Kollel was an invention of Rav Israel Salanter. It was meant to get over the hurdle that people would learn Torah up until the time they got married and then either had to find work or be supported by their father in law or begin to use Torah to make money. None of these options seemed very good.
So he created what was supposed to be temporary fix by extending the independent yeshiva concept into married years.
[I am getting ahead of myself. Yeshiva as an independent institution was recent. It was begun by Rav Haim from Voloshin. Before that there was no such thing. The situation was simply that the unmarried teenagers of the city stayed and leaned in the local synagogue under the supervision of who ever was chosen as the religious leader of the city that got a salary for his efforts.
This was not accepted at first and in fact the Rav of Mir brought a lawsuit against the person that started the Mir Yeshiva that was independent of his leadership and control.]
To me it seems that using Torah to make money is not a very great idea. And Kollel and yeshivas themselves which were meant to get out of the problem of mixing Torah with money seem themselves to have become a sort of business. --[Though they started with good intentions.]
However there are exceptions to this rule. The Litvak yeshivas which more or less follow the original design of Rav Haim of Voloshin and Rav Israel Salanter seem very good to me. But these kind of straight litvak yeshivas seem to be rare and exceptions to the rule.
So he created what was supposed to be temporary fix by extending the independent yeshiva concept into married years.
[I am getting ahead of myself. Yeshiva as an independent institution was recent. It was begun by Rav Haim from Voloshin. Before that there was no such thing. The situation was simply that the unmarried teenagers of the city stayed and leaned in the local synagogue under the supervision of who ever was chosen as the religious leader of the city that got a salary for his efforts.
This was not accepted at first and in fact the Rav of Mir brought a lawsuit against the person that started the Mir Yeshiva that was independent of his leadership and control.]
To me it seems that using Torah to make money is not a very great idea. And Kollel and yeshivas themselves which were meant to get out of the problem of mixing Torah with money seem themselves to have become a sort of business. --[Though they started with good intentions.]
However there are exceptions to this rule. The Litvak yeshivas which more or less follow the original design of Rav Haim of Voloshin and Rav Israel Salanter seem very good to me. But these kind of straight litvak yeshivas seem to be rare and exceptions to the rule.
[this issue has always been important to me, but i would not knock people that depend on a kollel check to be able to learn. just for me, that did not seem like a good idea.]
My own feeling about kollel is that it depends on the kind of person one is. If a life of learning Torah for its own sake makes sense to you then it is a great thing. But if it is being used as a "good guys" country club where freinds get to gossip the whole day, then it seems like a waste.
