I apologize for my tardiness from this blog. Between family issues, weddings, work and life, time to write has been scarce and even now I am overloaded with work so I will be brief.
A little over a week ago I was in Boro Park for the wedding of my cousin. It was very nice to see everyone, yet very sad at the same time. I sat at a family table with the son-in-laws of all of my cousins and surprise, surprise, they all were in Kollel in Lakewood. Follow me here...they are all nice people and I enjoy their company, but what the hell are we doing here? I could not help but wonder who was going to pay for the weddings of their children?
Does anyone realize the kind of crisis we are creating? Please have some vision. NEVER BEFORE IN THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE HAVE WE HAD SO MANY PEOPLE IN KOLLEL. This is not a good thing. Who will pay for them if G-d forbid they lose their parents-their only source of income-section 8 and the Independence card/WIC notwithstanding? WHERE ARE OUR LEADERS TO STOP THIS??? Can we actually rely on a group of rabbis who CALL THEMSELVES gedolai hatorah? Does anyone in a rabbinical leadership position have the guts to stop this? I think not and I am ashamed of my people. The leadership today has spit on the graves of Pinchas and Mattisyahu, the Rambam, the Ramban, Rebbi, Rebbi Akiva, Shimshon Raphael Hirsch--all the men who stood up for what was right and took on the wrongs in their communities even when they were dressed up as Torah. WHERE ARE YOU????????????
I'll end today with a small story in case you think that only our sons suffer from mis-information overload. A friend of ours has a daughter who had planned for years to go to law school when she came back from Israel. All was well and good. She became engaged and went back to Israel whereupon she met up with her Rabbi who told her a lawyer-is that really what you want to be? Is that what a bas Torah should be? So she has come to the conclusion on his urging to be a paralegal. Huh? Instead of being her own boss as a lawyer, this brilliant rebbi told her to be a paralegal-in other words work for a lawyer who needs you at a moments notice and that will be easier on her family than working for yourself?? Did he get this insight from Ruach Hakodesh? Is his das torah power taking over?
We are in crisis and need to open up the eyes of all the naive parents who have bought into this broken system and have been sold a bill of goods that has no basis in Halacha...if it sounds frummer, it must be...
On that note...have a great shabbos.
12 comments:
The community is really messed up. The Rabbis who run the show have decided that they only acceptable path is Kollel, so people learn in Kolel. No one has given any thought to how the community will function long term, past assuming that the modern orthdoox and others will continue to backrupt ourselves by covering the checks. Sooner or later the whole thing is going to come crashing down like a house of cards.
with jews like you judaism has no future.
I have often written about this very issue, but I can tell you that you are shouting into the wind.
This idiocy will not end until they have milked to death every scam, every dishonest welfare check, every insurance fraud, every charity, and every relative they have. And even then the rabbis will be telling them to hang on to their fantasy of a life of no work.
Instead of a self-sufficient community that can weather any economic storm - a community where the young men learn all the skills and trades necessary for life - we have instead a community of beggars and leeches who have no marketable skills whatsoever and have no hope of every getting market rate employment.
And when the storm comes, they'll be washed away.
OAJ, I like your blog, especially now that you're allowing anonymous comments.
Anyway, while I usually agree with you, the rabbi might have had a point. There's lot's of dissatisfaction among lawyers, and many are stuck with incredible amounts of school loans. Paralegals do almost as well, if not as well, as the run of the mill lawyer and don't have all the tzoros.
On the other hand, the rabbi might not have known that.
Ichabod Chrain
Anon #1-hmmm...I wonder-did your Rebbi tell you that with Jews like me there will be no future? I hope you had his permission to be on the internet....uhoh...
Ahavah-I understand the spitting in the wind type of thing, but we have to do something to create a groundswell...understand that never before in Jewish history-a very long time-have our people encouraged such lunacy and I do not believe there is any doubt that there had been many a generation before us who were, as a whole, far more qualified than anyone learning today...and they all worked-except the very few who were supported by entire communities because they would one day serve the very communities that had supported them. They did that simply because they understood how important the mitzvah of supporting your family truly is...I spoke to a doctor friend of mine who said his son wants to go to a place in Lakewood to learn next year (just finished high school) and he's afraid it's kollel forever...I said tell him no-he said he wanst to do it-I said I wanted to be 6'8 and play in the NBA...sometime life doesn't always give you what you want...
First of all, welcome back. I also like the new look of the blog. Very nice.
Two thoughts on this posting: one is something Ahavat bat Sarah noted. In Latin, they say "Contre ventilato, non urinate." You can guess the second half if I tell you the first half is "Against the wind..."
It's easy to identify the problem and kvetch about it. Heaven knows when I get together with in-laws who are "learning" that's what goes on. My friend in Netivot has a better words for them which I wouldn't want to post in a public forum.
But that only goes so far. We vent and vent and they go on doing what they're doing and portraying it as "authentic Judaism".
Who's going to pay for this? Good question. This generation is living off the money their parents, who didn't learn full time, earned. The poverty amongst their kids will be incredible but they avoid planning for the future by citing the gemara "He who has bread in his basket today and asks about where it will come from tomorrow is of little faith."
You're right, there's a groundswell but it has no direction. People are against the current system. What are they for?
One reason I created garnelironheart.blogspot.com was to act as a gathering place for such ideas. I don't just want to criticize. I want to hear from you and those who hold like you: if the current system is unworkable, you need a competing one to present another vision of Torah observance, one in which people can work and learn to the best of their ability and be as complete in their lives as possible.
I propose we being brainstorming on that and see where our creatitive and yiras Shamayim take us.
By the way, between yours and mine, we've got three anonymous's now. I wonder if it's a support group of some kind.
Garnel, there are a hundred good ideas that could work, but if they come from you or me then they will never be heard. As long as people only listen to the "leaders" who lead them into this mess then there won't be a solution. Because those "leaders" don't know there is a problem. To be honest I think the actions of many of these "Gadolim" are criminal.
The rabbis have their heads so much up in the next world (a nice way of saying their asses), that they lost their grip on this one.
Hey Zach,
The first step is finding the right leaders. I don't think that the Gedolim are the leaders of the entire Jewish world. They may control the chareidi community but those Jews who are observant and not chareidi don't particularly feet a loyalty to them or their psak.
In that case, I would suggest that it's time for the leaders of Modern Orthodoxy to step up to bat. People need leadership and they're in a position to offer it, except they really haven't until now.
The second step would be defining the movement in such a way that dedicated Torah observant Jews who want to lead an intense Torah lifestyle while not being chareidi can all feel like they belong. Today's Modern Orthodoxy, tolerant as it is of its left wing, doesn't fit that mold. But it could. That's what I want to explore.
Drmike,
yes finding the right leaders will help. Th problem is that the Haradi/yeshivish community that needs these leaders won't get them. What I'm worried about is that when that community falls it will tear down a lot of the MO world with it as various MO groups try to keep things together.
Tough love is going to be required, but really not fun to do.
Good point, so what are we going to do about it?
There are two options. At this point, if the Chareidi world is being described as a large brick building with an unstable foundation that's about to collapse, Modern Orthodoxy is like a medium size trailer park with the "dwellings" scattered this way and that.
I'm not worried about the Chareidi community finding the right leaders. Those within it with open minds would embrace a new Torah Judaism that respects Torah and yet acknowledges the challenges of living in the modern world. Those left behind will muddle along just as they have for the last 300 years.
The big concern is uniting the various MO groups into something cohesive so that the open-minded in the other group have somewhere to jump to. Their moving over could only strengthen Modern Orthodoxy and give it a new sense of seriousness.
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