A recent study conducted by the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry predicted that Israel will see a 6% drop in its workforce within 20 years, especially due to the growing ultra-Orthodox and Arab population shares. But activists in the religious sector dismiss the forecast, noting the growing rates of employed haredim.
"I don't see the pessimistic predictions coming true," said attorney Yoav Laloum, chairman of the Noar KaHalacha, an organization that advocates against discrimination in the haredi sector.
Rabbi Elazar Menachem Man Shach in his sefer, Michtavim UMa’amarim writes that there is no need – and no heter – to learn a trade before it becomes an immediate concern & that every single Yeshivah student has the potential and talent to become a Rosh Kollel, Rosh Yeshiva or Maggid Shiur at least in a Yeshivah Ketanah. Only if and when all else fails may one pursue a ‘mundane’ source of livelihood. In Rabbi Shach writes that even high school – needless to say university – education or for that matter any interest in secular literature or occupation with the arts or the sciences is forbidden by the Torah and that YU type institutions are an entirely negative phenomenon posing a threat to the very endurance of authentic Judaism. These modern conceptions, he said, were an absolute disaster “causing the destruction of our Holy Torah” (vol. 4 no. 319 pg. 35). Rav Shach writes that the success of those people who were able to achieve greatness in Torah despite their involvement in secular studies is ma’aseh satan [=the doings of the satanic forces] for the existence of such role models will entice others to follow suit, only to be doomed (vols. 1-2, page 109, no. 53. See also ibid., page 128, no. 76).
ReplyDeleteIt is true that in past generations there were so few Yeshiva students that this was the teaching that kept the minimum in Yeshivas. Today the problem is the opposite, there are many scholars and their lot is frustration. This results in broken marriages and broken families. The frumkeit of the Litvisheh is not to work, and the frumkeit of the Hassidim is prishuse, and both are completely out of step of the Talmud and Zohar Niglo and Nistor. These ideas were created and invented to save the Torah when nobody went to Yeshiva, such as when I learned by Reb Aharon and two people came and two people left each term. Today, everyone must be a Gadol and that is a disaster. But as time goes on , it just gets worse. I heard these things from Gedolim and discussed them with Gedolei HaDor one who admitted that "you have the sources, but we don't do things that way." Not like Chazal?
ReplyDeleteIt is so hard to understand the charedei view -- even as I admit the world can be a dangerous place and assimiliation is always a threat lurking out there. It just seems to make so much more sense to allow people to fulfill their potential but to stress that we are the 'am hanivchar' and an 'am kodesh' and much is expected of us.
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