Berachos (28a) Rabban Gamaliel said I will go and apologize to R. Joshua. When he reached his house he saw that the walls were black. He said to him: From the walls of your house it is apparent that you are a charcoal-burner. He replied: Alas for the generation of which you are the leader, seeing that you know nothing of the troubles of the scholars, their struggles to support and sustain themselves!
Sadly it reminds me of the opposite approach by today's Chareidi leadership. When approached by a Chareidi benefactor who proposed building trade schools for the community to help them find jobs and lift them out of poverty, Rav Shteinman, z"l, responded that poverty was preferable since it led to greater purity in Torah.
ReplyDeleteRav Shach said that it was not necessary because poverty will force people to work and the system will maintain itself. Then the government made it difficult to work without army service and army service became political, throwing a wrench in his calculations.
DeleteRemember the joke about how they banned Sefer Iyov in Lakewood because someone saw the English name.
Delete