Religious thieves
Peace be upon you, my teacher and rabbi,
In several places where I worked, I saw that religious people steal time from their employer for prayers that they are clearly not allowed to do (they hand over an entrance ticket and go to Shacharit, for example) and extend their prayers and add a lesson, etc. What is surprising is that the more devout the person, the more they steal (extend their prayers, add Tehillim, study a daily page, etc.).
1. Are you familiar with the phenomenon?
2. Do you have an idea of how to look at it without getting angry and weakening religiously? (As if those who receive the kingdom of heaven and the yoke of commandments behave like this, may my lot not be with them…)
- I know about the existence of the phenomenon.
- The best advice is to exclude yourself from those who place their faith in human behavior. There are those who are weak-minded who base their beliefs on the principle that if such and such do so, I will not be part of their people. But the fact that such guidelines take them into account does not mean that this is indeed the way to make decisions. There are people and ways of thinking like this, and therefore they must be taken into account, but these are very bad ways of making decisions. For example, Chazal prescribed that the priest should read the firstfruits to the oleh because of those who did not know how to make it happen. Should we learn from this that it is appropriate to be someone who does not know how to make it happen? And look carefully…
And perhaps another comment (in the name of Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, who appeared to me in a dream). Because of the importance that these guys give to the work of God, they err and steal. Others who do not steal are not necessarily better, but they do not give so much importance to their values or interests. Thus, elderly men and women generally do not commit adultery, and those who do not believe do not murder because of their beliefs, and so on.
I have always wondered about the change in thinking about prayer between the generation of Chazal and our generation.
In Berakot 17 and Shul 63 it is explained that workers can relax the laws of prayer. They are exempt from praying in the minyan and reciting the Shachatz, and can read the Keresh on the tree.
So it is true that in their time work began in the fields at dawn, and in our time it is possible to pray before that. But what about those who have to travel to work, or take the children to kindergarten?
Another thing: in their time the order of priority was like this: I cannot pray because I am working.
Today the order is reversed: I cannot work because I have to pray/study/keep my eyes open, etc.
That is, in their time, the first assumption was that a person must live his life and earn a living, and that the law must adapt itself to normal life.
Today, the thinking is that a person must first fulfill the requirements of the Shul, and only if he is able, can he also work.
This is my feeling from my experience in the Haredi community.
Rabbi, do you agree with me?
Absolutely. The Haredi view is that life is an experience that must be overcome, but one must focus on the Torah. Life only interferes with that. In modern religiosity (and to some extent also in Hasidism in its origins, not as it is today) the view was the opposite.
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