On Supporting Torah: The Need for a New Social Contract (Column 34)

With God’s help

Today, no philosophy and no sources. Here is a practical proposal for solving a fraught and troublesome market failure.

Introduction

We were all educated on the importance of Torah and of supporting those who study it. In the last generation there has been great resentment against this principle, and certainly against the way it is implemented in practice. People argue that we ought not support the learners. These are healthy, able-bodied people who have decided to sit idle (=to be among the town’s ‘ten idlers’), so let them go to work and stop burdening the public. Many cite Maimonides’ well-known and sharp words on this matter. I would like to try to bring some order to the confusion, and in the end also to propose a new social contract for the long term, and for now a more concrete proposal as well.

I will not enter here into halakhic and other sources, because in my view they add very little to the discussion. This is a question whose foundation lies in common sense and morality, not in sources about what is forbidden and permitted. Resorting to sources is a kind of Pavlovian Torah reflex. A yeshiva-trained person cannot discuss anything without relying on sources. I apologize that I refuse to yield to it. Even so, at the end I will add two halakhic remarks.

Supporting Torah

Everything begins and ends with the importance of Torah. Since that is axiomatic in this discussion, I will not address it here. Once we assume that Torah is the central axis of our service of God, then, stripping away all the verbiage, scriptural decrees, metaphysics, and superlatives, supporting Torah is simply a practical way to ensure Torah’s continued existence and development.

As a starting point, it is clear that every person is supposed to provide for his livelihood and also study Torah. This combination should be arranged so that there is enough to make a living and enough to study and grow significantly. From this standpoint, each person should be a self-contained unit and conduct himself in a way that enables progress on both planes together. So how did the idea of supporting Torah arise? Society, as society, needs people who will devote a larger share of their time to Torah study, because a stratum of great Torah scholars is extremely important, both for us as a society (so that we have rabbis, teachers, and halakhic decisors) and for Torah itself (for its interpretation and development). Clearly this is a thin layer of learners who are suited to it and willing to devote themselves to Torah—Maimonides’ ‘tribe of Levi’ at the end of the Laws of Shemittah and Jubilee—not the public as a whole.

The trouble is that if one devotes a larger share of time to study, a gap in livelihood is created. Since this is a task of the community as a whole and not of this or that individual, it is only proper that society take upon itself the responsibility of providing for those who study on behalf of Torah and on behalf of all of us. Exactly as it wants people to devote their time to security, academic or medical research, art, or sports, and therefore sees it as its duty to fund them. That is what supporting Torah means. This is not charity given by Reuven to Shimon, but by Reuven to Torah and to the community. The learner is in effect carrying out a task on behalf of all of us, and therefore we must take care of him. This is not charity but a bargain between him and society as a whole.

Seeing the Bigger Picture

To be sure, the assumption that Torah is the goal can be understood in two ways: Torah is meant to serve us and our lives (so that we live properly), or we are meant to serve it and to develop and refine it. Clearly both sides are true. The supreme value of study means that it is wrong to see Torah merely as an instrument for more proper and worthy living; it is also an end in itself. Either way, it is obvious that there is great importance in cultivating Torah and cultivating creative, knowledgeable, original, and profound scholars. The difference between the two perspectives is that viewing Torah as an instrument for us is a narrow perspective. We are at the center and it serves us. Viewing Torah as an end is seeing the bigger picture, in which we serve it (or the Holy One, blessed be He).[1]

In my article, ‘On Two Models of the Torah Scholar’,[2] I discussed the phenomenon that Jewish communities took rabbis for themselves not in order that they provide services of halakhic ruling and leadership, but in order to support Torah—that is, to support a Torah scholar who would make a significant contribution to the edifice of Torah for generations. From this perspective, the rabbi does not serve the community; the community serves the rabbi (who himself serves the broader process of refining and developing Torah). If one looks at the bigger picture, the community will survive one way or another. What will ultimately remain for generations is the unique contribution that that Torah personality made to the development of Torah. Thus the value of Rabbi Akiva Eger, the Noda B’Yehuda, the Rashba, or Maimonides did not lie in the fact that they provided religious services to their communities. Those communities could certainly have managed with rabbis of more modest stature. Their communities saw it as both obligation and privilege to support them so that they could study, create, and leave their unique imprint on the Torah that was transmitted onward to future generations. In this way the whole community, even those who do not themselves study in any serious way, can contribute its share to the building of Torah for generations. Ultimately, the goal is that this historical process build something and pass it onward. From this perspective, we are merely bearers of Torah, a link in the collective chain that carries and develops it, and we are judged by our contribution to the whole that has been formed along this process. From the global and larger perspective, the links serve the chain, not the chain the links.

The Sages say, If he and his son are both to study, he takes precedence over his son. (Kiddushin 29b). Why does the person take precedence over his son? Because from the global perspective, if each of us acts for the Torah of his son, then the son too will act for the Torah of his own son. So who will actually study in the end? Where will Torah itself be refined and developed and profit from this whole process? Where will Torah be in this entire chain? Therefore a person must first study himself, but if he does not study, or sees someone else who is better than he is for this, let him support that person, and then he will have a share in the contribution that the latter will make to the global edifice.[3] Likewise, it is not right for a person to decide that he will go to work in order to support students of Torah. First he should study himself, but if he is not suited, or if he sees another who is more suited than he is, let him support him. The goal before our eyes is the contribution to the development and building of Torah.[4]

Implications

The meaning is that it is not Shimon who decides that because he studies he is entitled to receive charity, nor is everyone who studies in fact entitled to it. The community decides that it wants Shimon to do this, if Shimon truly has the potential to belong to this ‘elite unit.’ Shimon does not demand his share; rather, the community identifies the relevant Shimons, assigns them a task, and takes care of their needs so that they can carry it out.

Another implication is that there is no point in supporting a large body of learners. It is not rational. Most people are supposed to divide their time between developing the world and developing Torah. Only a very small segment of people is meant to devote itself mainly to Torah, and those are the people all of us need to support. This is our task as a society, not the task of each of them individually.

The Current Situation

What is happening in our day is absurd. Thousands of people, among them many who are not suited to this, devote their lives to Torah study and become a burden on the public, and of course also create problems for their own families. It is important to understand that I am not speaking only about kollel students who do not study or simply idle away their time, but also about those who do study, yet it is perfectly obvious that they will not grow in learning and will not make any significant and unique contribution of their own. They are good and upright people who truly do sit and study, but they do not have the burning drive to grow, to develop, and to make an impact. Anyone who knows the world of kollels and yeshivot knows how to distinguish between these and those, and knows that this type is the overwhelming majority of learners.

Moreover, even those among the learners who are preparing themselves for rabbinic roles (positions in the religious establishment), such as judges in religious courts, senior yeshiva teachers (certainly in high-school yeshivot), yeshiva heads, and rabbis, are not included in this category. They are essentially on a track of professional training, and therefore they should be discussed separately. One may assist them as with any professional training, and perhaps even more, but that is not what I am discussing here. I am dealing here with all those who intend to grow in Torah over the long term in order to create original Torah work of their own (they may of course also serve as judges in religious courts or yeshiva heads alongside that).

This situation returns to us like a boomerang. Since the number of those supported is enormous, the stipend each of them receives from the public is tiny. Those who complain always compare it to the salaries given in academia or in other fields, and indeed there is no comparison. On the other hand, one cannot compare the number of people in the various fields. Nor can one compare the process of advancement and selection. In academia, in art, or in sports, people have to prove themselves and show special talent in order to receive a scholarship, and it is awarded through selection and screening to the most talented and diligent among them. The public is willing to finance those in whom it sees potential for growth and a unique contribution. By contrast, in the Torah world these paltry stipends are distributed to anyone who asks, with no selection and no criteria whatsoever. Since there is a commandment of Torah study, the assumption is that we must open the study hall to everyone (put more benches in the study hall, unlike Rabban Gamliel). Selection in Torah study? Perish the thought. Striving for excellence and incentivizing excellence are likewise almost nonexistent in Torah culture.

The tiny stipend condemns the recipient and his family to a life of hardship and poverty. Most of them engage in improvised income schemes (including a sunrise kollel, an evening kollel, a lunch-break kollel, or an ‘after-the-socks’ kollel; exams on the Tanya and Mesillat Yesharim; a predawn kollel; moonlighting as a kashrut supervisor, as a rabbi in a kindergarten or school, delivering a lesson to laymen in the synagogue, distributing newspapers, collecting trash, and so on). These improvisations and patchwork jobs prevent them from advancing and growing in study—and that, after all, is the very purpose of the Torah stipend they receive. So we give our money to people so that they will grow, but in most cases we do not get from them the expected return, both because we are not directing the stipend to the right people and because both the suitable and the unsuitable devote time and effort to channels that do not help their Torah growth.

Those who are not suited to dedicating their lives to study (the great majority) do indeed get a bit of fresh air from these side jobs (as is well known, the activists and the ‘awakeners,’ the people behind all sorts of spiritual initiatives, are precisely those who do not have the strength to sit and learn, and so they launch various strange initiatives—sometimes more blessed, but usually less so), but such people should go out to work for their livelihood and themselves participate in supporting those who are suited. They simply should not be there. By contrast, those who are suited to continue advancing and growing—the very people we ought to have been supporting, and not letting waste their time on side jobs at the expense of study and creativity—do not succeed in doing so. Some of them moonlight and do not grow. Others abandon the path of Torah advancement because of the lack of any vocational horizon and because they are fed up with a life of patchwork jobs and the endless chase after money.

I must say that every time anew my heart breaks when I see this situation. Masses of kollel students, most of them mediocre or below, they and their families live lives of deprivation and poverty with no justification at all. They are stuck there, and from a certain age onward it is already too late for them to emerge from the straits (at best, to go out to work as insurance agents or shop clerks). And those select few who ought to have been free for study, creativity, and Torah growth—the ‘elite unit’ mentioned above—are forced to cope on their own with poverty and side jobs. They have to cope, in our place and on our behalf, with lives of poverty and want to which the public sends them. No wonder many of them abandon the Torah track. Precisely because they are not mediocre and do not see a future in such patchwork work, they choose to do something else, and on a large scale (though not always early enough, and sometimes they miss the opportunity to advance on another front). In effect, we are placing upon the kollel student and his family the burden and the task of coping with the situation, whereas that burden should have been placed on all of us. We should have taken care of their livelihood and freed them for study and creativity.

In most cases, even those who remain and continue studying over time generally set their sights on some Torah position: yeshiva head or senior teacher, or judge in a religious court, or community rabbi. This seems obvious to us, since if we are investing in them it is only natural that we also expect a return that will come back to the community in one role or another. If they have the necessary connections (to my mind, and to our shame, in the Torah world connections somehow play a larger role than in the free market), they may perhaps win the coveted post, but even then they sometimes begin too early, before they have completed their path of growth. And what about those who see themselves as destined for Torah creativity and growth, and not for a rabbinic post? After all, many good people do not need to be religious functionaries of any kind, and some are not suited to that at all. They are suited, and want, to continue studying, researching, and creating new and significant Torah works. They are meant to nourish the practical world from the outside—the world of religious courts, the rabbinate, and the yeshiva world—somewhat like the distinction between ‘scholars’ and judges or lawyers in the legal world. As I described above, it is very important to adopt the perspective that they do not exist for us; we exist for them.

And I have not even mentioned the public criticism and resentment that this phenomenon arouses, and justifiably so. The debasement of Torah and the desecration of God’s name that it creates. The fact that in our society they finance every Tom, Dick, and Harry but refuse to finance students of Torah. Many call on the learners to go out to work and not burden the public. They quote Maimonides and other sources at them (while of course ignoring the sources that do not fit), and the value of supporting Torah sinks into the gutter. For some reason, these calls are not heard with regard to writers, artists, athletes, researchers (including those occupied with ‘gender studies,’ home economics, practical Kabbalah, the study of quadrilaterals in women’s poetry in ancient Assyria, and the rest of the nonsense cloaked in academic respectability). As stated, the problem is sharpened because with respect to most learners these calls are justified, but we do not make these distinctions. Our finest elite unit lives in constant apology before us and with the feeling that it lives off our table, instead of our carrying them on our shoulders and being glad to assist them generously and with dignity. Ironically, academics who deal in completely unnecessary things (the overwhelming majority) do not feel that way. They receive a fine and respectable salary and are treated like an elite unit, with a respectable position and high social standing. While those who are engaged in what truly matters feel inferior and in need of apology, and receive a stipend that consigns them to a life of privation—and even that comes mainly from donations of private individuals.

A New Social Contract

I have gone into such detail in describing the current situation in order to show that we need a new social contract regarding the support of Torah. I will now propose a simple model that is very easy to implement in our society. As a first step, let us all agree to reduce the budget for supporting students of Torah by a significant amount; for the sake of illustration, let us say cut it in half. In addition, let us agree that the remaining budget should be divided among a very small number of learners, for example 5% of those who receive it today (which would still amount to a respectable number in the thousands). Those who are supported would be selected by some public committee, similar to what happens in academia or anywhere else. The criteria would determine that these be only people who are truly suited to dedicate their lives to study. I mean not only prodigies in raw talent, but those who continue and persevere with desire, who grow, who produce original and significant work (not books compiling legal rulings and midrashim on Purim Meshulash that happens to fall on the eve of Yom Kippur of a Sabbatical year), who challenge and enrich their surroundings and themselves over time. Among them are gifted systematizers, Sinai and uprooters of mountains (masters of breadth and of penetrating analysis), creative and profound scholars. They engage in Jewish thought, Jewish law, and Talmudic analysis.[5]

Note that by a rough calculation, in light of these figures, the salary that each learner would receive would increase tenfold (!). Instead of a paltry $200 that debases giver and recipient alike, each learner would receive $2,000 a month, and yet the public purse would still save half the money. In addition, another 95% of today’s learners would join the workforce and contribute their share to all of our GDP. Increasing the funding would also give the supported learner a more respectable feeling: something is expected of him, and that is why he is being paid. He is not exploiting the public; on the contrary, he is the elite unit on which the public is counting (like an academic).

The Market Failure

Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? Torah gains, the market and the public purse gain, people who are not suited to sit all their lives in kollel do not rot there but realize themselves more fully and contribute to the development of the economy and society. The suitable learners grow and realize themselves and feel better and earn a respectable living. The economy gains, Torah flourishes, the secular public is pleased (the state spends less money), and of course so is the religious public, both the learners and those who are not. All of us gain.

So why does none of this actually happen? If everyone gains, who is preventing it? In my sins I am not among the most famous exemplars of modesty, but I must confess that this is not the most brilliant idea I have ever had. In fact, it is quite a banal idea. Has no one thought of it until now? When there is a simple and compelling idea that costs nothing but rather makes money, and that everyone benefits from, and yet it is not implemented, that calls for explanation. Apparently we have nevertheless missed someone here who does not benefit from it quite so much, and for some reason he has enough influence to prevent the idea from being realized. That is what is called a ‘market failure.’ There is something in our society that jams this obvious idea and does not let it be realized.

There are several interested parties who live off this distorted situation. A few heads of kollels, and a few Haredi and religious activists who would find themselves without work and status. We should not forget that in the new situation the number of kollels and learners would plummet. In effect, the heads of kollels would become ordinary kollel students (though admittedly they would earn no less than they do now as heads of kollels). The activists would become quite unnecessary. There would be no need to go begging, fighting, denouncing, wailing, protesting, pressuring, and threatening in order to secure budgets openly and covertly. This would be a transparent and ordinary social contract under agreed criteria fixed in law. Yes, in my messianic vision that could happen even inside the shtibl.

Others (mainly among the leadership of the Haredi world) fear that if their community earns its own living and does not need handouts from the public purse—which always pass through the channels of the Haredi operatives who keep their hands on the faucet—they will lose control over the people. People might actually think and become independent, heaven forbid. Or vote for the wrong party, God forbid. Therefore one must make sure that all these people remain dependent on the public purse and are fed by ‘our’ beneficence (=the Haredi operatives, financed by all of Israeli society), in the spirit of Let the work be made heavier for the men, and let them not pay attention to false words. (‘Let the work weigh heavily upon the men, and let them not pay attention to false words’).

No wonder that all these people spread slogans saturated with mysticism about supporting Torah and the exalted status of those who support Torah (before whom everyone grovels, just as they once did before the wealthy patron in the European shtetl). No wonder that whenever a proposal of this sort comes up they resort to demonic rhetoric about the persecution of Torah and hatred of those who study it, about the demonic force of Amalek trying to uproot everything, about how the State of Israel is the only state that persecutes students of Torah and throws them into prison, and other nonsense that it is hard to understand how intelligent people can ‘buy’ and ‘sell.’ They teach us and preach to us about the importance of supporting every learner, with no selection and no distinction (and along the way also those who do not learn), and so on. These claims have no basis. There is no logic in them from any point of view, religious or secular.

Economists call such a situation a ‘market failure.’ There is a state of affairs that is optimal for all the players, and yet the free market cannot get there by itself (because of interference by a small group of interested parties). In such cases even the greatest capitalists, devotees of the invisible hand, admit that there is no choice but to intervene deliberately and help the market get there. One must understand that the power of the interested parties is also based on mutual suspicion and on each side’s fear (the Haredi, the religious, and the secular) that if it gives up its slice of the pie, the others will take it from it and give nothing in return (that is, they will not fulfill their part in the new contract). And so we are stuck and frozen in a situation that is not optimal for any of the sides, and we are afraid to make any movement away from it in any direction.[6] This is not even a zero-sum game, but a game in which everyone loses. Some responsible adult needs to arise and rescue us from ourselves.

Can We Escape This Market Failure?

Who will be this responsible adult? Those who are supposed to solve this market failure are the politicians. That is exactly why there is not much chance that it will happen soon, because they themselves are precisely the ones who live off this failure and are nourished by it (or else they depend on those who live off it). Some of them are not perceptive enough to understand that the rabbis and operatives are selling them self-serving nonsense. We have all been educated to think that one must support Torah, and who would dare go against that dogma and forgo the state’s support budgets (thereby perhaps portraying the supported learners as parasites. We have already entrenched ourselves in a certain position, and now we feel compelled to defend it). He would be portrayed as a complete traitor, would he not? These operatives see it as their right to fight for supporting Torah, and they regard every shekel they secure as an achievement on behalf of Torah and its students. They do not dare stand up to the rabbis and spiritual leaders and put them in their place, and the rabbis likewise do not dare put the operatives in theirs. This is a maze into which we have led ourselves with our own hands. And in general, thinking outside the box, seeing the bigger picture—that really is not their territory.

So What Do We Do in the Meantime? Immediate Models

Until this market failure is solved (soon, please God), I want to propose something else here. Because of the tiny state stipends (per capita, though the aggregate sums are not so tiny), good people donate the best of their money to support Torah and improve the situation of the learners. One gives from his tithe funds, another from other funds. These monies usually go to yeshivot and kollels, and so they are divided among masses of learners, most of whom, as noted, are not suited. Thus the public also gets no return for these donations, and this itself also prevents these learners from opening up and entering the labor market and fulfilling themselves in the place to which they are better suited and where it is their duty to be. These donations leave most learners in a place that does not suit them and causes all the problems described above.

Therefore my proposal is on two preliminary levels before the full model proposed above. Before the state extricates itself from the market failure, let private donors do so themselves in one of two ways:

1. In the initial, micro-level model, any donor who wishes to support Torah should not donate to yeshivot and kollels, but should choose a learner with potential and commit himself to give him a regular contribution over time that will enable him to study and grow. If the sum is insufficient, it is advisable to add another donor or donors in order to reach a reasonable salary that will free the learner from his worries over the long term.

2. The second model, the fuller and more desirable one, is to consolidate these private mechanisms. One can establish a fund of tithe monies and donations, which would be distributed to learners according to criteria by an independent committee (which is what the state ought to have done with its support budgets). The stipends would be distributed to young married candidates (from age 25 and up), as a long-term monthly payment. The learners who receive the stipend would be required to commit themselves to continuing study and creative work over the long term without engaging in additional side jobs. Preferably they should submit a general study plan, and the committee should monitor its implementation. Candidates would be selected on the basis of recommendations and examinations, and according to the committee’s impression. My assumption is that someone who has reached this age, has already found his spouse, and states that he intends to continue on a Torah path gives reasonable grounds to assume that this is important enough to him (after all, he has made it this far) and that it will indeed happen. Likewise, by this age he has already spent enough years in yeshiva for the recommendations to be based on his actual performance and not on mere conjecture. At this age one can already understand the candidates’ potential and try to predict what may be expected from them, and the chances of success are reasonable (though of course not absolute).

As stated, these stipends would be given only to learners in whom we see the potential for growth and for a significant contribution to the world of Torah. Thus the donor’s money would not merely support a poor learner but would bear fruit for the building of Torah for generations. Every such donor knows that he has not merely helped fund a few more hours of someone’s study (as happens today) and his family’s welfare, but has made an important contribution to the unique Torah work these learners will produce for Torah and for future generations. This is the most substantial and meaningful contribution one can imagine within the framework of supporting Torah. In this way the donor will understand that he is not giving charity but participating in a task that also rests upon him, and the learner will not find himself in the humiliating position of the gratitude of one who lives off charity.

I will only repeat and remind the reader that the best model is for the state to do this, not private individuals, as I explained above. But in the meantime this is an immediate repair that is relatively easy to make (though of course opposition will arise here from the aforesaid interested parties, who will harness the ‘greats’ to their chariot with selective quotations from sources, smears against the proposal and its proponents, and the like).

Two Halakhic Remarks

I said that I would not deal here with Jewish law and with sources. Even so, there will no doubt be readers who are troubled by Maimonides’ words (Laws of Torah Study 3:10 and elsewhere), where he speaks about one who sets his heart on making a living from charity and occupying himself with Torah, calling him among those who desecrate God’s name. First, many disagreed with him, and Kesef Mishneh already wrote there that his words are impractical for most of the public. One should also know that Maimonides sees making a living from Torah study as a debasement of Torah. But in our day, when the public ordinarily supports and finances talent in every field whatsoever, the very fact that this does not happen with respect to students of Torah is itself the debasement of Torah. It seems to me that today every enlightened society accepts that talented people in different fields should be advanced in order to create and bring spiritual benefit to society as a whole. Torah study should surely not receive less than its share. Should a priest’s daughter be treated like a harlot?! (‘Shall the priestess be treated like an innkeeper?!’) In our present condition it seems obvious that there is no desecration of God’s name or debasement of Torah in distributing such stipends. And indeed, Tashbetz already wrote (Part I, no. 142; and see there further through no. 148) that if a person wishes to give financial assistance in honor of Torah and not as charity, then according to all opinions there is no prohibition whatsoever. See further on this in Rema, Yoreh De’ah 246:21, and the commentaries there. This is an example of simplistic interpretation and application of sources that were created in certain circumstances to circumstances entirely different.

Some readers may also think of Maimonides’ words (Commentary on the Mishnah, Avot 3:15; see also Bach and Magen Avraham, Orach Chayim 695), where he ruled that it is preferable to divide charity into small portions among many needy people rather than give one substantial gift to a single needy person. Here too I would note that some disagree with him (see, for example, what is brought in responsa Minchat Yitzchak VI, no. 102, and more). And further, since this is a question of common sense and reasoning (these too are the sources on which Maimonides’ words are based) and not a question decided by halakhic sources, any sensible person understands that today the situation requires the opposite. As I explained, today it is better to choose a learner with potential for significant growth and support him primarily, in order to prevent the market failure. Once it is resolved, we can return and reconsider the matter. In any case, if such a fund is established (proposal 2) and concentrates donations from many donors, then once again it turns out that each donor gave from his money to many learners, and thus even one who is troubled by Maimonides’ words can rest easy.

[1] See the distinction I made in Column 22 between love, which is centrifugal, and desire, which is centripetal.

[2] In the anthology The Rabbi, edited by Yedidia Stern and Shuki Friedman, Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Law and the Israel Democracy Institute, 2011.

[3] And indeed the Talmud there goes on to bring: Rabbi Yehuda says: If his son is diligent and sharp, and his learning will endure, then his son takes precedence.; and see there the story brought on this issue. Here one sees clearly that, in the final reckoning, the determining interest is that of Torah, and the person and his son serve it. Whichever of them is better and will contribute more to Torah is the one who should study, and the other should support him.

[4] In a talk I once gave to graduates of Yeshivat Ma’ale Adumim, I said in the name of a good friend who is active in the world of start-up exits that what is lacking in the religious public is start-up entrepreneurs. The religious young person generally devotes time and effort to building his home and family and is not prepared for the dedication and intensity that building a start-up requires. He prefers secure and relatively calm work as a salaried employee, in an orderly company or in the public sector. In the broader view, such a situation is very dangerous for religious society, because like any society it needs a certain stratum of people who will advance it economically (If there is no flour, there is no Torah.—if there is no flour, there is no Torah). Therefore the feeling today is that we live off the table of the secular public/the state/the public. From this perspective, there is room for a young person who feels suited and talented for this, and who wants it, to devote himself to the economic-technological front, even at the expense of Torah study and building a family. Exactly as it is accepted to guide young people who are going into a military or public career. Someone who can make a distinctive and significant contribution to the community in the economic sphere should not be steered into the standard track of a working, Torah-learning, God-fearing layman (which in any case we do not really succeed in producing in practice).

[5] Not by accident did I omit Tanakh and Jewish thought and the like. But that is not essential, and I will not enter that polemic here.

[6] This situation reminds me of a biography of Stalin that I once read, and I found myself astonished. The Soviet Union was one of the huge and powerful states in the world, two hundred million inhabitants with tremendous military power and impressive intellectual and cultural capabilities, and all of this stood facing one man who held everyone by the throat. Everyone hated Stalin and wanted him dead, but all that power and all those people could do nothing against this one individual, and he died in his bed (apart from one conspiracy theory or another) after some forty years of unchecked rule. How does this happen? It is a market failure of a state. The ruler, even if he is only one person, holds in his hands all the power of the state. To rise up against him one must create a coalition, but when Reuven turns to Shimon with such a proposal he takes the risk that Shimon will report him to the ruler and Reuven will not live out the day. Thus each person remains to himself, and what could have been done easily does not happen. This too is a kind of market failure (see the dispute between Maimonides and Nachmanides about the Shechem episode, and about the justification for punishing the inhabitants of the city for the deed of their king. It is a very similar situation).