the path of Hasidism. These have been transcribed, and Rabbi Moshe Weinberger, mara d’asra of Congregation Aish Kodesh, Woodmere, NY, has been giving shiurim based on those transcriptions.
The essay below is a rendering of such a shiur combination. The transcription of Rabbi Zilber’s shiur and the audio recording of Rabbi Weinberger’s rendering are available at yutorah.org. (Rabbi Weinberger reviewed the essay and gave his approval.)
The essay begins with a quote from the Ramchal’s Mesilas Yesharim stating that everyone, from a full-time master of Torah to a person working at a lowly profession, can attain the highest rank of being a hasid, ‘pious.’ It goes on to state that the historical approach of Hasidism was that, except for a small elite, every Jewish man is expected to go to work. In fact, this was not unique to Hasidism, but it was the generally accepted viewpoint, with the significant exception of that of the Vilna Gaon, and it was his approach that had a profound effect upon the Jews of Lithuania.
The Values of Torah Learning and Supporting One’s Family
The Ramchal writes in Mesilas Yesharim (Chapter 26):
The proper path of piety for a person whose occupation is Torah learning is not the same as the proper path of piety for a person who must work as an employee, nor is it the same as the proper path of piety for a businessman.
Also, in regard to all other details of a person’s dealings in the world, each approach requires its own ways of piety.
This is not to say that piety changes, for without a doubt it remains equal for each person—its purpose always being that he give pleasure to his Creator. But when circumstances change, the means that lead to the goal must also change.
A person who must engage in a lowly profession can be as pious as a person who never ceases learning. As the verses states, “Hashem has made everything for His sake” (Proverbs 16:4), and “In all of your ways know Him, and He will straighten your paths” (ibid. 3:6).
Piety is not the exclusive province of Torah scholars or of fulltime Torah learners. A working man—even someone involved in a lowly occupation—can be as pious as a person who learns all day. Hashem expects every Jew, regardless of what he does, to become a tzaddik, to know Hashem.
Nevertheless, there is a hierarchy of values, and all Torah authorities have always agreed that the highest ideal is for a person to make every effort to learn fulltime. As the maariv prayer states, words of Torah “are our life and the length of our days, and we will study them day and night.”
Thus, when a boy sets out upon his path in the world, he should be trained to learn fulltime, provided that he has the ability to do so. As our Sages said, “I set aside every profession in the world and I only teach my son Torah” (Kiddushin 82a).
In this generation, there is an additional benefit of learning Torah fulltime. In an era when going out into the street and being in the workplace is challenging to one’s Yiddishkeit, it is wonderful if a person can stay in the beis medrash just to save himself.
The question is what criteria a man must fulfill in order to learn fulltime. Every situation is different and must be judged individually, taking into account all of a person’s circumstances.
First, a man must clarify whether learning fulltime is something meant for everyone or whether it is restricted to rare, gifted individuals who have the capacity to learn intensely—and, if so, whether he possesses those qualifications.
Second, he must take into account how his decision will affect his wife and children. Will fulltime learning cause strife in the home?
Third, all Torah authorities agree that a man is responsible to support his family, to which end it permits him to interrupt his Torah learning. As the kesubah states, “I”—the husband—“will sustain and support my wife.” Does it suffice that he live a life of deprivation and, God forbid, depend on charity? Or must he strive to earn a normal living?
A man’s responsibility to support his family is stated in the kesubah. It is the way that God created us, and it is how the Jewish people have lived for thousands of years. In the order of creation, there is a giver and receiver. The male is the giver and the female is the receiver. There must be a very good reason to tamper with that.
First, it is simple common sense that a man can’t neglect his family and allow them to suffer and be hungry.
Second, if a man does not earn a proper income, a tense atmosphere is created between him and his wife. As our Sages said, “A man should take care to [have sufficient] grain in his house, for there is fighting in the home only regarding matters of grain”—i.e., monetary issues (Bava Metzia 59a).
And third, if the children are hungry and feel that their needs are not being met, he cannot educate them properly, and his entire authority is undermined. Conversely, when children see that their father accepts responsibility for the family, they grow up healthy and normal Jews faithful to the Torah. And that affects the future generations.
Throughout all of history, Jews lived with the awareness that the father is in charge. It was always obvious that he is the one who has to provide for his wife and children.
In regard to fulltime learning, our Sages said that “many acted like Rabbi Yishmael”—who advised people to combine learning with work—“and succeeded. But those who conducted themselves like R. Shimon bar Yochai”—who praised fulltime learning—“did not succeed” (Berachos 35b). Fulltime learning was not a path for the general population.
Yet nowadays, there is a perception that the ideal and even the obligation of every man is to learn Torah fulltime. There are neighborhoods in Israel where if a man leaves kollel to go to work—even if he remains in the field of Torah by becoming a rebbe—he is no longer considered to be God-fearing, and his children must attend a different school.
Sometimes, because a man does not work, his seventy- or eighty-year-old father—possibly a Holocaust survivor—must continue working to support him. One does not need to cite the Chumash, Gemara and Rambam to demonstrate that this is the opposite of God’s will.
In all generations, only an elite few—the rabbis and judges—learned fulltime. Sometimes they received a stipend. Everybody knew that they were great Torah sages and would support them with great joy.
In some cases, their wives ran a shop to earn money, often from the home. And even those who learned full-time—including great Torah scholars—worked for a few hours during the day, helping their wives with the merchandise or the accounting.
In all of Hungary, Germany and Poland, only such men learned all day.
This was the approach of the Chasam Sofer, who was king of all of Hungary and beyond, and that was the approach of Rabbi Yonasan Eibeshitz, who was the king of the areas of Bohemia and Czechoslovakia.
This was also true among the Sefardim. They kept an original form of Yiddishkeit that came from the time of the Beis Hamikdash and even earlier. Therefore it was obvious to them that although everyone must learn as much Torah as possible, learning all day and not working was only for rabbis and judges.
This was also the view of the Hasidic rebbes, who were among the greatest Torah leaders. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Tzanzer Rov (author of the Divrei Chaim) wrote that “the majority of the gaonim of our time are from the circles of the Hasidim. These include the gaon, R. Yitzchak Meir of Warsaw (the Chiddushei Harim) and the gaon, R. Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch (the Tzemach Tzedek). And R. Meir of Dzikov (the Imrei Noam) was very penetrating.”
The Hasidim respected the idea of learning full-time, and conversely the Lithuanian gedolim agreed that a person is responsible to support his family. The path of Hasidism is thus similar to the paths of the Chasam Sofer and other gedolim.
Yet nowadays, there is a belief that all men should be learning fulltime. Moreover, in many cases, those who learn fulltime learn less than some working Jews did in previous generations.
My father told me that my grandfather was part of a chevra shas, and that as such he went through Gemara a number of times. The members of this group got up between three thirty and a quarter to four every morning. They learned for a few hours, went to the mikveh and davened. Then they went to work, after which they davened maariv and learned for another hour or two.
Today in some neighborhoods, the women run around at 7:30 in the morning getting the children ready for school, taking them to the bus stop or doing car pool, running off to work, while their husbands who are learning in kollel are still asleep. At 8:30, the husbands walk around in their pajamas, rubbing their eyes, knowing that all they have to do is go downstairs and in the shtiebelekh they’ll find a minyan at nine fifteen.
There was never such a thing in the history of the Jewish people—or, for that matter, in the history of the world. My father told me that no one in Europe got up after six o’clock unless he was sick, and then people visited his home after shul to see if everything was ok.
The idea that fulltime learning is meant for the masses did not exist in earlier generations. Rather, it began with the view of the Vilna Gaon, who placed tremendous emphasis on learning Torah all day. And since in Lithuania most of the people followed the way of the Vilna Gaon, they emphasized fulltime learning. But even then, prior to the Holocaust, in all of Lithuania there were at most 3,000 students learning in the yeshivas.
The Vilna Gaon opposed Hasidism, as did his followers in Lithuania. However, his view regarding fulltime Torah learning was not a disagreement with Hasidism, but a view that was not shared by other gedolim, including those who were not Hasidim.
Related to that, the kollel system came into being: the concept that people should sit and learn the entire day, and that money should be raised to support them to do so. This was a Lithuanian innovation that had no precedent in history.
The broader and older historical model is that while a small elite of the rabbis and judges of Israel learn fulltime, the rest of the Jewish people work to support their families and learn when possible. And both pathways lead to the same level of “piety,” as defined by the Ramchal, for “in all of your ways know Him, and He will straighten your paths.”
Rabbi Moshe Weinberger is mara d’asra of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, NY, and mashpia of Yeshiva Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan.
Rabbi Mordechai Zilber, the Stutchiner Rebbe, is one of the most prolific and original thinkers in the Hasidic world today.
The transcriber and editor, Yaacov Dovid Shulman, may be reached at shulman-writer.com.
While I do think we would do well to question the “indefinite Torah learning” model, I don’t think it serves the argument to insinuate that a significant number are “still in pajamas” at 8:30 am, later than סוף זמן קריאת שמע during some times of the year.
I often see something of the opposite – many men are “freed up” with the kollel schedule, to help out with afternoon care of the children or grocery shopping. But in other families where the wives do carry the sole responsibility of providing for a large family both in parnasa and in day-to-day needs, it is a precarious situation and should receive more proactive attention than it does.
the title of this thoughtful piece ought be – a historic view of parnasah. even if one argues that the holocaust or the influence of modernity or whatever is of overriding importance and justifies full-time learning for the masses, one must at least acknowledge that what is happening is a change to historic/normative practice.
A thoughtful and well-sourced perspective.
Families should think about whether indefinite full-time learning is their ideal when allocating ma’aser. Because I believe that the vast majority of married men should earn money to support their families, I support Torah institutions that prepare young people (including young men) to earn parnassa. This, I think, is better than serving as a cog in the wheel of the lifelong-kollel machine.
“all Torah authorities have always agreed that the highest ideal is for a person to make every effort to learn fulltime”
Not true. Where did he get that from?
Did Rav S.R. Hirsch agree with that? He taught Torah im derech eretz, Torah with the ‘way of the world’. Furthermore, in the very Hasidic school that Rabbi Weinberger and Rabbi Silver claim to represent, there is an important yesod of avodah begashmius, working, serving Hashem with/in the physical world. It is discussed by Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, in his important work Torah Umadda, see the section on ‘The Hasidic Model’.
“Thus, when a boy sets out upon his path in the world, he should be trained to learn fulltime, provided that he has the ability to do so. As our Sages said, “I set aside every profession in the world and I only teach my son Torah” (Kiddushin 82a).”
Since when is the undisputed psak halacha like that?
“In regard to fulltime learning, our Sages said that “many acted like Rabbi Yishmael”—who advised people to combine learning with work—“and succeeded. But those who conducted themselves like R. Shimon bar Yochai”—who praised fulltime learning—“did not succeed” (Berachos 35b). Fulltime learning was not a path for the general population.”
Funny how Rabbis Weinberger and Zilber here are so openly rejecting the position of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and that this appears shortly after Lag Baomer, when their same circles preach so strongly כדאי הוא רבי שמעון לסמוך עליו, and are busy promoting him otherwise. Yet when it comes to this, they so eagerly push the position of Rabbi Shimon away.
“In all generations, only an elite few—the rabbis and judges—learned fulltime.”
1) The Rabbis and the judges did not learn full time. They were busy with their rabbinical duties.
2) In past generations, only a small elite attended university – how many, anywhere, Jew or gentile, went to college a century ago, after all – so perhaps it should be limited to a small elite now as well? So Rabbi Weinberger’s Yeshiva University, Touro College, other universities, should close down 95% of their operations then – if not more. Taking it a bit further, how many attended high school one hundred and fifty years ago? So perhaps high school should also be abrogated or limited to a miniscule elite today?
However, the fact is that there has been a massive expansion, an explosion, in the amount of people getting higher secular education in the world in the modern era, to the doctoral level and beyond. Is it proper, then, to take a position that it is okay and desirable to have so many more years of secular education, even though it wasn’t done in the the old days, but, when it comes to Torah study, we are limited to the level of the past in backward, economically weak, corners of Europe, and are not allowed to build upon it?
Additionally, a friend commented to me that in the past, there was a thing called kest, where a son in law was supported in the house of, or by his parents in law, allowing him to learn after marriage. Nowadays, one doesn’t hear that term, however, this friend said, kollel is like a democratized form of kest. While kest was limited to parents in law who could afford to sustain such an arrangement, kollel also allows for others to partake in it as well.
Yes, the present day kollel system can be improved, but the above piece is riddled with errors. Before people publicly address such an issue, they should do their homework and make sure they are thoroughly familiar with the matter.
Well written and point well taken. The comment about 8:30 in pajamas is unfair and should have been omitted.
One important point missing from this discussion is the fact that it is basically impossible to make ends meet in an honest fashion if one chooses the long term kollel option.
Superb post-I think that one can argue that the above post articulated the difference between twhat used to be viewed as the view of Chasidim as opposed to Misnagdim as exemplified in such works as Nefesh HaChaim.
This is actually a thinly veiled Chassidic, anti Litvish polemic, and should be recognized as such. In plain English, Rabbi Weinberger was saying to his audience at YU, we Chassidim are ‘normal’ like you. We engage with the world, unlike those extreme, ascetic Litvaks who advocate a monastic kollel lifestyle. We are not cavemen like them.
Factually, there are many problems with it, however.
1. The Vilna Gaon did not invent the Lithuanian kollel system. The Kovno kollel came around close to a century after his passing. It was very small and not open ended, and for future Rabbonim, not the masses.
2. Lithuanian Jews worked for a living en masse, like Yidden elsewhere. The pre WWII Lithuanian Yeshiva student figure given by Rabbi Weinberger is for Yeshiva students, not kollel scholars. It doesn’t give the whole picture either, as other people learned in other frameworks.
3. There was actually a giant Chassidic kollel system, before or around the same time as the Kovno kollel, run by Belzer Chassidim, which Rabbi Weinberger has family ties to. They had hundreds, if not more Belzer yoshvim, which were like kollel students by another name (see Artscroll’s Saving the Rebbe of Belz and Wikipedia for more on it). So perhaps they should blame them for kollel?
4. Rabbis Weinberger and Zilber are regurgitating an old Chassidic critique of kollel, which the Satmar Rebbe, R. Joel Teitelbaum, voiced years ago. However, he later changed course, in a big way. Nowadays, Chassidim are very involved with kollelim. In New Square a very large percentage of men learn in them. They have a large merkaz hakollelim. Satmar, I was told, has the biggest kollel in the world. In Kiryas Joel, there is a mivtzar hakollelim organization uniting different kollelim. Rabbi Weinberger’s own YU has quite a few of them I heard, as well.
5. Rabbi Weinberger repeats a polemical claim, that the majority of geonim allegedly are from the Chassidim. In addition to not being certain how such a claim can be verified, it needs to be kept in mind that the Jewish population in Poland and Hungary, where Chassidic strongholds existed, was a lot greater than in smaller, and poorer Lithuania.
6. Much of even the Litvish kollel world today is not of Litvish descent. Many talmidim are of Hungarian, Polish and other backgrounds.
To sum up, the kollel system is worthwhile of examination, with an eye to hopefully improving things. However, to engage in polemics, using it to score points to promote Chassidus and put down the Litvish Torah world, is out of order, and such attempts should be resoundingly rejected .
>>>kollel is like a democratized form of kest
—certainly in Israel, it meets the socialist democrat definition , of taking tax money to support a particular cause. in the rest of the jewish world , it must be supported by both the father and father-in-law, and the voluntary donor system—which is as it should be : those who don’t believe in the system, don’t pay for it… and it looks like the move to this true liberty model of support is what is convulsing israeli society , as the voters who don’t support the idea are trying to withdraw their support….
Excellent piece, but one quibble with the following quote from the introduction:
“The purpose of this piece is not political. It supports full-time learning when appropriate and takes no position on issues such as government aid to chareidi families and the like.”
Of course, the argument in this piece has political implications for exactly these issues.
Two points: (1) stating simply that “(t)he male is the giver and the female is the receiver” without a more thorough explanation is misleading. Obviously, in many ways the female is the “giver,” as goes the give and take nature of any real relationship; (2) Pointing out that the Vilna Gaon’s theory was iconoclastic has value, but the fact that it was revolutionary doesn’t diminish its value. This essay doesn’t challenge the validity of the Gaon’s method; it simply states that is was unique.
My thanks to everyone who has taken the trouble to write. As I am not the author of this article as much as I am its presenter, I cannot respond by guessing at what Rabbis Weinberger and Zilber might say. The most I can do is offer my own point of view.
Comment:
I don’t think it serves the argument to insinuate that a significant number are “still in pajamas” at 8:30 am, later than סוף זמן קריאת שמע during some times of the year.
The comment about 8:30 in pajamas is unfair and should have been omitted.
Response:
Although acknowledging that this is not the usual case, Rabbi Weinberger did witness this, and commented on it as a way of illustrating his point.
Comment:
“All Torah authorities have always agreed that the highest ideal is for a person to make every effort to learn fulltime”
Not true. Where did he get that from?…
“Fulltime learning was not a path for the general population.”
Funny how Rabbis Weinberger and Zilber here are so openly rejecting the position of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and that this appears shortly after Lag Baomer, when their same circles preach so strongly כדאי הוא רבי שמעון לסמוך עליו, and are busy promoting him otherwise. Yet when it comes to this, they so eagerly push the position of Rabbi Shimon away.
Response:
I think the point is that, ideally, one should make every effort to learn Torah fulltime. However, in the majority of cases, when taking into account one’s circumstances, that ideal is not relevant and, if attempted, can have deleterious consequences.
Comment:
“In all generations, only an elite few—the rabbis and judges—learned fulltime.”
1) The Rabbis and the judges did not learn full time. They were busy with their rabbinical duties.
Response:
Generalities often over-reach.
Comment:
In past generations, only a small elite attended university – how many, anywhere, Jew or gentile, went to college a century ago, after all – so perhaps it should be limited to a small elite now as well? So Rabbi Weinberger’s Yeshiva University, Touro College, other universities, should close down 95% of their operations then – if not more. Taking it a bit further, how many attended high school one hundred and fifty years ago? So perhaps high school should also be abrogated or limited to a miniscule elite today?
However, the fact is that there has been a massive expansion, an explosion, in the amount of people getting higher secular education in the world in the modern era, to the doctoral level and beyond. Is it proper, then, to take a position that it is okay and desirable to have so many more years of secular education, even though it wasn’t done in the the old days, but, when it comes to Torah study, we are limited to the level of the past in backward, economically weak, corners of Europe, and are not allowed to build upon it?
Response:
The essay stated that, taking into account extenuating circumstances (which it enumerates), learning Torah fulltime is the ideal. Therefore, a person meeting those conditions should indeed learn fulltime.
Comment:
Additionally, a friend commented to me that in the past, there was a thing called kest, where a son in law was supported in the house of, or by his parents in law, allowing him to learn after marriage. Nowadays, one doesn’t hear that term, however, this friend said, kollel is like a democratized form of kest. While kest was limited to parents in law who could afford to sustain such an arrangement, kollel also allows for others to partake in it as well.
Response:
Note also that the son-in-law was often a teenager, someone who today would be in high school.
Comment:
One important point missing from this discussion is the fact that it is basically impossible to make ends meet in an honest fashion if one chooses the long term kollel option.
Response:
That is one concern that wasn’t mentioned in the essay. Another concern that the essay didn’t address was the question of public funding.
Comment:
The Vilna Gaon did not invent the Lithuanian kollel system.
Response:
I believe that the point was not who invented the kollel system, but who established the conceptual basis of an overriding imperative of Torah study.
Comment:
Lithuanian Jews worked for a living en masse, like Yidden elsewhere. The pre WWII Lithuanian Yeshiva student figure given by Rabbi Weinberger is for Yeshiva students, not kollel scholars. It doesn’t give the whole picture either, as other people learned in other frameworks.
Response:
I’m not sure what the point of this observation is in relation to the essay.
Comment:
There was actually a giant Chassidic kollel system, before or around the same time as the Kovno kollel, run by Belzer Chassidim, which Rabbi Weinberger has family ties to. They had hundreds, if not more Belzer yoshvim, which were like kollel students by another name (see Artscroll’s Saving the Rebbe of Belz and Wikipedia for more on it).
Response:
Did this kollel system meet the conditions of many kollelim today: meant for everyone and continuing indefinitely for decades of fulltime learning?
Comment:
4. Rabbis Weinberger and Zilber are regurgitating an old Chassidic critique of kollel, which the Satmar Rebbe, R. Joel Teitelbaum, voiced years ago. However, he later changed course, in a big way.
Response:
I think that “regurgitating” is a disparaging term that does not add luster to the point that the commenter is making.
Comment:
Rabbi Weinberger repeats a polemical claim, that the majority of geonim allegedly are from the Chassidim. In addition to not being certain how such a claim can be verified, it needs to be kept in mind that the Jewish population in Poland and Hungary, where Chassidic strongholds existed, was a lot greater than in smaller, and poorer Lithuania.
Response:
I think that his point was to respond to a widespread misapprehension that there were no gaonim to speak of among the Hasidim.
Comment:
Much of even the Litvish kollel world today is not of Litvish descent. Many talmidim are of Hungarian, Polish and other backgrounds.
Response:
The point of this essay was to find the source of the kollel ideology.
Comment:
To engage in polemics, using it to score points to promote Chassidus and put down the Litvish Torah world, is out of order, and such attempts should be resoundingly rejected .
Response:
Rabbis Zilber and Weinberger are anshei shalom who seek to make bridges between Jewish communities. They are also anshei emes who describe matters as they see them.
Comment:
One quibble with the following quote from the introduction:
“The purpose of this piece is not political. It supports full-time learning when appropriate and takes no position on issues such as government aid to chareidi families and the like.”
Of course, the argument in this piece has political implications for exactly these issues.
Response:
It does have political implications, but it didn’t address them.
Comment:
Two points: (1) stating simply that “(t)he male is the giver and the female is the receiver” without a more thorough explanation is misleading. Obviously, in many ways the female is the “giver,” as goes the give and take nature of any real relationship.
Response:
The essay was, I believe, stating a Kabbalistically-informed general perspective.
Comment:
Pointing out that the Vilna Gaon’s theory was iconoclastic has value, but the fact that it was revolutionary doesn’t diminish its value. This essay doesn’t challenge the validity of the Gaon’s method; it simply states that is was unique.
Response:
Perhaps the point is that, being a minority opinion, it should not be seen—as it sometimes is today—as the normative or even sole Jewish perspective. This is especially the case since historically speaking Jewish societies did not act in accordance with that perspective.
Many thanks to those people who kindly had positive words for this essay.
In past generations, only a small elite attended university….However, the fact is that there has been a massive expansion, an explosion, in the amount of people getting higher secular education in the world in the modern era, to the doctoral level and beyond. Is it proper, then, to take a position that it is okay and desirable to have so many more years of secular education, even though it wasn’t done in the the old days, but, when it comes to Torah study, we are limited to the level of the past….?
Yes! That is exactly what most datiim advocate today: wherever possible, put in a significant number of years post-high school into learning. If not equivalent to the number of years you will spend in college, then at least something qualitative. The kollel system today, however, suggests that the best thing all men should do their entire lives is learn – exclusively, and leave the parnasa of his large family up to someone else, even when it involves “mesirut nefesh” (i.e. abject poverty). In my opinion that choice should be left to the individual and not promoted as a societal ideal. One does not have to look past the tragic flyers in their mailbox to find examples of the many who tried the path of Rebbi Shimon and unfortunately failed.
“The kollel system today, however, suggests that the best thing all men should do their entire lives is learn – exclusively, and leave the parnasa of his large family up to someone else, even when it involves “mesirut nefesh” (i.e. abject poverty).”
Not all kollelim are the same. Not all kollel learning is with the kollel forever model. That may be more common in Eretz Israel. Even there it is not universal. In the USA it is definitely not necessarily so.
The problem with this essay is that is judging the whole system based on some extreme examples. If they want to attack a certain type of kollel in Eretz Israel that may fit that description, that is their choice. They seem to be focusing on such a thing when they make statements like “There are neighborhoods in Israel where if a man leaves kollel to go to work—even if he remains in the field of Torah by becoming a rebbe—he is no longer considered to be God-fearing, and his children must attend a different school.”
But not all kollel life is like the extreme examples they describe, and it is not right that they portray kollel as a whole in such an extremely negative manner.
Also, I wonder about two Rabbis from the USA attacking the system in Eretz Israel, where conditions are different. They are living in an American reality, which is not the same. Are there not enough Rabbis In the land of Israel to address such things? We need two young Hasidic Rabbis from six thousand miles away to tell the people there what to do? Rabbis in the past have been careful to respect the jurisdictions of other Rabbis and not intervene out of their areas.
Some additional context is needed to better understand this piece. A limited amount was given earlier, but more is needed.
Rabbi Moshe Weinberger has been giving a lecture series at Yeshiva University this year, called introduction to toras habaal shem tov. Over twenty installements have been delivered, the overwhelming majority of them based on teachings of the aforementioned Rabbi Mottel Zilber (who incidentally is a son in law of Rabbi Moshe Wolfson, mashgiach of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath and Rabbi of congregation Emunas Yisroel in Brooklyn). In that series we get a glimpse into the real Rabbi Moshe Weinberger, what he really believes, what he says when he doesn’t feel he has to be diplomatic, as when speaking in front of a large audience, or before many Roshei Yeshiva.
The above essay is based on the twentieth installment of the series. The series can be heard at the YUTorah website. However, to understand more clearly what is going on, it is helpful to have some knowledge of what was said earlier in the series.
In general, there is a strong polemic tone to it.
For example, Rabbi Weinberger states on more than one occasion, that if not for the baal shem tov there would not be one Jew putting on tefillin today. More specifically, for those who want to hear it directly from him, he says it right in the beginning of his series, in the second lecture. Along with similar statements, such as if there is someone who can give a strong krechtz of teshuvah today, it is due to the baal shem tov.
So basically he and Rabbi Zilber are saying that all non Chasidic Yiddishkeit is worthless, it couldn’t keep Jews observant. He even goes on to say at the end of the second lecture, that Chasidim don’t go around saying such things openly today because it can lose them friends. However, that is what he and Rabbi Zilber evidently believe and will share at times, if you can get them to speak frankly.
So this polemic against the kollel system, which is opportunistically trying to capitalize upon recent agitation against it, is, as mentioned earlier, intended to make Chasidism more attractive to the Modern Orthodox YU crowd to whom the talks were given. The whole idea of the lecture series is to try to attract YU students to the version of Chasidism of Rabbis Weinberger and Zilber.
Comment:
Not all kollel life is like the extreme examples they describe.
Response:
The essay could have been more clear about what it is specifically describing. I think that the rabbis chose to make the comments that they did because these “extreme” examples are the norm in some places.
Comment:
I wonder about two Rabbis from the USA attacking the system in Eretz Israel. Rabbis in the past have been careful to respect the jurisdictions of other Rabbis and not intervene out of their areas.
Response:
In a sterile environment, this may well be true. But recall that recently a massive campaign was waged by some Israeli rabbis in favor of the kollel system in which they urged American Jews to involve themselves.
Comment:
They are living in an American reality, which is not the same.
Response:
The particular points in the article were about universal criteria that fulltime learning requires.
Comment:
This polemic against the kollel system, which is opportunistically trying to capitalize upon recent agitation against it, is, as mentioned earlier, intended to make Chasidism more attractive to the Modern Orthodox YU crowd to whom the talks were given. The whole idea of the lecture series is to try to attract YU students to the version of Chasidism of Rabbis Weinberger and Zilber.
Response:
I can only speak to the substance of the essay, the facts that it cites, the history that it relates, the halachic opinions that it references and the perspectives that it offers.
“In all of Hungary, Germany and Poland, only such men learned all day.”
As was pointed out earlier, this was basically the case in Lithuania as well. Why are Rabbis Weinberger and Zilber so insistent on drawing their false dichotomy of Lithuania vs. the rest of the Jewish world, and pitting different groups against each other, using falsehoods like that?
“the Sefardim. They kept an original form of Yiddishkeit that came from the time of the Beis Hamikdash and even earlier.”
Are Rabbis Weinberger and Zilber claiming that Ashkenazic Judaism is a Johnny come lately fraud (chas veshalom)? Do they believe it is from the Khazars? Ashkenazic Judaism also goes back to the time of the Beis Hamikdash. Maybe earlier than Sephardic too.
I think the piece is a big mess and some apologies from the originators are in order, not just attempts at damage control by R. Shulman.
Comment:
Why are Rabbis Weinberger and Zilber so insistent on … pitting different groups against each other…?
Are Rabbis Weinberger and Zilber claiming that Ashkenazic Judaism is a Johnny come lately fraud (chas veshalom)? Do they believe it is from the Khazars?
I think the piece is a big mess and some apologies from the originators are in order, not just attempts at damage control by R. Shulman.
Response:
I would like to stick to the central substantive concerns of this essay. Historically speaking, what have the gedolim stated regarding learning Torah fulltime and going to work? What has been the historical record of what people actually did? Since some communities today differ from that historical background, what is the source of that difference?
For all those who dislike what they call a “polemic tone” in this piece, please remember that, with all due respect (which is infinite) Sefer Nefesh HaChaim, especially Shaar Daalet, was written as a polemic against the claim of the Chasidim, namely that Talmud Torah kineged kulam is not a call for full time learning at other people’s expense.
So please understand that what y’all perceive as a polemical tone is from the perspective and context of what is a polemical perception to begin with.
Litvishe Yid, your comment is very apropos to your pseudonym. The Chasidim claimed just that: The idea of a Judaism solely serving the existence of an elite intelligentsia was something of an anathema to the BESHT and his talmidim. They claimed (and have quite a lot of historical evidence and proofs from Chazal as well as the common sense that comes from living with and under the physical realities of the underprivileged masses)that the learning Torah uber alles approach that had developed among the intellectual elite of Klal Yisrael, of which many lived in Lita, was a necessary deviation from the original model. It was necessary to preserve Torah in the long Golus. The Chasidim held that the realities of how hard the Golus had gotten was a call from the RS”O to return to the old value system. This is why they claimed the BESHT’s magid was Achiya HaShiloni, Dovid HaMelech’s rebbi, who, they claim, taught the BESHT the proper approach for a Klal Yisrael that lives with the open manifestation of the Shechina. That is also why they stressed a dveikus approach to avoda and Torah, allowing for all Yidn, on every level, to strive for individual Gadlus, each according to who he or she is, and not according to some measuring system that does not recognize individuality.
Joseph:
Your grotesque caricature of Lithuanian Jewry, as reflective in the phrases below that you wrote,
“The idea of a Judaism solely serving the existence of an elite intelligentsia”
“learning Torah uber alles approach that had developed among the intellectual elite of Klal Yisrael, of which many lived in Lita”
“some measuring system that does not recognize individuality.”
is not reflective of reality. Perhaps you don’t know many real Litvishe Yidden and have just read books of propaganda which like to indulge in such stereotypes. Anyone interested might want to take a look at the recently released work, The Legacy: Teachings for Life from the Great Lithuanian Rabbis, for something closer to the truth.
You can even ask Rabbi Weinberger about his Rebbe Rav Dovid Lifshitz, and ask him if he was such a grotesque man like you seem to believe Lithuanian Jewry means.
Let’s have some reality here.