Torah Study, Lesson 5
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- The purpose of the analysis and the doubt about using sources
- Maimonides in the laws of Torah study: a sharp prohibition and the value of labor
- Aggadic literature as a halakhic source and the status of Maimonides’ formulation
- Desecration of God’s name as a foundational halakhic rationale
- Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishnah on Pirkei Avot: sharp criticism of funding Torah scholars
- Sages as exemplars: Hillel, Hanina ben Dosa, Karna, and Rabbi Tarfon
- Maimonides’ interpretations of contradictory sources and the claim about “the physically impaired”
- Maimonides: defined permissions and a shift from conceptual rhetoric to halakhic discussion
- The Kesef Mishneh: narrowing the intent, custom, and “it is a time to act for the Lord; they have voided Your Torah”
- Three models, not two: the speaker’s claim about a mistaken reading of Maimonides
- Desecration of God’s name and assessing a changing reality in a generation of division of labor
- A contemporary proposal: shrinking the yeshiva world and increasing support for those suited to it
- Communal responsibility and tithing as a mechanism for focused support
- Drive, impulse, and growth in study versus studying “just so as not to neglect Torah”
Summary
General Overview
The speaker wants to address current issues through clarifying the status of Torah scholars, exemption from the army, and the maintenance and livelihood of those who study Torah. He raises a question mark about deciding such matters through “sources” as such, because sources can be brought in different directions, and some are aggadic and dependent on one’s assessment of reality. He presents Maimonides’ sharp stance against someone who decides to engage in Torah without working and lives off charity, and opposite that the response of the Kesef Mishneh, who tries either to narrow Maimonides’ intent or to decide based on custom and “it is a time to act for the Lord; they have voided Your Torah.” He then argues that the contemporary debate is distorted in both directions: on the one hand, an undifferentiated expansion of the kollel world, and on the other hand, a simplistic adoption of Maimonides as a general call of “everyone should go work,” which in practice leads many people to disconnect from Torah. He suggests that the practical solution for saving the yeshiva world is to reduce the number of people being supported and increase support for the small number who are truly suited for it, while filtering and measuring growth, because today the desecration of God’s name comes from disproportionality and lack of growth, not from support itself.
The purpose of the analysis and the doubt about using sources
The speaker says that issues like exemption from the army, supporting Torah scholars, and making a living from Torah study are often discussed through sources, and he doubts whether one can reach a binding conclusion through them, because many conflicting sources can be brought. He argues that in many cases the halakhic decisor or thinker first inclines toward a position, and only afterward emphasizes the sources that fit it, and therefore deciding “by force of sources” itself requires special caution.
Maimonides in the laws of Torah study: a sharp prohibition and the value of labor
Maimonides, in the laws of Torah study chapter 3, halakhah 10, rules that someone who resolves to engage in Torah and not do work, and to support himself from charity, “has desecrated God’s name, disgraced the Torah, extinguished the light of religion, caused evil to himself, and forfeited his life in the World to Come.” He bases this on statements such as: “It is forbidden to derive benefit from words of Torah in this world,” “Whoever derives benefit from words of Torah forfeits his life from the world,” “Do not make them a crown with which to glorify yourself, nor a spade with which to dig,” “Love labor and hate lordship,” and “Any Torah that is not accompanied by work will in the end be nullified and lead to sin.” In halakhah 11, Maimonides defines as a great virtue someone who supports himself by the work of his own hands, and presents this as the trait of the early pious, with the verse “When you eat the labor of your hands, happy are you and it is good for you,” and the interpretation: “Happy are you in this world, and it is good for you in the World to Come.”
Aggadic literature as a halakhic source and the status of Maimonides’ formulation
The speaker emphasizes that the sources Maimonides brings are mainly aggadic, and their style resembles Pirkei Avot rather than classical halakhic sources, and nevertheless Maimonides places them inside the laws of Torah study in a way that gives them binding force. He argues that relying on aggadic literature as support for an idea is understandable, but turning it into the main foundation of a halakhic outlook is a sharp move that raises questions. He adds that Maimonides’ formulation here is also not a “classic halakhic formulation,” but rather an ethically charged and sharp formulation.
Desecration of God’s name as a foundational halakhic rationale
The speaker suggests that Maimonides can turn this position into Jewish law even without an explicit halakhic source, because reason is a legitimate basis for Jewish law, and because Maimonides defines the matter as “desecration of God’s name,” which is an enumerated and clear prohibition. He explains that placing it in the laws of Torah study can be justified contextually, even though desecration of God’s name appears in an orderly way in the laws of the foundations of the Torah.
Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishnah on Pirkei Avot: sharp criticism of funding Torah scholars
In his commentary to Avot chapter 4, Mishnah 5, Maimonides writes that he had wanted not to speak about the issue, because what he says would not be accepted by most of the great Torah scholars, and perhaps by all of them, but he will not show favoritism and presents the matter as truth. He explains “Do not make the Torah a spade with which to dig” as rejecting the view of Torah as a livelihood tool, and rules that someone who benefits in this world from the honor of Torah “cuts off his soul from the life of the World to Come.” He accuses people of having turned their eyes away from the plain language, hanging on interpretations they did not understand, imposing “taxes” on individuals and communities, and turning “Torah appointments” into a “tax law.” He calls the assumption that one should and must help Torah scholars and students “complete foolishness” and “an error,” and claims that there is nothing in the Torah to validate this and “not even a leg to stand on in any way.”
Sages as exemplars: Hillel, Hanina ben Dosa, Karna, and Rabbi Tarfon
Maimonides argues that in the history of the sages one does not find the imposing of levies or the gathering of money for yeshivot, exilarchs, judges, and teachers of Torah. He attributes the poverty of the sages to the fact that they did not stretch out their hands to take, even though the public would have filled their homes with gold and pearls. He brings Hillel the Elder as a woodchopper studying before Shemaya and Avtalyon, Hanina ben Dosa who was satisfied with a measure of carobs, and Karna the judge who demanded either that they finance someone to water in his place or pay him for the loss of his labor. He cites the story of Rabbi Tarfon, who said “Woe to Tarfon, for this one will kill him” in order to save himself, and presents his anguish all his life over “having made use of the crown of Torah,” together with the rule that “whoever uses the crown of Torah is uprooted from the world,” while emphasizing that he was wealthy and could have appeased the man with money.
Maimonides’ interpretations of contradictory sources and the claim about “the physically impaired”
The speaker describes Maimonides’ method, according to which places in the Talmud where it seems sages received money are explained as situations of coercion, such as “those physically impaired in their bodies” or old people who cannot work. He quotes Maimonides’ argument against those who rely on the statement “Whoever wishes to benefit, let him benefit like Elisha; and whoever does not wish to benefit, let him not benefit like Samuel of Ramah,” and Maimonides rejects this, claiming that Elisha did not accept money and did not impose levies. The speaker argues that Maimonides’ methodology here “assumes the conclusion,” in that it rules out competing interpretations based on the assumption that desecration of God’s name could not be possible for a figure like Elisha.
Maimonides: defined permissions and a shift from conceptual rhetoric to halakhic discussion
The speaker points to a passage where Maimonides defines “the thing the Torah permitted for Torah scholars” as giving money to a person to conduct business with it on their behalf by his own choice, and presents this as a ruling of what is permitted and forbidden, showing that Maimonides understands the matter as Jewish law and not only as a meta-halakhic message. He emphasizes that Maimonides formulates boundaries of permission and prohibition and places the topic within a binding framework.
The Kesef Mishneh: narrowing the intent, custom, and “it is a time to act for the Lord; they have voided Your Torah”
The Kesef Mishneh writes that Maimonides “opened his mouth and tongue wide” against the stipends given to students and rabbis, and notes that according to Maimonides’ own words, most or all Torah sages of his time behaved differently. He proposes interpreting Maimonides to mean that one may not cast off the yoke of labor in order to support oneself from others so as to study, but rather one should learn a trade, and if it is not enough, “he may take his support from the public and there is nothing wrong with that.” He adds that if this is not Maimonides’ view, still “we hold that in any place where the Jewish law is uncertain in your hand, follow the custom,” and the custom is that sages receive support from the public. And even if the Jewish law follows Maimonides, it is possible that the generations agreed because of “it is a time to act for the Lord; they have voided Your Torah,” so that Torah not be forgotten and so that they be able to engage in it and magnify Torah.
Three models, not two: the speaker’s claim about a mistaken reading of Maimonides
The speaker argues that Maimonides compares only two models: a serious Torah scholar who supports himself through labor, versus a serious Torah scholar who supports himself through Torah. He is not discussing a third common model, in which a person works and in practice does not remain a Torah scholar or someone with a significant connection to Torah. He says that Maimonides does not give up the demand to be a Torah scholar, and that a modern reading that translates Maimonides into “go work even if you lose Torah” does not reflect his intent. He adds that Maimonides also functions as an educational statement setting an ideal, and the speaker interprets “it is a time to act for the Lord; they have voided Your Torah” as recognition that if the alternative to work is disconnection from Torah, then even according to Maimonides’ logic there is justification for support in order to save Torah.
Desecration of God’s name and assessing a changing reality in a generation of division of labor
The speaker argues that the concept of desecration of God’s name in Maimonides depends on an assessment of reality according to which earning a livelihood from Torah turns Torah into just another profession and degrades it. But in a generation in which society supports artists, athletes, scientists, and intellectuals as part of a division of labor and abundance, supporting Torah scholars itself may be seen as appropriate rather than as desecration of God’s name. He says that the present desecration of God’s name comes from disproportionality and from the indiscriminate expansion of supported people who are not growing and are not suited to it, not from the principle of supporting a limited layer of talented people with the capacity for persistence who are growing in Torah.
A contemporary proposal: shrinking the yeshiva world and increasing support for those suited to it
The speaker proposes that the way to save the yeshiva world is to reduce its scope, choose a small percentage of the students, and significantly increase their support, so that on the one hand the overall budget will be reduced, and on the other hand a high-quality core of Torah scholars will be built who are not forced to “scramble for side jobs” and scatter themselves among many positions that prevent growth. He demands filtering, evaluation committees, and examination of progress over time, and argues that the situation in which “anyone who wants to sit in kollel” receives support without examination creates public antagonism and prevents real growth precisely among the talented. He adds that in the current system many talented people are worn down between economic pressure and occupational dispersion, and he describes the moral difficulty of encouraging suitable students to continue on a path of poverty and hardship.
Communal responsibility and tithing as a mechanism for focused support
The speaker recounts that in Yeruham he suggested to younger classmates that they dedicate their tithe, or half of it, to the long-term support of two suitable friends from their cohort, instead of dispersing donations, so as not to ask people to grow in Torah while sending them to deal alone with harsh livelihood conditions. He notes that the initiative did not really take off in practice, and emphasizes that it is harder to generate such moves at a later age.
Drive, impulse, and growth in study versus studying “just so as not to neglect Torah”
The speaker distinguishes between a significant connection to Torah and participation whose main purpose is “not to disconnect,” such as daily daf study, and argues that connection to Torah is measured by what one does during learning time, not by the number of hours. He describes a systemic failure in the ability to produce many people who develop serious analytical learning and significant knowledge while maintaining a full career, and adds a view according to which growth requires “drive,” and sometimes also motivations of honor and recognition, whereas righteousness without inner push creates stagnation. He brings analogies and stories to argue that without instinctive drive there is no creativity and no growth, and connects this also to the ability to produce significant Torah scholars from a system that funds learning over time.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As I said at the end, we’re going to talk a bit about current issues after all. What I wanted to do today is basically talk a little about the status of Torah scholars—you could call it that—or how we’re supposed to relate, yes, maybe a little to exemption from the army, and a little about supporting Torah scholars and making a living from Torah study and things like that. So I brought some pages here with sources. I don’t know how much of them we’ll manage to get through; we’ll see. But I do want to touch on these topics a bit, because they’re very much hanging in the air in our world, and in many cases these discussions lean on various sources, and sources, as we know in our tradition, have a kind of magical power over people or over the public. And I want to put a bit of a question mark over the very use of sources on this topic, among other things. But before I put a question mark over using sources, let’s look at them. So I’ll start perhaps with this question of making a living from Torah study, or the obligation to go out and work alongside learning, or that whole family of issues. The main source that opens this topic very powerfully is Maimonides, in several places. It seems to me that Maimonides, in his own person as well, embodied someone who, despite his towering Torah, halakhic, and philosophical stature, was always engaged in work—yes, he was a doctor and worked and did various other things on the side. And as the famous Kesef Mishneh comments—we’ll see this later—that’s why it’s also not such a great proof. Meaning, what Maimonides says maybe suited him, but the question is how many people can sustain themselves like that, and at that level, across so many fields. So Maimonides, in the source itself—maybe I’ll give you the pages. It just came out that instead of printing double-sided, I didn’t understand why it kept printing until I saw it was just printing on one side, so these are paired pages, each person gets a pair, so that’s… Is that it? Okay. Well, the well-known source from Maimonides is in the laws of Torah study, chapter 3, halakhah 10. And there Maimonides writes as follows: “Anyone who resolves in his heart to engage in Torah and not do work, and to support himself from charity—such a person has desecrated God’s name, disgraced the Torah, extinguished the light of religion, caused evil to himself, and forfeited his life in the World to Come.” No less. So there are statements here—I can’t think right now of anything else Maimonides spoke about in such, such extreme terms. “Because it is forbidden to derive benefit from the words of Torah in this world. The sages said: whoever derives benefit from the words of Torah forfeits his life from the world. And they further commanded and said: do not make them a crown with which to glorify yourself, nor a spade with which to dig. And they further commanded and said: love labor and hate lordship. And any Torah that is not accompanied by work”—including the Chief Rabbinate too, but that’s in parentheses—“and any Torah that is not accompanied by work will in the end be nullified and lead to sin, and such a person will eventually rob others.” And then halakhah 11: “It is a great virtue for one who supports himself by the work of his own hands, and this is the trait of the early pious, and through this he merits all honor and goodness in this world and in the World to Come, as it says: ‘When you eat the labor of your hands, happy are you and it is good for you’—happy are you in this world, and it is good for you in the World to Come, which is entirely good.” There’s a very, very sharp and unequivocal statement here, in praise of—or really in condemnation of—those who support themselves from their learning, who don’t go out to work alongside learning. And this Maimonides is really the central basis for the discussion of this topic.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now what are Maimonides’ sources? Here he brings a bit from Hazal—I mean from the Talmud. So he brings some sources: “The sages said: whoever derives benefit from the words of Torah forfeits his life from the world.” And they further commanded and said, “Do not make them a crown with which to glorify yourself, nor a spade with which to dig.” And they further commanded and said, “Love labor and hate lordship,” and “Any Torah that is not accompanied by work will in the end be nullified and lead to sin, and such a person will eventually rob others.” Some of these sources could be challenged—and people do challenge them—others are more unequivocal. But as you understand, sources can be brought by the thousands, certainly on this issue, and they can be brought in every direction. So already here I’m putting on the table what I said in the opening: I’m not entirely sure to what extent one can really reach a conclusion here in light of sources. And I think that when Maimonides chose this direction, it wasn’t because he read the sources and concluded that this is what emerges from them. I think usually it works the other way around. Meaning, Maimonides was inclined to think this way, and therefore he focused on, or gave more weight to, the sources that say or point in this direction. And the Kesef Mishneh, right there on the spot, talks about this, and shows there are other sources, and shows that even these sources can be interpreted one way or another. But that itself, I think, should raise some kind of question mark over how far a position on a question like this really ought to be based on sources. And even if it is, then on which sources? Because the sources Maimonides brings are all, I think, not halakhic sources. Here all of them, it seems to me. “It is forbidden to derive benefit from the words of Torah in this world”—maybe, maybe you could say that something like that could be seen as Jewish law. But “whoever derives benefit from the words of Torah forfeits his life from the world” is certainly not Jewish law. “Do not make them a crown with which to glorify yourself, nor a spade with which to dig.” “Love labor”—it’s all this Pirkei Avot sort of thing. Meaning, these are not classical halakhic sources, but Maimonides places them in the laws of Torah study, meaning that for him this is a halakhic conception.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now, true, one does not derive Jewish law from aggadic literature, but clearly people do do it. Meaning, you can do such a thing and people do such a thing; certainly Maimonides and others do this. On the one hand, when you want to ground something, aggadic literature, especially when it’s speaking incidentally, can certainly serve as support for your conception. But to build an entire outlook like this only on aggadic literature and give it halakhic status—that’s already a sharper step. Meaning, if I use aggadic literature as assistance after I already have some halakhic source, fine. But here it doesn’t seem he brings halakhic sources at all. Meaning, he takes a collection of aggadic teachings—and that’s perfectly fine; aggadic teachings also come to teach us something—but he places them as two laws in the laws of Torah study. Meaning, he places them as binding laws. Now Jewish law is still a somewhat different genre from aggadic literature, so when aggadic teachings serve as support that’s one thing, with limited reliability; when aggadic teachings are the basis of the matter, that’s already a bit more problematic. Beyond that, as I said earlier, since one can also find other sources—and the Kesef Mishneh elaborates on this a bit, maybe we’ll see—then it seems quite clear that there isn’t here some sort of neutral analysis and ordering of the various sources and finally arriving at a conclusion without bias, not from a prior position.
[Speaker B] And the wording isn’t classic Jewish law wording; he didn’t write, “A person should not resolve…”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right. There really are things in the laws of Torah study—and I certainly accept that point—not only in the laws of Torah study, but in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah generally, there are quite a few scattered things where it is very doubtful whether he himself intended them as actual Jewish law. I’m obviously not talking about the endings; the endings are always the classic cases. At the end of each book he often says some kind of conceptual, meta-halakhic principle. There it’s clear, right out in the open. There at the end I understand—you do that—but here it’s inside the halakhic collection itself. It doesn’t conclude, it doesn’t open, it’s just in the middle, brought as more clauses. And still, the wording raises questions as to how far Maimonides really intends this here as Jewish law. The next clause…
[Speaker D] What? The next clause is also a stopping point here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?
[Speaker D] “It is a great virtue for one who supports himself by the work of his own hands.” Yes, so?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not—
[Speaker D] If someone who supports himself by the work of his own hands has a great virtue, then say that this is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You mean that it contradicts the claim that this is Jewish law?
[Speaker D] Yes, here, the whole discussion… it’s not okay not to support yourself. And therefore the first clause too—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not only the second, also the first. Maimonides’ formulations here are not classic halakhic formulations. Otherwise he should have said: there is a prohibition against supporting oneself from words of Torah, as it says such-and-such, if you want to bring a verse, I don’t know, whatever, you can find it… you’d have to find the sources. Maimonides often doesn’t bring the sources from the Talmud, but sometimes he does bring a verse. But here he brings aggadic sayings, in the middle of his book of Jewish law. It doesn’t seem that he had a clear halakhic source for this, right? It begins and ends with these aggadic teachings. Okay? On the other hand, it may very well be that Maimonides sees this as Jewish law for several reasons. First, there is reason. If Maimonides thought this reasoning was solid enough, reason is a legitimate basis for Jewish law. Even if you don’t find a source for it in the Talmud, right? We’ve talked about this more than once: why do I need a verse? It’s reason. Meaning, where there is reason, that is certainly a sufficient basis to establish a law from it. Another thing: of course one can say—after all, Maimonides’ language is, “such a person has desecrated God’s name.” Desecration of God’s name is Jewish law. True, the definitions of what exactly counts as desecration of God’s name depend on a lot of assessments of reality and so on; many times Jewish law is saturated with assessments of reality. But desecration of God’s name is an enumerated prohibition; that is full-fledged Jewish law, clear Jewish law. And if Maimonides sees this as desecration of God’s name, that itself is enough to turn it into Jewish law. You don’t need additional sources. The following sources, again, are just illustration, to show that the sages also saw it this way, and so forth. But Maimonides could make do with only that. Meaning, if in his assessment this brings to desecration of God’s name, that is enough to turn it into Jewish law.
[Speaker B] But the location doesn’t fit.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So you’re saying it’s not in the laws of Torah study, it should be in the laws of desecration of God’s name. Fine, but that’s not so terrible. Sometimes in Maimonides the placement… it’s true that in Maimonides there’s such a rule, that one can infer from the placement of a law. On the other hand, there’s some kind of—let’s call it associative logic or contextual logic—to place it in the laws of Torah study. You’re talking about people who want to understand how to study Torah, so even if there is an aspect of desecration of God’s name, you bring it here. Meaning, there is editorial logic to put it דווקא here. I wouldn’t build too tall a structure on that. Maimonides writes it as—this isn’t a structure—“such a person has desecrated God’s name.” Desecration of God’s name is a clear halakhic term. So why does it appear here? It appears in the laws of the foundations of the Torah, desecration of God’s name. Clearly, if the desecration of God’s name is connected to how you study Torah and your relationship to Torah study and how you shape your path in Torah study and so on, then there is logic in bringing it in the laws of Torah study. I don’t think that’s terrible. There are other examples of this in Maimonides, meaning in places where you deal with… in the Talmud that’s certainly the case, but even in Maimonides, who does try to break things down according to their halakhic roots.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maimonides elaborates on this more in his commentary on Pirkei Avot. “Do not make them a spade with which to dig” is one of the sources he also brings in Jewish law. So Pirkei Avot, Avot chapter 4, Mishnah 5—this is the second source on your sheet. Maimonides says there… “I had already wanted not to speak about this command, because it is obvious, and because those who know me also know that what I say about it will not suit most of the great Torah scholars, and perhaps all of them.” Meaning, Maimonides is aware that his position is a lone position. And perhaps that somewhat explains the sharpness of the wording. Meaning, Maimonides wants to say: true, I’m a lone position, but take me seriously—I mean this with utmost seriousness. It’s not… this was already a lone position in his own time, because often this whole approach is presented as if it were some new invention, an invention of today’s Haredi politicians. So no, that’s not true. The scale and so on—we’ll talk about that a bit—but it’s not true, it’s not a new invention. Maimonides says that already in his day he was a lone position, and he understands that his words “will not suit most of those engaged in this issue, most of the great Torah scholars.” He’s not talking about nobodies. “And perhaps all of them.” Meaning, maybe literally everyone. So really a lone position. But he says, “And I shall not refrain from failing to show favor either to those who preceded me or to those who are present, because this is the truth.” What the Havot Yair writes—it’s brought in a few responsa—“Plato is dear and Socrates is dear, but truth is dearest of all.” Meaning, okay, when he speaks about Plato and Socrates he of course means halakhic Torah scholars, the Havot Yair. But he uses that expression to say: there are things I think are true, and with all due respect to all the great and important figures who came before me and who live in my generation, I say what I think.
[Speaker B] Doesn’t the Havot Yair say that specifically as a kind of jab at Maimonides?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, he doesn’t mean it that way. He’s talking about another halakhic question.
[Speaker B] Isn’t he talking about relying on sources from outside Torah? What does it mean to say “Plato is dear”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. When he goes against halakhic decisors, he writes that. When he goes against important decisors and expresses his own position, a different and unusual position, he says: Plato is dear, Socrates is dear, but truth is dearest of all. It’s a proverb. He uses a proverb from the world of philosophy to say something within the halakhic realm. He’s not talking about Plato and Socrates themselves. “Know that this was already said: ‘Do not make the Torah a spade with which to dig,’ meaning do not regard it as an instrument for livelihood. And it was explained and stated that anyone who benefits in this world from the honor of Torah cuts off his soul from the life of the World to Come. And people have hidden their eyes from this explicit language and cast it behind their backs and attached themselves to the plain sense of sayings that they did not understand—and I will explain them. And they imposed levies upon individuals and communities”—‘levies’ meaning taxes. In the language of the sages, to impose a levy means a tax. ‘The king’s levy’ is the tax. Meaning, they imposed levies in order to support Torah scholars; they had to support them somehow. So they imposed levies on individuals and on communities, and made Torah appointments into a tax code, property taxes, yes? Meaning, we know these things in communities, actually in certain communities to this day, and certainly abroad. Meaning, a community that supports itself usually does so through providing religious services. They do slaughtering, and from the slaughtering they collect money, and with that they support the rabbi or whoever else is needed, all the sacred functionaries, so to speak. Right, so these are means by which a community supports itself. So either they impose taxes, or appointments serve me, or religious services serve me, in order to support the rabbi or the people serving in Torah roles. “And people were brought to think complete foolishness.” Do you hear that? Very sharp language. Really, I think these kinds of expressions are very rare. Maimonides is not suspected of lacking forcefulness—he’s forceful—but this is very sharp language; it’s exceptional even for Maimonides. “And people were brought to think complete foolishness: that it is necessary and obligatory to help Torah scholars and students and those who engage in Torah and for whom Torah is their craft, and all this is an error. There is nothing in the Torah to validate it, and not even a leg to stand on in any way.” There’s no source for it; it has neither root nor branch, says Maimonides. So here he says even sharper things: not only are there sources for his view—there are no other sources. None. Any other source is simply mistaken interpretation. There are no other sources in Hazal. I think that’s a bit exaggerated, but that’s what he writes.
[Speaker B] And in his view this goes in both directions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?
[Speaker B] He doesn’t write that it’s forbidden.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, okay, we spoke about that before—whether he means a halakhic prohibition or… no, I said earlier, I’m now saying beyond that question. Here we’re in Pirkei Avot. On Pirkei Avot I’m exempt right now from discussing whether this is Jewish law or not. But the conception itself, the meta-halakhic conception if you want to call it that—
[Speaker B] The foolishness is saying that one is obligated to do this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes. Meaning, there is no basis for that conception, and therefore, since it is desecration of God’s name and all these things, then all the more so one should not do it. “And if we inspect the history of the sages, of blessed memory, we will not find among them the imposing of obligations upon people, nor the gathering of money for the exalted and honored yeshivot”—it sounds so current—“nor for exilarchs, nor for judges, nor for teachers of Torah, nor for any of those appointed.” Yes, this is already more far-reaching. “Those appointed” means people engaged in communal needs. It seems to me Maimonides means here to say that even they are forbidden to receive a salary for it. Meaning, communal affairs must be done voluntarily. He doesn’t say that it’s forbidden—
[Speaker E] He doesn’t say it’s forbidden. He says it’s not obligatory.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying again, I’m not entering the question whether this is Jewish law or not. We discussed that in the laws of Torah study. So I’ve moved past it. I said, you can understand it this way, you can understand it that way.
[Speaker B] He says one has to do it voluntarily.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, of course he says that. No. What do you mean no? He says “all this is an error”; it is forbidden to do such a thing. There is no source for it and it is also forbidden. Forbidden—again, I’m not talking about morality, whether halakhically or morally; I’m not entering that first discussion right now. But certainly, he doesn’t mean only to say there’s no source for it. When he says there’s no source for it, he means therefore. It has neither root nor branch; it is forbidden to do such a thing.
[Speaker E] He says that “it is necessary and obligatory.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says that the idea that it is necessary and obligatory has neither root nor branch. They invented it! Again, their invention was such foolishness that they turned it even into an obligation, not merely something permitted—but it’s an error, it’s forbidden. Meaning, he is going against a conception that is the polar opposite, but he himself holds the other pole; he doesn’t hold the middle. Just look at the laws of Torah study, what we read at the beginning—what do you mean? Both there and here. “Rather, you will find that all their communities contained both extreme poverty and extreme wealth, and heaven forbid that I should say they were not charitable and benevolent; rather, had that poor man stretched out his hand to take, they would have filled his house with gold and pearls”—the Torah scholar. Had he stretched out his hand, everyone would have filled his house with silver and gold. So how is it that he remained poor? How can there be poor Torah scholars? “But he would not do so. Rather, he would suffice with a craft by which he supported himself, whether comfortably or with hardship, and he despised what was in other people’s hands, since the Torah prevented him from this.” Here it’s already written more explicitly, right? “The Torah prevented him from this”—it is forbidden to take. “And you already know that Hillel the Elder was a woodchopper, and he chopped wood and studied before Shemaya and Avtalyon.” While he was studying Torah before Shemaya and Avtalyon, he was engaged in chopping wood for his livelihood, and he was in the greatest poverty. Right, the stories about Hillel are well known. “And his stature was such that his students were compared to Moses and Joshua.” Yes, and Maimonides ties Hillel the Elder’s greatness to this—not despite his greatness, but his greatness was because of this, because alongside his learning he did not support himself from learning but engaged in other things for his livelihood. “And the least of his students was Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, and no intelligent person would doubt that had he agreed to receive support from the people of his generation, they would not have left him to chop wood.” Well, here already, if you press it, Maimonides seems a bit overenthusiastic to me, because those stories about Hillel chopping wood are talking about before he rose to greatness, at the stage when he was still studying Torah before Shemaya and Avtalyon. He was not yet the Hillel the Elder we know later, whom no one would have left poor and wandering around like that.
[Speaker B] Hillel and Shammai became heads of the court, didn’t they?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? At a later stage.
[Speaker B] Fine, exactly, so they didn’t receive a salary.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maimonides claims not, but I’m saying: the wood chopping does not concern the period when Hillel and Shammai were the pair, right? It concerns the period when he was studying.
[Speaker F] But one could understand that even before he became what he became, apparently he was already that kind of Torah scholar, and they still didn’t support him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To tell the truth, I wouldn’t build on that. If you ask me what I think about the issue, Hillel the Elder found himself freezing in the cold on top of the skylight because they didn’t let him into the study hall. He didn’t do that voluntarily.
[Speaker F] Yes, but because he couldn’t pay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Someone like him, if everyone would even have been willing to pay for him because he had no money—then to let him in for free to the study hall they didn’t do, and all the more so, if people would have given him however much money he needed, then certainly they would have waived the payment for entering the study hall. This important Torah scholar, they wouldn’t let him into the study hall? We’re the ones who lose from that, not him. It wasn’t like that there. I think Maimonides is getting a bit carried away here, with all due respect.
[Speaker G] Maybe he held himself back? Maybe he held himself back? I don’t think so, because if he had tried to come, surely they would have opened the—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —door, but he held himself back because he had no money. I don’t remember the Talmudic passage exactly right now, and it seems to me that even in the Talmud itself, or at least in the commentators, it says they didn’t let him in because he didn’t have money to pay, yes. By the way, he didn’t have money to pay, so he’s not a Torah scholar? It’s possible. But if someone who has no money to pay isn’t allowed into the study hall, then it seems to me that that itself already contradicts what Maimonides says.
[Speaker H] Why? Because they didn’t pour money on him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? It’s forbidden for you to take money for Torah study, so why are you charging money from people who enter the study hall? For the electricity. For the electricity, the wood. Okay. “And Hanina ben Dosa, about whom every reader knows that the whole world is sustained only for the sake of Hanina my son, and Hanina my son is content with a measure of carobs from one Sabbath eve to the next”—and he did not ask from people. “And Karna, a judge throughout the Land of Israel, would water fields, and when litigants came he would say: either give me someone to water in my place while I deal with you, or give me the amount I lost from my labor and I will judge for you.” He’s not talking about compensation for idleness; compensation for idleness one may—
[Speaker B] One can—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —receive, but not payment for Torah. “And the Israelites of their generation, and of others like them, were not cruel and not lacking in acts of kindness.” It’s not that people weren’t willing to give, says Maimonides—obviously they were willing to give—but he was not willing to take. “And we do not find a sage among the sages whose circumstances were strained, who would blame the people of his generation for not supporting him more generously—heaven forbid. Rather, they themselves were pious men who truly believed in God and in the Torah of Moses, through which one merits the World to Come, and they would not permit this to themselves, and they held that it was a desecration of God’s name in the eyes of the masses, because the masses would think of Torah as one of the trades by which people make a living, and it would become degraded in their eyes, and one who does this would be one who despises the word of God.” Yes, this is basically desecration of God’s name. Here Maimonides finally gets to the reasoning—what exactly is the problem. Until now he spoke only sharply against it, asked what the sources are here and there. But the reason itself—when I ask under what clause you classify the person who does this—the clause is desecration of God’s name. Now the clause of desecration of God’s name here is also explained; it already appears in the laws of Torah study, but here it’s also explained what the desecration of God’s name is in this: that people will think Torah study is basically just one of the professions, that people do it in order to make a living, and that lowers the standing of Torah, yes, of Torah study.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And indeed those who strengthen themselves against the truth and against the explicit statements erred, by taking the money of people whether willingly or unwillingly, relying on stories found in the Talmud involving people who were physically impaired”—Maimonides’ method is that wherever we find someone who took money, a Torah scholar who took money, he was probably physically impaired or something like that, or old and advanced in years and unable to work. If you cannot work, you’re clearly unable to earn, then yes. But if you have the ability to go and do work, you’re forbidden to take. So Maimonides’ method is why he says there is no source for one who does otherwise, because all those sources that do say money was given to someone engaged in Torah, Maimonides will explain: fine, that’s someone who either was advanced in years and unable to work, or physically impaired. Fine. Four six seven, yes, that’s in that Independence Day thing, in that institute where the contractor comes—what was his name?—the contractor comes to Fatma’s father, Fatma, Fatima, whatever. So he asks him, asks the person, what do you do, or what is this—sorry—what’s your salary? He says, I don’t know, what, five thousand shekels. So he says, why don’t you work? Okay, anyway, so—physically impaired and so on. “And I have already heard those who were seduced rely on the statement: ‘Whoever wishes to benefit, let him benefit like Elisha; and whoever does not wish to benefit, let him not benefit like Samuel of Ramah.’”
[Speaker F] What? That they had no way out except to take. Where? It says “among the physically impaired.” And if not, what should they do, die? Is he condemning even those—
[Speaker B] —as well?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?
[Speaker F] He says, “And indeed the error of those who strengthen themselves…” second line, Rabbi, one line down.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Who had no recourse except to take”—I see it. So what? I didn’t skip it deliberately. But why?
[Speaker F] Because it says here that they had no recourse except to take, and he condemns even them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, what are you talking about? Those words “there is no stratagem” mean they have no way out. What are they supposed to do? How are they supposed to live? Look at the continuation: “And if not, what will they do? Will they die?” They can’t—they’re elderly, they can’t go out to work. So in that sense, this is really like all the arguments today. Today’s arguments are basically this: the capitalists don’t want to support people who have nothing—I’m speaking broadly, okay? They don’t want to support people who can go out and work, because supporting such people means enabling them not to go out to work, or encouraging them not to go out to work. The socialists are a bit more willing. I’m exaggerating, of course; there are nuances and endless nuances here, but on the principled level Maimonides says that if someone can go out and work, you must not support him. Okay? Certainly if he is a Torah scholar. With a Torah scholar, even less so, because it is a desecration of God’s name. For others, I assume he would also say the same thing, just without the issue of desecration of God’s name. Right, so: “And I have already heard the foolish cling to this, saying: ‘Whoever wishes to benefit, let him benefit like Elisha, and whoever does not wish to benefit, let him not benefit like Samuel of Ramah.’ But this is not at all comparable. Indeed, in my view this is a distortion by the one who brings proof from it, since it is clear and leaves no room for error, for Elisha did not receive money from people—how much more so did he not impose himself on them and obligate them by laws. Heaven forbid that this be attributed to God!”
Yes, this is really Abraham our Patriarch and Akavya. Sorry that I’m always making cynical remarks, but I think Maimonides got a little carried away here. I mean, how can this be…? What, would it enter your mind that Elisha ben Avuyah… Elisha—that Elisha would take money from people? That can’t be, because after all I said it’s a desecration of God’s name, so clearly we have to interpret that text differently. He doesn’t bring proof that the interpretation is different; he just assumes the conclusion. In other words, he assumes such a thing is impossible and says, “Would it enter your mind that the great Elisha would do such a thing?” Therefore clearly the text must really be speaking about something else. His whole method here is a method that assumes the conclusion. Now, assuming the conclusion—I once wrote an article in praise of assuming the conclusion. Assuming the conclusion does not necessarily invalidate the argument; you just have to understand that if you don’t agree with him, then you can continue not agreeing with him, since his “arguments,” in quotation marks, are arguments that assume the conclusion.
Okay, he brings more sources here. Why should I go on at length about this? I’m skipping to the next paragraph. “I will mention the incident explained in the Talmud, and whoever insists may do as he wishes.” Yes, he says that whoever insists on interpreting it differently can interpret it however he wants. But this was a man who had a vineyard, and thieves were coming into it, and every time he inspected it each day he would find his grapes diminishing and missing, and he had no doubt that one of the thieves had made it his target—right, someone was stealing from him. And he was distressed by this all during the grape season, until he harvested what he harvested and returned only after they dried up, and he gathered the raisins. And it is the way of people that when they gather dried fruit, some berries from the figs and raisins fall, and it is permitted to eat them because they are ownerless, since the owners have already abandoned them because of their insignificance. Right, tiny things you don’t go back and collect, so it’s permitted to take them; you declare them ownerless.
And Rabbi Tarfon happened one day to come to this vineyard, and he sat there gathering the fallen raisins and eating them. And the owner of the vineyard came and thought that this was the one who had been stealing from him all year. So he was sure he had caught the thief, and he did not recognize him; he didn’t know it was Rabbi Tarfon. But he heard his name and rushed over to him and grabbed him and overpowered him and put him in a sack and ran with him on his back to throw him into the river. Like that saying from Khan Yunis when we went there for reserve duty—some Druze soldier, the first sentence he said to us in the briefing when we got to Khan Yunis was: if you see someone causing trouble, put him in a sack and throw him into the sea. So apparently he learned that from the Talmud here.
And when Rabbi Tarfon saw himself lost—he saw that he was about to die—he cried out: “Woe to Tarfon, for this man is killing him!” Right, he shouted that from inside the sack. And when the owner of the vineyard heard this, he let him go, and then he realized it was Rabbi Tarfon. He let him go and fled, knowing that he had committed a great sin. He realized he had really messed up here. And Rabbi Tarfon, for the rest of his life from that day onward, grieved and wailed over what had happened to him, that he had saved his life through the honor of Torah. Right—and he was wealthy. Rabbi Tarfon was not poor. The fact that he gathered raisins there was just because he was sitting there and there were raisins and it was permitted to do so, not because he was poor and needed those raisins; he was a wealthy man. And he could have said to him, “Let me go and I will pay you such-and-such dinars,” and paid him, without telling him that he was Tarfon, and saved his life with his money and not with Torah. They said: “All the days of that righteous man he was distressed over this matter and would say, ‘Woe is me, for I made use of the crown of Torah,’ for anyone who makes use of the crown of Torah is uprooted from the world.” And they said about this: “That was because Rabbi Tarfon was exceedingly wealthy and could have appeased him with money.” Right, he should not have used the fact that he was a Torah scholar and benefited even from that benefit—that all he got was that the man didn’t throw him into the sea, that’s all. That benefit—he received nothing except that he wasn’t thrown into the sea—he gained by virtue of being Rabbi Tarfon. And for that he cried all his days, because he really could have paid him without telling him that.
Okay, the truth is there are certain kinds of stories where—again I’ll comment—it’s hard to accept this as practical guidance for every person. I mean, what would be preferable—to tell him? This guy is about to throw me into the sea, okay? Totally on his own authority. He didn’t take me to a religious court and check whether I was a thief or not a thief. All I did was take raisins he had given up on; I’m allowed to take those raisins. This fellow was a murderer, okay? Fine, a murderer in a fit of rage, but a murderer. If they had caught him after he had thrown someone into the sea, with all the justification and everything, he’d have been hanged—stoned—no, by the sword; a murderer is executed by the sword, right? No, he wasn’t a thief. Rabbi Tarfon wasn’t a thief; he took what he was allowed to take.
[Speaker B] Drorim? The Dromi law? The so-and-so Dromi law, depending whom you ask.
[Speaker H] It sounds like saintly tales. The earlier stories too—these are saintly tales. It’s always, even if it isn’t exaggerated with Hasidim, some great virtue. That’s the comment I wanted to make. They’re all such righteous people there—that’s not the point.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The comment I wanted to make is exactly that. In other words, I think it’s hard to accept that this story is supposed to be practical guidance for all of us, for every person. Either we’re dealing here with some model that presents an ideal that is not actually meant to be implemented, but gives education in the right direction. People sometimes do things like that. Abraham our Patriarch—those three angels came to him. I once heard from Rabbi Pinkus of Ofakim, of blessed memory—he was killed in a car accident; he was an interesting Jew. So he once asked: those three angels came to Abraham, and he wanted to serve them tongues with mustard; he slaughtered three calves. Completely out of proportion. Is he crazy? To slaughter three calves in order to give a meal to three people who come to you as guests?
[Speaker H] Depends how rich you are.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, just plain wastefulness. Give it to the poor.
[Speaker H] So they eat it—but who eats it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There were no refrigerators there. What do you do with three calves? I don’t know what the volume of Abraham our Patriarch’s stomach was, but how much can a person eat? Three calves? Bon appétit? Maybe, I don’t know, but there’s something disproportionate here.
[Speaker B] In the midrash in Torat Kohanim: three times “young calf.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—I’m talking about the midrash, okay? I’m saying: I also don’t think that this midrash is coming to say that this is what is fitting for each of us. Give him a drumstick. Fine, that’s good too—what’s wrong with that? If he eats not tongue but something else. It’s not that—it’s an exaggerated story, like a caricature a bit, though of course in the opposite direction. A caricature comes to ridicule; here it comes to elevate something, to educate in a positive direction through exaggeration. A caricature strongly emphasizes something that is a bit ridiculous in order to make it very funny, but really it’s only a little funny. The exaggeration is not a reflection of the truth; it has a methodological purpose. So here too, I think many of these stories are like that. Like the stories—there’s a story about Rabbi Akiva Eiger, that when, if I’m not mistaken, he once arrived as a guest in Prague, I think—it seems to me it was in Prague, that’s how the story goes. Never mind, it surely wasn’t, but that’s how they tell it. He came to Prague and he was walking there with the rabbi in the street, and he saw that all the people were climbing onto the roofs to see. Rabbi Akiva Eiger had arrived, so to see this Jew was after all something—I’d pay a little to see him.
[Speaker G] Woe to them, that they came to see an ignoramus like him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so he said—he asked the rabbi beside him, I don’t remember who the other one was; for some reason I remember it as being the Netivot, but I’m already not… The Netivot wasn’t in Prague, so I don’t know.
[Speaker G] Maybe father and son. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He asks him: tell me, am I such a hunchback that everyone is coming to see me? Now, he was not an idiot. And they climbed up on the roofs to see him not because he was such a tremendous idiot. Okay? So if you’re not such a tremendous idiot, you understand they don’t climb on the roof because you’re a hunchback. To see a hunchback, people don’t climb on roofs; at most they peek quietly from the window so nobody notices. Okay? So this story either never happened, or Rabbi Akiva Eiger thought that this was how he could educate people. I’m a little skeptical about that. But whether it happened or not, it is certainly not a true story—in other words, it does not really reflect what Rabbi Akiva Eiger thought, right? Whoever says that is an idiot.
[Speaker B] There’s a video always going around on YouTube about Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. He was at some event, and the announcer there proclaimed, “Here is the leading sage of the generation,” and he got up and went to see who the leading sage of the generation was. Then he turned toward him, and when he realized they meant him himself, then he…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s a little different. That’s a little different. When they say about you that you are the leading sage of the generation—“leading sage of the generation” is a very defined title. It could be that he thought there were others greater than him, okay? That’s how he evaluated himself, and he went to ask who it was, to see who that leading sage was. Or he also acted that way in order to educate, I don’t know. “Leading sage of the generation” is already really something very binding, okay? I can understand someone pretending he isn’t, even if maybe he thinks he is, doesn’t matter—or he doesn’t think he is. But there what? Rabbi Akiva Eiger understands that… he wasn’t the leading sage of the generation? By the way, there was a famous story—the hagiographic book, one of the hagiographic books about Rabbi Akiva Eiger, begins with this story. A wealthy widow died and left her fortune to the leading sage of the generation. Also stories. She left her fortune to the leading sage of the generation. Now of course they had to convene a religious court and decide who the leading sage of the generation was; she didn’t write who. There were, if I’m not mistaken, the Tzemach Tzedek there, Rabbi Akiva Eiger, who else was there? Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin too, I think. I think those were the three candidates who reached the final round.
[Speaker I] No, no—I thought they were the ones who sat and decided.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no—they were the ones about whom a decision had to be made. By the way, it’s an absurd phenomenon maybe, but there’s nothing to do: the ones who crown the leading sage of the generation are the admirers, of course. In other words, it’s a known phenomenon and generally there isn’t much way around it. And in the end the religious court decided that it was Rabbi Akiva Eiger. In other words, he also happened to be the leading sage of the generation in that case; there is even a court ruling on it, if this story ever existed—in an optimistic tone, that it did.
Anyway, in short, Maimonides goes on here at length with various sources. I’m not going to read through all these matters now. It’s only worth seeing the last paragraph on the first page: “However, the thing that the Torah permitted to Torah scholars is that they may give money to a person to conduct business with it on their behalf, if he wishes, and one who does so receives reward for it.” Right, you can give him merchandise so that he will do business for you. In other words, if he is already working for himself, then as a Torah scholar you are allowed to do this. It says in the Talmud—he says this is simply what the law permits, that’s all. It’s not some special dispensation; otherwise even this would be forbidden. Okay? Maimonides understands all of this as a clearly defined halakhic prohibition and permission—in other words, he defines it that way, and here you can plainly see that he is really entering into Jewish law. What?
[Speaker H] That it is permitted to hand over…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To someone, an item so that he can conduct business with your merchandise and profit on your behalf? Yes.
[Speaker H] Because you’re a Torah scholar? Yes. But that kind of contradicts the earlier sources.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Certainly the previous source, that you have to support yourself from something.
[Speaker C] What—is it forbidden for an ordinary person…
[Speaker H] …to let him manage investments for him?
[Speaker C] No, it’s permitted; we’re talking here…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Precisely because he is a Torah scholar, he does this for me because I’m a Torah scholar. If he does it for you as a favor because he’s your friend, perfectly fine—he’s doing you a favor. But as a Torah scholar I’m not allowed to benefit from my Torah, as we saw before. Here there is a special permission. He does the work—wherever he goes they’ll ask him, “Wait, are you a Torah scholar? Good, then you can’t—you’re overqualified.” So, yes, okay, never mind.
[Speaker H] Cynical jokes we’ll leave for another time. Okay then—so Maimonides says, yes, there are special permissions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here you can see that Maimonides really enters in here; this is actual Jewish law for Maimonides. He goes into what is permitted and what is forbidden, there are definitions—in other words, the sages permitted, the sages forbade. It’s not just an ideological issue. Maimonides translates it into forbidden and permitted. And therefore, these six passages are places that seem at first glance to be just another saying, but this precise discussion conveys some message here, that according to Maimonides we are indeed speaking about Jewish law. It’s not a meta-halakhic matter or merely a matter of thought.
Okay, Maimonides continues: of course, where you are able, it is forbidden for you to take. That’s the principle. The Kesef Mishneh, on this Maimonides in the laws of Torah study, deals with Maimonides’ words on two levels.
[Speaker H] Wait—but he already mentioned compensation for lost work time for someone who was a wealthy merchant.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct—lost work time.
[Speaker H] And that already solves the whole problem, because I could have been, I don’t know, a wealthy merchant now.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And there are rules for lost work time. You take the pay of a cucumber guard; you don’t take the pay of a wealthy merchant. Even if you really could have.
[Speaker H] Even if you really could have been. So also a guard…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Only if you actually are a wealthy merchant—if this really is what you do, and now you’re going for some other purpose, for the sake of a commandment or to help someone or something like that, and you are claiming compensation for lost work time, then…
[Speaker H] He’ll work at it for two days, and now he’s a wealthy merchant, and that’s it—from here until the rest of his life.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, evasions. Many people make evasions. “The heart knows whether for honesty or for crookedness,” as it says.
The Kesef Mishneh says this: “Our master, of blessed memory, greatly broadened his mouth and his tongue in the commentary on the Mishnah, chapter 4 of tractate Avot, regarding the support given both to students and to rabbis.” Right—he emphasizes here that this includes both someone in the training stages on the way to becoming a Torah scholar, and someone who already is one—the support. What is given to them, their provisions, their food. “And it also appears from his words that most of the great Torah sages of his time, or all of them, acted this way. And here too he follows his own reasoning.” Right—Maimonides in the laws of Torah study follows his own position from what he wrote in the commentary on the Mishnah. Remember, Kesef Mishneh is a commentary on the Mishneh Torah, on the laws of Torah study.
“Now he, of blessed memory, brought proof there from Hillel the Elder, who chopped wood and studied. But there is no proof from there that this was specifically at the beginning of his studies. And since in their time there were thousands and tens of thousands of students, perhaps they gave support only to the renowned among them, or whoever could avoid benefiting would do so. But once he attained wisdom and learned and taught knowledge to the people and rose to prominence—would it enter your mind that he was chopping wood?” Again, assuming the conclusion, right? He repays Maimonides in kind—exactly the same argument Maimonides used about Elisha. He answers him: would it enter your mind that he was chopping wood? Maimonides says: yes, it definitely enters my mind that he was chopping wood, because it is forbidden to make a living from this. But he assumes it’s impossible, and so he says, would it enter your mind that he was chopping wood?
“And furthermore, surely this is obvious, that wherever one has means it is forbidden for him to benefit from words of Torah, and he must also do every possible maneuver, so that if he does benefit, it should be in the status of a poor person,” and so on. In other words, if you can go work alongside your studies, I agree with Maimonides, says the Kesef Mishneh. But certainly if not, then you have to take it. Now this is an important point, because even this itself can be understood in two ways.
But before I explain those two ways, look—there’s a long passage here in which he goes through the sources Maimonides brings and rejects them one by one, saying that they are incorrect, there is no proof from them, he brings other sources, and so on. In the last paragraph of the Kesef Mishneh he says this: “And after God has informed us of all this, it is possible to say that our master’s intention here is that a person should not cast off the yoke of labor from himself in order to be supported by others so that he may study. Rather, he should learn a trade that supports him, and if it suffices for him, all the better; and if it does not suffice for him, he may take his support from the community, and there is nothing wrong with that. And this is what he wrote: ‘Anyone who places upon his heart…’” and so on. And he brought several mishnayot indicating that it is proper to learn a trade.
“And even if we say that this is not so…” Maybe this is even Maimonides’ own reasoning. “And even if we say this is not our master’s view, but rather as appears from his commentary on the Mishnah”—because in the commentary on the Mishnah it doesn’t seem that this is what he holds; he is trying to read this into Maimonides’ laws of Torah study. “But even if we say that Maimonides does not hold this way, we hold that wherever the law is uncertain in your hand, follow the custom. And we have seen all the sages of Israel before our master’s time, according to Maimonides’ own testimony, and after him, accustomed to take their wages from the community. And even if we concede that the law follows our master’s words in the commentary on the Mishnah, it is possible that all the sages of the generations agreed to this because ‘It is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah.’” They may also agree with Maimonides on the principled level, but “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah”—so not in practice. “For if support for learners and teachers were not available, they could not toil in Torah properly, and Torah would be forgotten, God forbid. But if it is available, they will be able to occupy themselves with Torah, and Torah will grow and flourish.”
In this Kesef Mishneh there are a few nuances that I think are worth noticing. Things that on the face of it seem simple, but they’re not so simple. Because he attacks this rigid position of Maimonides in a multi-stage argument. First of all, maybe Maimonides himself really meant that this applies only if he can do without it, or something like that. Then he says: and even if Maimonides doesn’t say that, most of the greats always, before him and after him, disagree with him. Where the law is uncertain in your hand, follow the custom—or follow the majority, doesn’t matter; here those are two aspects. And even if everyone agrees with him, still: “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah.” That’s already the third stage. Okay?
Now here is a subtle point. It is obviously true that if a person cannot live without receiving charity, then certainly Maimonides too would say that he has to receive charity; otherwise what are the poor in the world supposed to do? Must he die in order not to receive charity? Obviously not, right? There are laws of gifts to the poor in Maimonides too, laws of charity. Okay. So what counts as “cannot”? When the Kesef Mishneh says that Maimonides says this only about someone who can, but someone who can’t, no—what does “can’t” mean?
[Speaker H] To study Torah properly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. To study Torah properly. Anyone can go out and work and have enough for a livelihood; he doesn’t need to go around taking charity. But the question is: what will happen to his Torah? Now the point is this. I’ll give you an example of this logic, which often leads many of us astray, and in many fields.
There was once in Yeruham—yes, for many years I pushed to found a journal for Torah articles by the guys in the yeshiva, by the teachers, so that the guys would have somewhere to express themselves, somewhere to get practice in writing. I think it’s very important. Okay, so after it took me a few years, in the end it was decided to do it. Then they said to me, “The one who reads the letter should be the one to carry it out”—in other words, I’m the first editor. So I told the guys, I announced it and waited for them to send articles. There was almost no response; almost nobody sent anything. I didn’t understand what was happening, so first I started speaking with the guys, asking people. “Listen, it’s not pleasant somehow that I should be some kind of authority, to write an article, a Torah scholar—it’s not pleasant for me, it’s humility.” He’s being modest. So I understood there was some pathological problem here.
Once—parenthetically I’ll add—someone once said in the name of Rabbi Steinsaltz that in Yeruham there is no evil inclination. In the hesder yeshiva there in Yeruham, there is no evil inclination. And Rabbi Blumentzweig got very angry when he heard that, or the yeshiva did. I told him that Rabbi Steinsaltz was one hundred percent right, and that this was to the yeshiva’s discredit, of course, not its credit. Without an evil inclination, nothing works. Nothing will help.
And then—I’m returning, I closed the parenthesis—I go back to the journal story. So I saw that this business wasn’t moving. So one day after the afternoon prayer I banged on the table and gave them some talk, some ethical lecture, that they should stop working on their character traits and start writing. Because in the end, I told them, if you manage to work on your character traits while remaining connected to Torah and developing and knowing how to clarify an issue and conclude it and write it and present it—I understand that. But in the end, for most people, they’ll throw out the baby with the bathwater. Through so much work on modesty, you’ll remain very, very modest—but you won’t have anything to be proud of. In other words, it’s no great wisdom to be modest—like the Kotzker who says: why was the Torah given on Mount Sinai? Because it was a low mountain. The Kotzker asks: then let it be given in a valley. Why look for a low mountain? Rather, no—they looked for a mountain that was low in order to give the Torah, right? In other words, if you want to be modest, there has to be something you could be proud of in order to be modest. If you work on the trait of modesty by making sure there is nothing you could be proud of, that’s warped.
And I told them that I think the overwhelming majority of people—there are always exceptional individuals perhaps—but the overwhelming majority of people will not build themselves without an evil inclination. Someone who is too righteous will remain a righteous idler and an ignoramus. That’s all. And truly righteous—I’m not saying “righteous” ironically. A genuinely righteous person, someone who really sincerely works on his character traits. And there were quite a few guys there who really were doing this for sincere reasons. That was my assessment. And I told them that this is not the right way to do it. It’s a great mistake, because in the end you remain without Torah. You remain humble and ignorant, without Torah. There was such a thing, there was.
[Speaker E] There is such a thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anyway, anyway, getting back here: there are many people—I’ve met masses of people like this—who do not remain in serious Torah study over time because of this Maimonides. What does that mean? You have to go and earn a living and work and so on. Now what comes out in the end is that they really do not remain in serious learning at all. Maimonides never dreamed of that. You have to understand. Maimonides did not mean that—of this I am clear as day. Maimonides did not mean that at all. Maimonides meant: live a life of hardship, eat bread with salt, and keep studying at a high level. Now I’m not getting into the question of what that means—what the threshold of a high level is, how far one has to go—but there is some threshold, whatever it is for now, below which you must not fall. And if you are not meeting that threshold and therefore you go to work, then support yourself from charity. And that is what the Kesef Mishneh says. When the Kesef Mishneh says, “Many did so and it did not succeed in their hands, because ‘It is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah,’” what does he mean? Does “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah” mean that this is the reason not to act like Maimonides, or does it mean that Maimonides’ words themselves perhaps suited him, but they do not suit anyone else? Because how many people do we know who can reach a significant Torah level? I’m not talking now about the leading sages of the generation—a significant Torah level, a meaningful connection to Torah. Forget the objective measures of how much they know and where they rank in the hierarchy of Torah scholars. Presumably even on the personal level—on the level of being Zusha, not Moses our Teacher, right? To what extent are you connected to Torah? Very many people, out of ideology—and again, a real ideology, I’m not talking about people who are acting—out of a real ideology, think that it is a desecration of God’s name to make a living from Torah. And there are many such dimensions today; maybe I’ll talk about that in a moment. And because of that they leave it and go study, engage in all sorts of other things, and as a result they remain without any real connection to Torah. A little connection here and there, a bit of Daf Yomi at best, I don’t know exactly what—but they have no meaningful connection to Torah.
And a meaningful connection to Torah, by the way, is something I said here once, and it is not measured by the number of hours at all. It is measured by the question of what you do in the hours you study. In other words, if you study one hour a day but you study properly, then that is a connection to Torah a thousand times greater than someone who can attend Daf Yomi classes from morning till night. I’m not belittling the Daf Yomi class, but generally the Daf Yomi class is there so as not to neglect Torah, not in order to study Torah. In order not to disconnect from Torah, to maintain a connection to Torah—which is a beautiful thing—but not in order to study. In other words, usually participation in Daf Yomi classes is not by people whose goal is to grow; it is by people whose goal is to keep some connection with the matter, to be a little righteous, not to be completely disconnected from Torah. So I call that not neglecting Torah; that’s not studying Torah. It’s so as not to neglect Torah.
So I’m saying: here what is measured is connection to Torah. Connection to Torah is measured by the question of what you do in those hours that you study, not by how many hours you study. And when I measure it on that plane, how many people do you know who study Torah seriously while pursuing a full other career? I don’t. Few. There are some, but few. Few. It’s a major failure of the educational system and of the conception it reflects. A very sad failure, because I’m very much in favor of this model. But so far it is quite a complete failure. Very few people we succeed in producing who are truly Torah scholars with a genuine connection to Torah. Again, I’m not talking about fear of Heaven. Connection to Torah in the sense of learning, of knowledge—in other words, not fear of Heaven. A different matter. Knowing how to be a Torah scholar. In other words, knowing. Not the entire Talmud—knowing, say, tractate Sukkah thoroughly with the medieval authorities. He is master of that subject. He knows Sukkah by heart.
[Speaker H] And there’s an inherent problem here, because if someone really is like what you’re describing, then let him be at it all the time—so he shouldn’t do the classic two hours; let him do six to eight hours and do it even more seriously.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll get to that in a moment. For now we’re learning the Kesef Mishneh. I’ll get to that in a moment. That’s already really current affairs, okay? So I’m saying: when the Kesef Mishneh says, “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah,” people immediately read that as a continuation of his own conception that disputes Maimonides. I disagree. In my opinion, “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah” means that Maimonides himself agrees with what I’m saying here. Because if Maimonides himself had understood that ordinary mortal human beings are not Maimonides—and if you go engage in other things, you cannot remain seriously connected to Torah—then he would not have spoken so sharply against making a living from Torah study. Because you cannot remain without Torah scholars. It’s impossible. Not a single Torah scholar will remain in the generation; I don’t know, maybe a few who can still do it anyway. There are a handful—not one, never mind, a handful. Okay? You cannot be left with that. Therefore, says the Kesef Mishneh, “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah.”
So this is a subtle nuance, but it’s night and day. It’s night and day because very often you hear the criticism of those who study Torah and, by force of this Maimonides, support themselves, as it were, from Torah study—by force of this Maimonides—when the assumption, the criticism, never checks: relative to what alternative are you speaking? If the alternative is Maimonides’ model, the criticism is justified. Be a Torah scholar of stature—not the same, a bit less, doesn’t matter, but a significant Torah scholar—and alongside that make a living, meaning study something, do something, support yourself. But if the alternative is: support yourself and as a result also not be a Torah scholar, that is not what Maimonides was talking about. It is simply a mistake to learn that from Maimonides. Maimonides was not talking about that. Because Maimonides is speaking about two models. Maimonides compares two models. He is speaking about a Torah scholar who supports himself by the work of his hands versus a Torah scholar who supports himself from Torah. Maimonides is not talking about an ignoramus. What do you mean?
[Speaker B] He writes, “Anyone who sets his heart on engaging in Torah and not doing labor”—he doesn’t speak about a Torah scholar.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—every person is a Torah scholar. Every person is supposed to be a Torah scholar. Right, it doesn’t matter—that’s why I said I’m talking about Zusha and not Moses our Teacher. Everyone is supposed to be Zusha. But be Zusha. Now the question is how many people there are here. What I’m basically saying is: here there is a comparison among three models, not two. And I think that when Maimonides makes his comparison, he makes it between two of the three. He did not take the third into account here.
[Speaker B] What’s the third?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The three models are these: a significant Torah scholar—again, I’m not getting into the definition of exactly what “significant” means—a significant Torah scholar who engages in labor and supports himself from his labor; a significant Torah scholar who supports himself from Torah; and someone who supports himself from labor and is not a Torah scholar. Three models. Now Maimonides compares the first two. And no, he does not address the third.
[Speaker B] Maimonides says that because…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maimonides is not giving up here on being a Torah scholar. Maimonides is coming to say that being a Torah scholar does not exempt you from earning a living. Nowhere here does Maimonides write—you will not find anywhere in Maimonides—that you may give up on becoming a Torah scholar. And again, a Torah scholar like Zusha, not Moses our Teacher. The Torah scholar you are capable of being.
[Speaker B] Fine, what does “the Torah scholar you are capable of being” mean? I can be a Torah scholar for half an hour a week.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, I’m saying, I’m not talking about half an hour a week. I’m not talking about quantity of time. I’m talking about your connection to Torah, your knowledge of Torah, your bond with Torah. I’m not telling you—it could be half an hour a week.
[Speaker B] If that half hour means that you’re earning a living and still you’re not the Torah scholar that Zusha is supposed to be, then it’s irrelevant.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, I said I’m not drawing the line. Obviously, once you go to work, it comes at the expense of study hours—nothing will help. There are no miracles. Okay? Therefore, in principle, of course you’ll know less. Unless there are some special merits.
[Speaker C] Why not present Maimonides as an extreme? Go find an eight-hour job, okay? Work, support yourself.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now wait, now there are two possibilities.
[Speaker C] First possibility: in the time remaining you’ll be able to study Torah and be like Maimonides. First possibility. And second possibility: you won’t have time left to study Torah. So maybe Maimonides says—then don’t study Torah. No, he doesn’t say that. No, because what he says is: the main thing, the main thing is don’t take from the public.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, what do you mean, the main thing? You’re reading two laws here; read all the laws of Torah study. Read the beginning of that same chapter and see what Maimonides writes there about Torah study and about those who do not study Torah seriously. This comes within a context; I didn’t bring the whole chapter here. These are two laws, laws 10 and 11. There are nine laws before them. Read them and see—the context is like that. Maimonides—again, I’m not saying there are miracles. Someone who goes to work has fewer study hours. Nothing will help. Maybe there are miracles, but generally one doesn’t rely on that. Okay?
Yes, this is obvious. And Maimonides himself—how could it be more…? I once heard from Leibowitz on his eightieth jubilee. He said he could have won the Nobel Prize if he had not spread himself across so many fields, and he recommended to all the young people listening to him—I was then a student at Tel Aviv University—that they should not give up, yes, on spreading themselves across all fields, and should give up the Nobel Prize. So by analogy here too, I’m not claiming that you have to reach your maximum. I’m claiming that you have to reach your minimum. And what I’m claiming is that most people who choose a normal livelihood—eight hours, whatever, each according to his level—do not reach their minimum, not their maximum.
Now here, of course, one can ask: what is your criterion? I don’t know what it is; I don’t know how to define it. I think the definition I offered earlier maybe comes close to a definition. You do an hour a day—what do you do in that hour? In that hour, do you learn on a level? Are you accumulating it? Are you learning in order to remember? Or are you learning in order not to neglect Torah? That too is a level, by the way; not everyone even does that. I’m not belittling it. But that is not reaching your minimum. Do you understand? In other words, it is obvious that going to work always comes at the expense of learning. That is obvious. But at the expense of learning quantitatively. In the end, there is some qualitative minimum of connection to Torah, of bond with Torah, of involvement in Torah, that one must not give up.
[Speaker C] Is Maimonides talking about a qualitative minimum?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think that since Maimonides does not talk about the opposite, then clearly he is not talking about that model. Maimonides does not tell you, “Then give up on learning.”
[Speaker C] Obviously there is learning morning and evening, reading a few verses… What? That’s what you’re saying. Wait, but where does Maimonides say that elsewhere?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Have you read Maimonides, the laws of Torah study? I told you—read this chapter. This chapter, chapter 3 I think, right? Chapter 3—read the first nine laws, not just these two that I brought. Okay? And see what he is talking about. It’s written there—that’s the context of these laws, not somewhere else.
[Speaker B] But Maimonides doesn’t say don’t study and work; he says don’t plan to support yourself from learning. Don’t plan to support yourself from learning; prepare yourself to be able to make a living and try to support yourself. That’s all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is one hundred percent correct, one hundred percent correct. And I’m now talking about the question of what you do after the training. Fine, get training. And now what do you do after that? Maimonides says in the end you also need to earn, you need to make a living from something. Don’t make a living from Torah; make a living from work. What I am claiming is—and the context of Maimonides says this too, it is also obvious—he does not mention a word about the other issue. He does not give up on it. Look at the uncompromising statements he has in the first nine laws. He is not talking about what we are talking about. That is obvious. I really should perhaps have brought the whole chapter. He is talking about a comparison between two of the three models. The third one is not under discussion at all. The third model—which all in all it seems to me that a great many people in our world are in—he does not speak about at all.
[Speaker B] What—he didn’t know this reality? Everyone was Torah scholars?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think I already said and talked about this when I read the laws. I don’t know whether Maimonides was as naïve as Rabbi Akiva Eiger. He also knew that people don’t function that way. He says that all Torah scholars, not just the idiots, all of them disagree with him. He says these sharp things because he has an educational goal. He knows they won’t accept this from him. If Torah scholars don’t agree with him, then what—did he think he was going to transform the whole generation? This statement is an educational statement, and that’s exactly why I think it’s very important, because he himself apparently also says it as an educational statement. He knows the whole world isn’t built like he is, and he doesn’t think the world will implement this. And the Kesef Mishneh writes this: “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah.” That’s not an argument for why not to do what Maimonides says; it’s an argument for why even Maimonides agrees that this is how one must act. What does “It is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah” mean? It means that we are not managing to reach even the minimum level we were supposed to be at. Once we go on the track that Maimonides laid out, then in such a situation even Maimonides would agree that one should not do what he says. That’s what the Kesef Mishneh argues, and that’s obvious, certainly.
[Speaker F] It seems to me that Maimonides is saying something slightly different. He says the truth as it is. This is the truth, this is the optimum. This is what is most correct. Now each person should find himself somewhere in that direction.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What I said before—that this is an educational statement that provides some kind of model…
[Speaker F] It’s not
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] a practical instruction for each individual.
[Speaker F] It is a practical instruction, each person at whatever level he can manage.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I agree that in the end that’s the same thing. I’ve taken much more time than I thought I would. I still want a few more minutes, though, to talk about… The terrible identification with these words of Maimonides in our time is to a large extent a reaction to extremism from the opposite direction—that’s how it seems to me, if I may play armchair psychologist. There’s some kind of exaggeration in the opposite direction. Meaning, even the Kesef Mishneh, who says that many tried and did not succeed, did not mean what happens today. That’s what I think. Because what happens today is that people simply feel exempt from earning a living. In other words, whether someone is suited for it or not suited for it doesn’t matter—you sit in kollel and you’re righteous. Now everyone is the tribe of Levi. I brought here at the end the end of the laws of the Sabbatical year and Jubilee, those well-known words of Maimonides that they won’t read by now—again, the tribe of Levi. Maimonides was not talking about that. Maimonides was talking about people who really sit and advance and grow and so on—I mean Maimonides in the laws of the Sabbatical year and Jubilee, right? He’s talking about those people. He’s not saying that everyone has to be the tribe of Levi, or that anyone who lives off the public is a sign that he decided to be the tribe of Levi and now deserves to receive tithes—tithes of grain, I mean. That’s the opposite direction.
Now the protest against that has created a conception that in my opinion is also distorted, this conception that takes Maimonides literally and all the way. The protest against that distortion created the view that—what do you mean? Everyone has to go out to work; Maimonides says so explicitly. What do you mean? All those who are stringent about every position of the medieval authorities (Rishonim), suddenly here they cut corners? Maimonides writes hair-raising things about this. And all those who are meticulous about the method of Maimonides, and the great Briskers who are always learning only Maimonides—here they ignore him crudely. You’d be surprised, but many people don’t know this Maimonides at all. I was in Bnei Brak—people don’t know him. Some Torah scholars don’t know this Maimonides. They’ve never gone through it, never heard of it, it just isn’t there. I don’t know, but no, it’s not part of the discourse. They haven’t censored him yet, but he’s not part of the discourse; people don’t know him.
So the reaction against that approach created what I think is an opposite distortion—an opposite distortion on two levels. One level is what I said before: they introduce the third model, the one Maimonides wasn’t talking about. Maimonides moves between two models. The third model, in my view, Maimonides rejects as well. The Kesef Mishneh certainly interprets Maimonides that way. In Maimonides himself, in my opinion—that’s also Maimonides himself—and the Kesef Mishneh certainly interprets Maimonides that way.
But beyond that, and here we have to move to our own time, it seems to me that in our generation—and again, this is a reaction to extremism in the opposite direction, but I’m trying to create as balanced a picture as possible—in our generation people understand that there is a division of labor. It’s a generation of greater abundance, but there’s a division of labor. We are not in such severe distress as a society. There are individuals who are and individuals who aren’t, but as a society—and society understands that there is room to support artists, there is room to support athletes, there is room to support scientists. These are not always practical things; scientists are often an intellectual-cultural matter. So surely the Torah should not be treated as less worthy than that. Meaning, so what—Torah we don’t support? The whole concept of desecration of God’s name in Maimonides—true, it is a halakhic concept, but its basis is an assessment of reality. The assessment of reality is that studying Torah and making a living from it is a desecration of God’s name because it turns it into one of the trades. Since once upon a time, being a philosopher was not a trade. Once, a philosopher was something—I don’t know—you did in your spare time, and besides that a trade was a shoemaker, a blacksmith, I don’t know, a shepherd, a farmer, whatever each person did, okay? That was a trade. Fine? But today, when even being a philosopher is a trade, then if Torah scholars are thought of as a kind of philosophers and society supports them the way it supports philosophers, scientists, athletes, or artists—everything I said earlier—is that a desecration of God’s name? What desecration of God’s name is there in that? On the contrary, in my opinion it is a desecration of God’s name if you don’t do that.
The desecration of God’s name that is created today, and everyone feels it—and I feel it too—that desecration of God’s name is because of the lack of proportion, not because of the principle itself. It’s because the people who take for themselves the right to act this way, according to Maimonides, don’t pay the price for that right. They don’t pay the price in the sense that they don’t grow enough in Torah, they’re not suited for it, they’re not people who really become genuine Torah scholars. In a situation where this really is some limited stratum that society is willing to support, that is certainly not a desecration of God’s name. On the contrary, it would be a desecration of God’s name if there were no such society. It would be a desecration of God’s name if there were no such society. Society supports all kinds of people, and it thinks—as the saying goes—that you need two pennies: one for a slice of bread and one for a flower—one to live, and the other to have something to live for. So society knows that an artist, an athlete, all kinds of people with special talents, scientists, whatever—it’s something worth supporting, because a society wants there to be some kind of, I don’t know, a circle that deals with spirit, a circle that deals with culture, a circle that deals with all kinds of such things. By the way, I completely identify with this in every field. But surely, surely Torah cannot be worse than that. Provided that he is an artist, provided that… yes, yes, as I’m saying, provided that this is someone who really has the abilities.
Now, abilities in Torah are not necessarily intellectual abilities. They are also the ability to sit—to stick with it. They are also a certain approach. One person is more suited to Torah, another is not suited to Torah, even though he may be a very smart person; it’s not connected. “Abilities” is a name for many things, it doesn’t matter. But if someone is growing, and he is suited to it, and he really is developing, then such a person—I think, first of all and second of all—it is a desecration of God’s name not to support him. The same argument Maimonides brings against the idea that one should make a living from Torah study, in my opinion today, in light of accepted conceptions, gets completely reversed. And therefore one has to use sources very carefully on these issues. First, because the sources are aggadic, and I spoke about that earlier. Second, because this is saturated with assessments of reality. When you talk about desecrations of God’s name in general, desecration of God’s name is almost an axe to chop with. Because with “desecration of God’s name,” everyone says that what I think is sanctification of God’s name, and what someone else who disagrees with me does, is desecration of God’s name. Therefore it depends very much on an assessment of reality—what is sanctification of God’s name and what is desecration of God’s name. And reality has also changed. So all of Maimonides’ words here have to be taken with major reservations, and one must understand that in this reality things are different.
And I’ll just say—I can’t avoid it, I’ve already gone over time—even on the purely political and tactical level, I just can’t help myself, I’m already saying this after class time. I’m saying: what will save the yeshiva world is if they shrink it. Meaning, that’s what will save it. This is a win-win game only—there is no loss here, it’s not zero-sum, everyone will only gain.
[Speaker B] Does everyone also agree with that? What? Everyone also agrees with that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everyone except those who are fighting tooth and nail, and Lapid and all those—what does that have to do with it. The point is that in the end, just as an example, I see very talented people whom I would very much like to remain studying Torah over the long term, and society should support them. And what happens is that society doesn’t support them. They give them, I don’t know, a few hundred shekels a month—you heard exactly what that means. These people start taking odd jobs. So then we get to your six and eight hours. They start taking odd jobs, so he becomes a school rabbi in the morning, a kashrut supervisor in the evening, and in a dawn kollel where they say Psalms, or he gives private lessons to some kids and so on. He has to make a living somehow. And then what comes out is that this talented person, instead of our supporting him so that he can grow, spends all day dealing with all kinds of gimmicks and ends up with neither a livelihood nor Torah.
Now if instead of that we took ten percent of the people we support—five percent of the people society supports today as Torah learners—and increased the support for each one tenfold, then you save fifty percent, right? Each one gets ten times as much; five percent of the people—that’s fifty percent of the budget. Fifty percent of the budget becomes available for whatever the state sees fit. Keep fifty percent. But divide that fifty percent among five percent of the people, not all the people. Let them go through certain screenings, as is accepted in various fields, where a person has to be suitable for it, and a person in whom we place hope, whom we are willing to support because he will grow, because he is someone who will also give us output—spiritual output, I mean. He doesn’t even have to become a community rabbi afterward, by the way. I’m against this notion that everyone afterward has to become clergy. We also need Torah scholars; we need people who will know and who will grow and develop Torah, not only people who will study and people who will become community rabbis and people who will become judges. No, absolutely not. We need some kind of world of Torah that engages in Torah—but “world” not in the literal sense, in the metaphorical sense. Today there is a Torah world in a somewhat simplistic sense—it’s almost the whole world—and that’s problematic. And it creates antagonism. And the distortion to one side created a distortion to the other side, from which both sides lose—both sides. The people who really do grow in Torah don’t live—it’s pitiful.
I saw students of mine in the yeshiva; it pained me to tell them, fellows, it suits you to continue. It pained me. Certainly those who afterward can’t teach or be a judge or something like that. Those who can grow in Torah—Torah researchers, or people with an interesting Torah spirit. What are you sending him to—a life of degradation and poverty? How can you send a person to such a thing? It was hard for me to tell a person whom I thought—I can’t pressure him and say, listen, you’re suited for this, I think you should. I couldn’t say that; I never said that to anyone. I couldn’t say it to them, I can’t say it to them. Why? Because I’d be sending them to a life that I myself would never have been willing to live. But on the other hand, I do want them to do it. I think the whole society should want them to do it. Except that for this, the price has to be paid. And we need to take those people who really are suited and make sure they have enough for a perfectly reasonable livelihood, like anyone else in any other profession, so that they won’t have to hustle all day from morning till night. That’s what happens in those places.
Now, these are current remarks, but I think there’s something to them… At one point in Yeruham I took one of the classes and said to them, look, in my opinion there are some very talented fellows among you. Yeruham is a high-level cross-section; really very good fellows. I took them and said to them, look, there are several among you who will remain for the long term in the world of Torah study. Okay? Today you’re yeshiva students; you still don’t know exactly, you haven’t gone out into life, I know. I’m telling you that these fellows will have a very hard time growing seriously—unless they find a position teaching and such, and even when you teach that often interferes with your growth. Just as a kollel fellow dreams that one day, when he has money, he’ll leave the kollel and start learning. So all these things and the framework slow things down. For some people it slows them down; there are people for whom it builds them. But take on a mission. Commit yourselves now, today—you’re 22 years old maybe, something like that—take on a mission that your tithe, or half your tithe, you dedicate to two fellows from your cohort. And don’t give it to anyone else—not to the poor, not to organizations, not to anything, to nothing. Be as cruel as a raven toward everyone else. Take your tithe and support two fellows from your cohort. Until age 40, I don’t know how long, let them sit with two people ready—take two who of course are willing and suited for it in your estimation, whom you think really can grow and go far, and support them. Don’t give them the mission that all of you are sending them to, and then afterward they have to deal with it alone. That’s not very wise. To demand that people grow and flourish in Torah and then send them to… okay, go hustle, I don’t know, live off the stipend from the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
Did anyone pick up the gauntlet? Not really. And that was at age 22. At age 27 or 28 or 30, to turn to people is already much harder. I thought maybe at age 22 it would be possible to try to create some initiative like that. What? Someone picked up the gauntlet in my head? Maybe, it could be. But everyone here is less accessible to me, you know.
[Speaker H] You skipped over a model maybe closer to Maimonides: those people, who are usually talented people, train them for something that requires a lot of intelligence, analytical ability, that has
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] you at various levels, you can
[Speaker H] do. There are
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] fields where you really can make a decent living and alongside that grow seriously. That’s very few people. Very few. There may be a few here and there, and they really perhaps do it.
[Speaker H] What does “make a decent living” mean? They won’t be very wealthy.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But there are people—not to live like a human being? Not to live in degradation. To make a living.
[Speaker H] There are also fields where a person—you invest a few years in study and you’ll need to become something, I don’t know what.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying—so during those years, support them. I’m saying, I don’t know, it’s all very general. In the end you have to sit down on it and make committees that do the screening. I think there need to be committees to do this, and not that anyone who wants to be supported is supported. That’s the disaster we have today. Anyone who wants to sit in kollel gets the Religious Affairs stipend. No one asks: are you actually suited, are you not suited, what are your abilities, where have you gotten to? Test him after five years—have you progressed or not? Where do you stand compared to where you were five years ago?
I sat in kollels in Bnei Brak and later in Netanya. I was in Netanya—I came there after five years in which I studied half a day. That was my experience in Torah study. Plus a bit here and there—five and a half years, something like that. I arrived at the kollel in Netanya and started giving a class in which there were men who had been kollel fellows since forever. “Kollel fellows since forever” meaning they had gone through the whole kollel track from the beginning, and they sat in my class. And these were not people who wasted their time. But these were people who learned and drank a cup of coffee—I’m saying, and by the way it’s perfectly fine to drink a cup of coffee, I’m not in favor of that hysteria that every minute has to… that gets you nowhere, except collapse. But these were people who learn like people doing Daf Yomi. They just do it all day in kollels. And they’re not wasting time; I’m not talking about people who waste time. They learn fine—this way, that way, nice, move on. It doesn’t accumulate. It was already clear to me—I can see people like that at age 22 or 23 and tell you: nothing will come of them. Even in another fifty years. There are almost no returnees in this world. I mean returnees in the sense of changing one’s path, such that you can’t tell at age 22 what they’ll be at age 50. There are almost none. Usually I can tell you this. There are always exceptions, always exceptions, all kinds of people. But usually I can tell you this. There are people you can see can grow, and there are people where you can see—it’s a waste of time. You have nothing to do here. It’s a shame for you and a shame for all of us.
Here you see people learning like that—not for this. There isn’t that drive. You always need drive, you need storminess. You need to want to become great in Torah. For honor and for people to recognize you—yes, yes, for that too. Yes, there’s no way around it. You need some kind of drive. Nice righteous people—nothing comes out of them. Usually. These are all generalizations, of course. There are exceptions here and there. But usually, nothing comes out of mere righteousness. The Talmud says that after the Men of the Great Assembly abolished the evil inclination, they couldn’t find a single hen’s egg in all the Land of Israel. Yes, they prayed that the inclination for sexual immorality would be nullified, and they couldn’t find a single hen’s egg in all the Land of Israel. What does that mean? Without inclination, nothing is created. The word for inclination is related to creation—without inclination, nothing gets created. The evil inclination is one of the most important tools we have. Freud already pointed this out. Even if he said a lot of nonsense, I’m saying this basic principle, I think, is very true: that desire is the most basic drive for creation; without it there is nothing. Why is the creative artistic world such an instinctual world? Because these are people with great drives. But people with great drives are the ones who go far.
[Speaker B] The greater a person is than his fellow…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right, and that’s completely true. Not mysticism and not charms and nothing like that. Completely true. Okay, that’s what I wanted to say.