in praise of work

[aphar]

There is an unfortunate trend in the contemporary Orthodox Judaism when able-bodied men spend their whole lives in "Kollelim" - "colleges" where all they ever do is learn Torah, receiving a meager stipend. Note that the vast majority of these men will never "graduate": they will never teach, never make a halachic decision, they will never write a book, they will never say anything new or even ask a new question.
This would have been fine if it were their private business.
Alas, it is not:

1. They dodge the draft in Israel


2. They are supported by the Israeli taxpayers


3. They spread the poisonous anti-work ideology: e.g., a teacher at a Chabad day care in Brooklyn, NY, USA, told her 5 y.o. pupils that Yakov was good because he learned Torah, and Eisav was bad, because he worked (not murdered/robbed/raped, but merely worked).

I wonder how those people reconcile their behavior with these quotes from Ethics Of The Fathers (Mishnah Pirkei Avot):

• 1:10: Love work


• 2:2: All study of the Torah which is not supplemented by work is destined to prove futile and causes sin

and with many stories from the Talmud about various great Rabbis who worked for a living.

Comments

[magicmirror.livejournal.com]

I do not remember well, but I think you were telling me, that either Jos'ka's or Sarka's classmates divided themselves into "best" (kollel students' kids) and the rest. Sorry if I remembe wrong.

Oh - maybe it was in Lisha's class...

[anna-i.livejournal.com]

No, I don't remember anything like that. The kids weren't exactly friendly, but that's a different story. Yoska did make a few friends but none of them were "kollel" kids :) Actually the chabad kids were some of the nicest, he was a good friend with Zuber kids. Lisha's class is the one that Sarka had, they were very cliquey, but too young to divide themselves up that way.

[ymarkov.livejournal.com]

Лиша долго ходила, задрав нос: "мой папа - бухгалтер, единственный такой среди пап в классе, не то что остальные - сплошные раввины, понимаш, на пучок пятачок!"

Не думаю, что это было очень серьёзно.