I noticed in the book about the wife of Rav Kinyevsky a point about "bitul Torah". [Bitul Torah means not learning Torah when one can.] What I could gather from the book is that she held strongly to the idea that you see in the Gemara that a good wife is one who helps her husband to learn Torah. I forget the exact Gemara but from what I can recall it goes something like this: טל אורות טלייך ["The dew of lights is your dew."] Who will rise in the time of the revival of the dead? One who has the dew of Torah. If so, then how can women merit to the revival of the dead? By enabling their husbands to learn Torah and by bringing up their children to learn Torah.
So this is apparently what she did. There is brought lots of stories in that book showing this. She would heat and reheat the meals of her husband so that when he would get home it would be already warm so he could have his meal immediately and then get back to learning. When there was almost nothing to eat, she would make a full meal for her husband and for herself have just bread and margarine. One time someone wanted to talk with her husband when he was learning and she said, "He is learning now." They countered this with, "What would be the big deal to spend a few minutes away from learning?" She answered "Do you want my husband to be an am haaretz (ignoramus)?"
{I recall this sort of atmosphere at the Mir and in Shar Yashuv. However over the years I have taken a slightly different approach. That is what you see in some rishonim that Physics and Metaphysics and a part of the commandment of learning Torah.] [Even the Gra held that ignorance of any fact in the seven wisdoms causes ignorance in Torah a hundred fold.]
