I was in the nearby Na Nach place today, and someone mentioned that they would like to make a "Kollel Erev". Even though their suggestion was that it should be limited to Gemara, I still wanted to express my doubts. Somehow mixing Torah with money does not seem to work very well. Either people will learn --no matter what. Then when there is that degree of commitment, then money just seems to appear. Or when there is not that degree of commitment, then no matter how much money your pour on it, the whole enterprise remains flat.
[I mean to say that Rav Israel Salanter started the kollel idea as a temporary solution to the problem that people right after marriage --when they are supposed to be going up in spirit, have to leave off learning Torah to go and work. But he did not mean kollel should be became the standard way of using Torah to make money as it has become. Often the result of pouring money into the "Torah world" is the creation "Torah scholars that are demons" [in the memorable words of Rav Nahman. And that phrase just says it all.]
