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28.7.15

My feeling about learning Torah is based to some degree  on the approach that I was introduced to when I first got to my first yeshiva in Far Rockaway, NY. That approach was uniform among all NY yeshivas and it was this: the main thing in life is to serve God, and the main way of serving God  learning Torah.

But we also know that the way of Torah is not to use Torah to make money. Nor to accept charity to be able to learn Torah. Nor to force the Israeli government to give you money so that you can learn. Nor to talk to secular Jews as if they are your brothers when you are asking them for money. and then to turn around when they are not looking and curse them.

These later approaches are clearly not the path of Torah. but they are a result of the the insane religious world  life style. For this reason in my previous post I mentioned Rav Kook and Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsh because the later one emphasizes Torah with working for a living and Rav Kook empathizes the settlement in the Land of Israel also. So they both give a balanced introduction to Torah thought and at the same time have a kind of balanced approach that is closer to true Torah than anything else I have seen,