Some people in kollel believe that learning Torah is a good way to make money. I encountered this opinion myself in many. This seems to fly in the face of the well known rule that one is not allowed to use Torah to make money. The odd thing was that they used that idea to convince my wife to leave me since I was learning Torah not for money but for its own sake.
However we do find that people have cast themselves on God to learn Torah and to believe that parnasa [money] would come to them from Heaven--and they succeed in that. The basic idea in a nutshell is that a guy says to himself "I am going to learn Torah no matter what, and I believe God will take care of my needs".
Even though this is famous for being the practice of the Musar Navardok Yeshivas, still you can see this in the Obligations of the Heart also. [Navardok held no השתדלות/ The Obligations of th Heart held Trust with effort.]
In a practical sense what I think about this is that the basic idea to sit and learn Torah and to trust in God for a living is a good practice --even though I did not merit to this myself. Obviously after I was divorced I was not only not going to be in any kollel but was also a social pariah. [persona non grata]. So I have had to make do with what ever scraps of Torah I can learn here and there.
Eventually I started seeing that the fact that I am not part of the religious world is a great blessing.
Even if I do not learn much Torah, but at least the little I can pick up here and there is not in order to make money.
in any case the events that happened to me certainly make me wonder what the point of kollel is if people there are not so nice. Is it not an important aspect of Torah to have good traits?
However we do find that people have cast themselves on God to learn Torah and to believe that parnasa [money] would come to them from Heaven--and they succeed in that. The basic idea in a nutshell is that a guy says to himself "I am going to learn Torah no matter what, and I believe God will take care of my needs".
Even though this is famous for being the practice of the Musar Navardok Yeshivas, still you can see this in the Obligations of the Heart also. [Navardok held no השתדלות/ The Obligations of th Heart held Trust with effort.]
In a practical sense what I think about this is that the basic idea to sit and learn Torah and to trust in God for a living is a good practice --even though I did not merit to this myself. Obviously after I was divorced I was not only not going to be in any kollel but was also a social pariah. [persona non grata]. So I have had to make do with what ever scraps of Torah I can learn here and there.
Eventually I started seeing that the fact that I am not part of the religious world is a great blessing.
Even if I do not learn much Torah, but at least the little I can pick up here and there is not in order to make money.
in any case the events that happened to me certainly make me wonder what the point of kollel is if people there are not so nice. Is it not an important aspect of Torah to have good traits?
