A few months ago Israeli newspapers reported that the
"Israeli Board of Higher Education has launched a new
initiative: Providing chareidim with an academic education in
the aim of encouraging them to join the country's work
market." I will later discuss these two new "values":
Academic education and entering the work market, but first I
want to point out that the program's initiator, Prof.
Nechemia Levtziyon, commented to the press that he sees in
this a "historical turnabout with far- reaching social
implications."
Newspapers said that this involves a study program within the
framework of the Jerusalem College of Technology (Lev
Institute -- JCT), an academy in which religious and secular
studies are combined. According to this program: "Chareidim
will study [Torah] in the morning at their yeshivos and the
academic studies will take place during the evening. The
studies will go on for three semesters a year to enable
students to attain a bachelor's degree after four years
[instead of the usual three]." JCT announced that it intends
to create additional branches in chareidi areas "and to
recruit the academic faculty [to teach in these branches too]
so that the level of study will be identical in all
institutions."
Newspapers reported the above some seven months ago and at
that time they quoted the rector of the Jerusalem College of
Technology as saying that they are not actively engaged in
promoting their program of academic studies for chareidim "so
as not to anger the rabbonim." Lately we have, however, heard
that they have changed their minds and have been advertising
in chareidi areas offering "Torah and work for avreichim"
through applying for evening courses to attain an academic
degree.
Maranan Verabonon zt'l and ylct'a, the leaders
of Torah Jewry, have frequently warned about such new
undesirable trends. In particular they have alerted us about
the specious veneration for forms of "higher education" and
"scholastic training." Some well- known Jews have, because of
various considerations, proposed college studies for Torah
Jewry. These so-called benefactors either want us to "become
part" of the modern and "enlightened" world -- which is in
itself definitely an unworthy aspiration -- are obsessed with
an inferiority complex compared to those who work for a
living, or their reasoning, albeit unjustified, is the
necessity of earning a livelihood.
We recall well the battles our Torah leaders waged in
chutz la'aretz and even in Eretz Yisroel to halt the
attempt to set up a chareidi university such as Touro College
and the like. Gedolei Torah regard such institutions
as alien to our community. They understood that these
educational frameworks endanger the Torah World and could
change our public's entire makeup -- and Torah chinuch
itself.
However, we must first and foremost totally dismiss their
justifications on the grounds of "livelihood considerations"
and the urgency of creating "work opportunities" (although
even for those needs such a breach is not allowed). Everyone
knows that today there are numerous Torah-true Jews who find
their livelihood as hired or independent workers without
having to study in any university, chareidi or otherwise.
All chareidi Jews who we see working in stores, factories,
and offices, do not have any academic background but
doubtless find ample livelihood. We are concerned with an
idea having a totally different aim: establishing a chareidi
academy so we can "blend into the enlightened world." The
initiators of the academic studies for chareidim in Eretz
Yisroel hope to create prestigious educational institutions
to further the widespread objective among compromising
circles such as the Mizrachi. These people want to develop
academic alternatives for the yeshivos and kollels
(and parallel to this they also propose an academic
substitute even for the pure chinuch institutions of
Beis Yaakov girls -- a topic which needs to be discussed
separately).
Until now it was accepted that the aspiration of every
chareidi family is for its children to become gedolei
Torah. Someone forced to abandon the beis midrash
to find livelihood did not do so because he felt it was
the ideal thing. He did not picture his decision as
lechatchila but as a necessary, but bedi'eved
step. On the contrary, he honored all those who remained
exclusively within the four amos of halocho. He
realized that they are the true leaders of Klal Yisroel
and the elite of the Torah-true.
The idea of a chareidi university is being disguised as a
means of satisfying the pressing need to earn a livelihood,
but eventually, if approached in this way, leaving the
yeshiva and studying in college will be considered an ideal
way of life.
HaRav Eliyahu Dessler zt'l in a letter concerning this
issue, warned against academic studies and college degrees
for our community. He wrote that our rabbonim absolutely
prohibited the different types of colleges, including even
these with so-called hechsherim. Our Torah leaders
ensured that even those who must leave the yeshiva for their
livelihood should not do so in a way that necessitates that
they devote time and effort to academic studies.
"Naturally they are on the alert to do what they can to help
those who cannot remain bnei Torah, but it is done in
a way that will not attract the rest [to leave their
studies]. For instance, they tried to set up as storekeepers
or other non-professional businesses those whom they were
forced to allow to leave the yeshiva. These were occupations
where there was no need for preparation and did not appeal to
the young talmidim. They did not attend to those boys
who wanted to study a profession, and surely not those who
chose an academic profession, so that they should not ruin
others while helping them" (Michtav MeEliahu
3:357).
HaRav Dessler indicates that this was the view of Maran the
Chazon Ish zt'l who was ardently opposed even to a
course of studies whose aim was merely awarding college
degrees to chareidi teachers, as was the specific case dealt
with in that letter.
This is the way of the Torah World: Parents and educators
toil to imprint upon the new generation an aspiration for
studying Torah with no other aim in life. Even someone who --
after many years of studying Torah -- was forced to forsake
his studies to some degree and to engage in earning his
livelihood, was steered to routine work or to a business
requiring only natural talent and hard work. This is the way
many rich chareidim who studied in the yeshivos kedoshos
and whose whole education was only Torah, succeeded. They
did not dedicate themselves to time-consuming studies nor to
exerting their brain and heart in training themselves.
(One cannot claim that the "new professions," such as
computers, require a chareidi academy, since we are all
acquainted with frum people who have absorbed
understanding of Torah during their years in yeshiva and
kollel, and later succeeded in learning computer
skills from their friends who are experts in the field and
through on-the-job training without needing any formal
university studies at all. Even if we assume that there are
any brand- new areas requiring academic study, who says a
person is obligated to find his livelihood in these specific
channels? Who allowed him in the first place to choose ways
of seeking livelihood that maranan verabonon shlita
are opposed to, when there are a thousand and one other
ways?)
We are dealing here with an attempt to generate a general
change in values and to admit trends opposing daas Torah
through the back door against which the gedolei Torah
waged war with all their might. Furthermore, we must
caution against the cliches used by those initiating
"academies with a hechsher" and "chareidi
universities" so as to "put them into the work market." To
whom are they referring and from where should they be
removed? The obvious answer is: to remove yeshiva and
kollel students from the beis midrash!
Of those who were educated in yeshivos kedoshos, even
someone who of necessity stopped his studies and went to work
for a living or to engage in klal matters did not see
in this any advantage over studying Torah full time. He
admired those who were zoche to continue studying
Torah all day. We were educated that the main aim in life is
to study as much Torah as possible, to "dwell in the house of
Hashem all the days of my life" (Tehillim 27:4). Whenever it
is possible, we raise our children to study only Torah.
Surely we did not think to estrange ourselves from all our
Torah chinuch and encourage others to go to work or to
blend into the work force of our economy.
How can abandoning the beis midrash become an ideal?
How can someone advocate this by founding academic
institutions? What is the big simcha if someone is
forced to leave the yeshiva? This is surely not his aim in
life. A hungry person who eats is not doing so because he it
is his aim to do so or because he is following some ideology.
What role model do we want to present to our children:
kollel students studying Torah with mesiras nefesh
or that of people going to work or those taking academic
training? Do we want to honor the Torah or work and a college
degree?
When several years ago one of the Mizrachi
leaders besmirched the Brisker Rav ztvk'l, Maran HaRav
Aharon Kotler ztvk'l, protested publicly against this
disgrace to Torah. (The full text of the Rosh Yeshiva's
protest has been recently printed in Nitei Ne'emonim,
published by the Mishnas Rebbe Aharon Institute and the
Federation of Talmidei Kletsk and Lakewood). At the
conclusion of the protest, HaRav Aharon Kotler discussed
college studies, a subject quite relevant today too.
"I would also like to speak about a topic connected with
honoring the Torah. There is another limud and
pshat for the posuk (Bamidbar 15:31) "because
he has despised the word of Hashem (ki devar Hashem
bozoh)" on which the Rambam, the Shulchan Oruch,
Rabbenu Yonah and other poskim also rule. The
Rambam (Hilchos Talmud Torah 3:13) writes: `"Because
he has despised the word of Hashem" refers to someone who
totally neglects divrei Torah, or someone who has the
opportunity to engage in Torah study but does not do so, or
someone who has studied Torah and later abandons it for the
vanities of the world. They [both] are all included in "he
has despised the word of Hashem."' The Shulchan Oruch
rules similarly. Rabbenu Yonah (Sha'arei Teshuvah
3:143, 153) and other poskim discuss at length the
severity of despising Hashem's word. If we all understand how
severe despising Hashem's word is when it concerns the
Brisker Rav [shlita] zt"l, we must reflect and be
careful not, cholila, to be negligent about the second
way of despising Hashem's word that is also ruled in
halocho.
"I want to talk explicitly before this assembly of yeshiva
students about the terrible stumbling block of the nibbling
away of half a day for studying in college. We must be
horrified by this. Apart from the shortcoming of despising
the Torah, we are in this way decreasing Torah study and
gedolei Torah from Klal Yisroel. How can a
`Brisker Rov' or someone of that caliber grow when boys
direct their talents and time to external studies?
"Besides this point, we must bear in mind what is of foremost
importance. This condition has not come about because we are
looking for ways of livelihood, since there are many ways of
finding a living. This results from copying the non-Jews in
the world, those whose feet never stood on Mt. Sinai and were
not given the Torah. In their opinion, a person's mastering
general studies is his personal perfection and with it he
becomes a cultured person. They picture personalities like
our Chasam Sofer or R' Yisroel of Salant as lacking. Their
only way of measuring a person is by his academic studies.
For them this is man's entire essence.
"We however, think entirely differently: `Our whole Torah
should not be like your idle talk' (Bovo Basra 116a).
Our whole Torah, is a Torah that the mal'ochim begged
to receive, a Torah that has been studied by the Jewish
People from the time of Moshe Rabbenu and even before. The
Ovos too studied Torah whose `measure is longer than the
earth and broader than the sea' (Iyov 11:9). The glory
of the Torah, whose gedolim we are gathered here to
honor, is in our producing great scholars and sages. Surely
we cannot accomplish this by dividing the day between Torah
and college studies. The Torah girds itself with sackcloth
since people abandoned it and imitate the non-Jews.
"The disease of ignorance has spread among the masses [who
are] far from Torah and they cannot properly evaluate Torah.
We are measured [by them] according to our college education.
This disease has penetrated some tents of Torah where there
are those who take time out for their college studies as if
to turn the ben Torah into a so-to-speak "complete"
person. Cholila vechas. A person who has discerned and
clarified even one sugya in Shas is ten
thousand times more familiar with all worldly matters.
"The only thing gained by those following this mixed path is
emptiness. Not only emptiness in significant sugyos
and poskim, but even emptiness in preparing and
saying a drosho, and emptiness in formulating a proper
sevora. To understand even one word of Tosafos
is a thousand times more important than all of these
vanities. They take off time from Torah and when tests come
they close the gemora altogether for a period of time.
This is an excessive degree of `despising Hashem's word.' How
can the Torah germinate, how can gedolim and rabbonim
grow in Klal Yisroel?
"Since we are discussing the topic of `despising Hashem's
word' we cannot help but ask ourselves, all those who are now
present, the bnei Torah, the cream of the Jewish
Nation, to pay attention to this matter. What of the Torah
that is the most precious gift for am Yisroel? We must
strengthen ourselves so we will not, chas vesholom,
also `despise Hashem's word.' We must remember and review
what the Rambam (Hilchos Avoda Zorah 2:3) rules: that
if a person hears or ponders about something that can cause
him to think or reflect about a matter negating his emunah
he violates a lo sa'aseh of `you shall not seek
after your own heart and your own eyes after which you go
astray' (Bamidbar 15:39). Such a person will
intellectually build on what he has heard, and deteriorate to
heresy, and lose his Olam Haboh. Who is so confident
to imagine he can withstand this danger without harm? We have
seen many who have succumbed and even those who have not
deteriorated have become extremely blemished. This is an
unremitting danger.
"The truth is that we must dedicate another meeting and
separate activities to combat the danger of the State's
spirit and culture penetrating the Torah institutions.
However, at this opportunity of a meeting to honor the Torah
and protest about an act of `despising Hashem's word,' we
must let the assembled bnei Torah know of the severity
of this matter. This is especially important since there are
many who follow this way because it is in fashion and they
only want to be admired by their environment. By doing so
they are abandoning the Torah and changing their whole way of
life and thinking and becoming different from those engaged
in Torah. What I have said must surely strengthen bnei
Torah and even those who were in the past bnei Torah
and are today busy with their livelihood. Let us all
fortify ourselves and work together to raise the Torah's
glory, to become greater and more honored, speedily in our
days. Omen."
Maran HaRav Aharon Kotler ztvk'l spoke
about a certain problem that at the time bothered American
Jewry, but his main theme is pertinent also to the
initiatives of chareidi college studies and a "chareidi
university" planned here and now in the Holy Land.
As he explained, this has nothing to do with looking for ways
of earning a livelihood since there are many ways. Rather, he
explained that it is rooted in a desire to copy the non-Jews.
To them, a person's secular education is his personal
perfection. They consider our gedolim to be lacking.
Their only way of measuring a person is by his academic
studies. For them this is man's entire essence.
He warned that ignorance has spread among the masses far from
Torah and they are unable to properly evaluate the Torah.
Those who go to seek secular education find countless reasons
to justify their aims, but the truth is, as Maran HaRav
Aharon Kotler zt'l wrote, "there are many who are
following this way because it is in fashion and only want to
be admired by their environment. By their doing so they are
abandoning the Torah and changing their whole way of life and
thinking and becoming different from those who are engaged in
Torah."
It is well known that the gedolei Torah ztvk'l and
ylct'a have warned repeatedly about this danger. We
are all aware of the campaign Maran the Rosh Yeshiva
shlita waged every time plans for a chareidi
university emerged. We are therefore obliged to shake
ourselves free of such initiatives since our entire
ruchniyus is dependant upon it.
