Opinion & Comment
On the Kollelim and Their Survival

Hard Times

A number of articles have already appeared in these columns about the present government's use of selective cutbacks in welfare payments and other governmental allocations to strike at the Torah community in general and the kollelim in particular. Many in the secular world hope that the severe financial hardship thus fostered will, "draw avreichim out [i.e. of kollel] into the workforce." This is a step towards attainment of their long cherished goal of the chareidi community's "integration" (meaning assimilation) within general Israeli society.

We also published HaRav Eliashiv's call to the public, that when deciding how to allot tzedokoh funds to the many different causes claiming our attention, to give priority to supporting Torah institutions, particularly at the present time. Experience has shown however, that it is usually a mere handful of individuals, whose love of Torah burns strong, who appreciate the merit of enabling numbers of avreichim to sit and learn.

When previously writing on the subject, mention was also made of opinions that have been expressed by some, even in our own community, who are not at peace with the continued increase in the numbers of those aspiring to devote their lives to Torah -- an aspiration that the gedolim of the past generation went to such lengths to inculcate. Some roshei kollelim report having met donors who prefer giving to any other cause but the kollelim. They are full of complaints of the sort we are used to hearing from the Torah haters who are the current government's coalition partners.

A Surprising Forum for Old Ideas

Drawing attention to the financial predicament of the kollelim and to changes taking place in our community, a case is being made by some for adopting a different approach to kollel study. No longer should it be the privilege of any reasonably capable yeshiva bochur to continue full time learning after marriage. Some kind of communal accountability should be introduced, the argument goes. Thought should be given to which avreichim will best serve the Torah community's future spiritual needs and such openings as are available should be allotted only to the most gifted and dedicated individuals.

It is hard to believe that such a proposal actually found a hearing within the chareidi public. Those who have fought against us in order to stop the expansion of the Torah world in the past and present have tried to achieve something like this; it is exactly what the government's recent financial measures are supposed to make happen.

Our enemies, driven by the hatred of the ignoramus for the Torah scholar, have been explaining sweetly for years that they do not want to close all the Torah institutions, just to "reduce the numbers of those learning. Only the geniuses and gifted students should learn, in numbers necessary for training rabbonim etc. while a considerable proportion of `the learning population' should be directed to the work market."

To voice such foolish and dangerous ideas within the Torah camp is to provide grist for the mills of the haters of Torah. Especially at a time when financial pressure and ideological coercion are being brought to bear from without, to afford currency to such sentiments and, moreover, to present them as being in the best interests of the chareidi community, is tantamount to opening the door and inviting the purveyors of this old, familiar venom to step inside.

The Incorrect (and the Correct) Response

The basis for this undermining (but possibly unwitting) ideological aberration lies in the conviction on the part of its supporters that the time has arrived for some serious communal soul-searching and for fundamental changes to be made.

This is preposterous. When Torah is threatened from without, has the Torah camp ever been called upon to engage in soul- searching and implement changes along the lines desired by those making the threats? Decrees such as these must not meet with acquiescence but with resistance, which can be in the form of active measures or increased spiritual endeavors.

In our present challenge, our leaders have instructed us to work on both fronts. The chareidi Knesset members are working to ameliorate the severity of the decrees and the community has been called upon to assist the kollelim and strengthen them.

Never has it occurred to anyone that the plotting and scheming of hostile groups against us should lead us to submit and sue for the very terms that they are trying to force upon us.

Are we supposed to ask ourselves why in the past we refused to accept the views of Ran Cohen and Yosef Lapid and of Aharon and Ehud Barak, about the numbers of those sitting and learning? The whole purpose of the present decrees is to undermine our resolve and to weaken us from within. Is the correct response for us to move on our own accord towards taking the very steps that are so greatly desired by those who cannot bear to see the Torah world flourish?

When hardship is imposed on us and threats are being hurled in our direction, we must strengthen ourselves and make sure that we don't give way before the schemes of the powers that be.

In Sanhedrin (74, beginning `but at the time of a decree') the Ran writes, "When the nations plan to stop Yisroel keeping the Torah, there is a need to [introduce] reinforcing measures against them, so that their plans should not be realized . . . and if one listens to them even in private, it becomes known in public for they have found their decree to be effective . . ."

Around a year ago, gedolei Yisroel published a letter protesting the present government's policies in which they wrote, "when a government is set up of . . . people whose only common factor is the hatred of ignoramuses for talmidei chachomim . . . and in their deep hatred, they brandish a sharp sword over Klal Yisroel's continued existence," their prime objective being "to thin the ranks of the Torah scholars," our duty is clear.

"We must thus grasp the tree of life, not budging from it by a hairsbreadth, chas vesholom. This will give us strength to withstand the difficult trials that lie ahead. We should not be impressed if the path of evildoers is smooth, for we know that the truth will emerge victorious and will endure, by virtue of Hakodosh Boruch Hu's promise that Torah will never be forgotten."

Klal Yisroel's Greatest Assets

To address the main point i.e. the continuation of the kollelim in their present form and the wondrous and admirable lifestyle that thousands of avreichim and their families lead, devoting their lives to Torah study for its own sake. This way of life has been affirmed by the gedolim of the past generation ztvk'l, from the Chazon Ish to HaRav Shach and continues to be supported by their successors, the current Torah leaders.

As is well known, our teachers taught us that kollel study is not supposed to be professional training for a rabbinical position, which is why they strongly opposed kollelim whose sole function was to produce rabbonim. There is certainly no room for evaluating avreichim as potential assets in terms of the benefits that they can be expected to yield in the future.

We have been taught that Klal Yisroel's greatest benefit lies in there being more and more talmidei chachomim and ever greater numbers filling the botei medrash. The benefit accruing right now from each and every avreich is inestimable, especially in times like ours when we witness the terrible deterioration of our nation, many of whose members are sadly fulfilling the adage, "when they sink, they sink to the bottom."

No Distinctions

The kind of selection based on abilities etc. currently being suggested, belongs to the mindset of the man in the street which generally runs counter to the thinking of our great leaders. HaRav Shach fought against attempts to argue that by a certain age or stage it is possible to determine which avreichim are capable of benefiting the public by their continued learning and who ought to leave chas vesholom, the beis hamedrash and "join the workforce."

This was why HaRav Shach even opposed proposals to differentiate between one kollel and another, or between one avreich and another, and to provide preferential terms to more promising students. In an article in a memorial supplement for HaRav Shach, issued by the Torah journal Kol Hatorah (published by Agudas Yisroel of Europe), HaRav Moshe Aharon Braverman wrote, "When a program was suggested to take ten excellent avreichim from Kollel Ponovezh and provide them with special supplementary stipends in the expectation that they would be the gedolim of the following generation, he expressed his opposition. He explained that this would break the resolve of the other avreichim and of their families, preventing them from fulfilling their potential and attaining their full stature in Torah. Extra assistance can always be extended in private and on an individual basis, but no public differentiation should be made. He added that experience has shown it is impossible to predict with any certainty who will grow greater in Torah and who will have greater success. It is [therefore] impossible to determine who is more deserving of help and who less.

"Similarly, when the directorate of Chinuch Atzmai proposed setting up a teacher training institute and directing avreichim who showed no special promise in learning to go there so that they could serve as Torah disseminators, he opposed the idea. At a meeting of the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah he said that he'd been teaching Torah for fifty years already and he could testify to the impossibility of foreseeing who would succeed and develop in Torah and who would not. An avreich's future could not be settled and the possibility of Torah growth and development withheld from him on the basis of present appearances"(emphasis added).

End of Part I

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