6 replies to this topic

[achasshoalti]

The last paragraph in Mesilas Yesharim states:

וזה פשוט כי כל אדם לפי האומנות אשר בידו, והעסק אשר הוא עוסק, כך צריך לו הישרה והדרכה, כי דרך החסידות הראוי למי שתורתו אומנתו אינו דרך החסידות הראוי למי שצריך להשכיר עצמו למלאכת חבירו, ולא זה וזה דרך החסידות הראוי למי שעוסק בסחורתו, וכן כל שאר הפרטים אשר בעסקי האדם בעולם, כל אחד ואחד לפי מה שהוא ראוים לו דרכי החסידות, לא לפי שהחסידות משתנה, כי הנה הוא שוה לכל נפש ודאי, הואיל ואיננו אלא לעשות מה שיש נחת רוח ליוצרו בו, אבל הואיל והנושאים משתנים אי אפשר שלא ישתנו האמצעיים המגיעים אותם אל התכלית כל אחד לפי ענינו. וכבר יכול להיות חסיד גמור איש אשר לא יפסוק מפיו הלימוד כמו מי שמפני צרכו הוא בעל מלאכה פחותה, וכתיב (שם ט"ז): "כל פעל ה' למענהו". ואומר (שם): "בכל דרכיך דעהו והוא יישר אורחותיך", הוא יתברך שמו ברחמיו יפקח עינינו בתורתו, ויורנו דרכיו, ויוליכנו באורחותיו, ונזכה לתת כבוד לשמו, ולעשות נחת רוח לפניו. יהי כבוד ה' לעולם ישמח ה'

במעשיו. ישמח ישראל בעשיו בני ציון יגילו במלכם. אמן אמן ואמן.

Its mashma that he holds that a baalabas can be on the same madreiga as a full time learner & that they are equal. Is this what he is saying? If not, what does he mean?

[taon]

I think he's saying that each can reach tzidkus in their derech. Relative to the potential of their situation (he specifies that he works out of ncessity, not choice) they have both achieved a high level, maybe even relatively equal. But the learner is quantitatively greater.

[Rabbi Shapiro]

He says they can both totally fulfill the idea of Chasidus, as per בכל דרכיך דעהו. They can also both totally fulfill the laws of Kashrus. And just as eating kosher has nothing to do with the fact that תלמוד תורה כנגד כולם so too בכל דרכיך דעהו does not.

And Taon is right. Even regarding חסידות he refers to someone who is forced to work, not someone who wants to.

[JewishAttorney]

Why are many Chasidim generally focus on working full time which seems to have developed into ideology as in a normal thing to be done vs. say Kollel. It's gotten to a point where I heard some Chasidic friends joke "ah these silly people learning non stop with each thinking he's a dayan or something haha." It doesn't seem like there is vocal and widespread movement to learn. I've even read on the old forum that the Satmar Rebbe ZTL once told a Litvishe Rosh Yeshiva something along the lines of "you worry about making Gedolim, I'll worry about making Klal Isroel."

That's all good and nice but seems a bit hypocritical as to how working is A-OK when Chasidim do it en-masse and when a non-Chasidic person (even from a relatively poor family) wants to work, he gets hit with a hundred sforim explaining how learning is so much superior and so on and so forth. The old frumteens site had dozens of posts from Moderators zealously proving with the strongest of terms how everyone who can handle it should learn, how today's condtions give Jews so much more freedom to do so, how every blat is worth more than a bigger house and so on - position which doesn't seem to be shared that much say in Borogh Park and Williamsburg where even those with more financial resources usually get children into family business of some kind.

Thanks.

[Rabbi Shapiro]

That's not exactly how the Satmar Rebbe said that. The way you are quoting it, it implies that he is kind of putting down what the Litchishe Gedolim were doing. That was not his intention.

Before a Godol embarks on a course of action for the Klall, he needs to consider not only how the course of action will impact on the Klall today, but in the future as well. How far in the future? As far as he can see. Generations in the future. There were plenty of "improvements" various rabbis made throughout history but because they were not Gedolim and they were unable to see the future ramifications of their actions, they may have accomplished something in the long term, but their ideas eventually backfired.

Torah is like an ecosystem. Before you kill the sharks to make people safe, you need to determine whether doing so is going to bring on some future ecological disaster. So too before someone makes an innovation or embarks on a Derech in Avodas Hashem, he needs to be sure that he is not hurting things in the long term.

And so, Gedolim such as the Satmar Rebbe decided that, considering the issue facing us today (that is, in those days), we must create a full-blown independent frum community from the bottom up. Torah is the greatest pursuit, but what would happen to Torah if the Yeshivos would be forced to rely on undesirable sources for support? Could they maintain their independence? Would Bnei Torah sitting and learning be able to do so properly without being brought up in a controlled environment where non-Jewish influences are minimized? How will we prevent the slow and subtle pollution of our values unless we produce our own total community?

In the long run, what is best for Torah? Yes, תלמוד תורה כנגד כולם but it takes more to create real תלמוד תורה, community-wide תלמוד תורה, Talmud Torah that permeates the masses - ללמוד ע"מ לעשות - than just making a Yeshiva and having everybody learn.

The Satmar Rebbe once discussed the challenges of the day with the Chazon Ish. They had two different approaches. The Satmar Rebbe was talking about טיילונג, creating separate, independent, communities and fighting outside influences, and the Chazon Ish said "And my opinion is, we need to make more Yeshivos, and more Yeshivos and more Yeshivos."

When the Satmar Rebbe mentioned to him that the Rambam requires people, when there are no spiritually wholesome places to live, to move to the desert and live in seclusion , the Chazon Ish replied, "And I hold nowadays the Yeshivos are the deserts."

Each Godol was following his Mesorah, and they all had the same thing in mind - how to enhance Kvod Shamayim.

Nobody disagrees that תלמוד תורה כנגד כולם - how can anyone disagree with that? - but the disagreement was how to successfully, in the long run and on the greatest scale, accomplish תלמוד תורה. Pure, unadulterated תורה, not only in the Yeshiva, but in the home and everywhere else.

In short, it's great to learn, but how do you make sure that the Yeshiva guy learning is also able to grow up in an environment that is free from outside influences? Plenty of people with bad Hashkafos also learn. How do you protect even those in the Koslei Bais HaMedrash from the bad ideas that permeate the atmosphere nowadays if you don't have a totally independent community? How do you prevent the Yeshivos from being subject to the influence of those outside the Yeshiva who support them unless you create a Torah community even outside of the Yeshiva?

In other words, learning is great, but in the long run, will your learning sustain itself against the influences of the times?

The denigration that you are hearing from those Chasidim about people who learn is silly. Nobody says such a thing. The people who are telling you "they think they are Dayanim" are certainly not the Dayanim themselves. From the real Dayanim you will never hear such things.

And for the record, those who judge others are the ones acting as if they were Dayanim. Not the people sitting and learning.

[JewishAttorney]

Thanks Rabbi Shapiro! That exchange of the Satmar Rebbe and Chazon Ish clearned everything up for me.

I am not sure they meant it in a degrading way. They are very nice people with beautiful families and I don't think they meant disrespect - more like indeed a silly remark. I feel bad for putting people, even without mentioning names, in a loshon-hara like situation. I just felt like the real quote may help with the question, but perhaps I should have emailed you in private beforehand.

Then again, I'm assuming since you published my post unedited, it thankfully was indeed (as I intended) not border-line loshan hara? Would you have a halachic guideline for future posts of quoting nameless people for illustration purposes?

[Rabbi Shapiro]

It can't be Loshon Horah is nobody can figure out who you are talking about.