חדש באתר: עוזר בינה מלאכותית המבוסס על כתביו ושיעוריו של הרב מיכאל אברהם

Q&A: A Degree Protects and Saves

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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

A Degree Protects and Saves

Question

Hello, honorable Rabbi. I saw in the Talmud in Nedarim [32a]: why was Abraham punished so that his descendants went down to Egypt? There it says: because he pressed Torah scholars into service and took them out to wage war with him against the four kings, as it is written, “and he armed his trained men” — meaning that he emptied them out from Torah. And here the son asks: A. How does God expect Abraham, even before the giving of the Torah, to arrive on his own at such a deep understanding of today’s Haredi outlook — that Torah protects and saves? After all, if today, in the year 5786, Abraham (Michael), thousands of years after the giving of the Torah, after this has been written in countless places, still cannot digest such an insight, then how could God expect the Abraham of that time to reach such an insight?? B. Why didn’t Abraham answer God that these were hesder yeshiva students who do both, and not regular yeshiva students? It may sound a bit cynical and funny, but these are real questions with a somewhat joking flavor.

Answer

A. Instead of asking how Abraham failed to bring me in as supporting evidence, ask why he didn’t bring all the halakhic and Talmudic sources.
B. Abraham went to war to save a relative of his. Are my life circumstances easier than his relative’s life? All the more so since apparently his relative also was not in mortal danger. On what grounds would he take me away from my studies to fight? In our case we’re talking about a war over all our lives. What does one have to do with the other? So objection A is resolved.
C. Where exactly do you see there that Torah protects and saves? Even if we don’t distinguish between Abraham’s war to save his relative and a war to save all of us — did anyone tell him that his relative would be saved without war by virtue of the learning? True, this whole principle is invented out of thin air, so you’re allowed to invent it here too.
D. Aside from the obligation, would there have been a desecration of God’s name there if they had not gone out?
E. Were those learners supported financially by Abraham? If so, then all the more so he was permitted to send them out, or to stop supporting them if they decide to devote themselves to Torah at his expense.
F. And we haven’t even talked about pressing into service Haredim who don’t learn, in which case Abraham certainly did not sin, Heaven forbid.
G. Now ask yourself why Abraham himself went out and didn’t stay in kollel. (After all, he certainly was a kollel avrekh whose Torah was his profession, and not just some Religious Zionist type or secular person, Heaven forbid. This requires further study. By the way, the state supported him quite nicely with all his cattle and sheep and camels. The kollel stipend there was excellent.
H. And all this is even if we take an obscure midrash that comes to convey some message through aggadah as a historical and halakhic source. I’m sure Abraham and those sharp young fellows in his kollel discussed this topic at length (when they weren’t going out to demonstrations against the state that doesn’t give them enough camels and doesn’t get itself killed enough for them).
I. And after all that, ask yourself how you yourself didn’t think of all the simple-as-an-egg arguments I wrote here. Perhaps the learning in your kollel is not really on such a high Torah level as one finds in hesder yeshivot? Or perhaps you too are busy dying in the tent of Torah (and not enlisting) instead of learning? By the way, apropos of Torah protects and saves: you can see it plainly. No Haredi in kollel who learns Torah has died in this war. A real tangible faith in the Torah outlook of the eyes of the congregation, who decree and the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills. Fortunate are we, that every single moment we are stringent not to fall into forced labor (though a bit less stringent about actually being Torah scholars and not talking nonsense).

Discussion on Answer

Israel (2025-11-17)

I can’t manage to understand where the decision about the religious view in this issue comes from, as if what sources do we really have in such quantity? Because desecration of God’s name and saving lives are two things where we can always say: obviously, if all the Haredim weren’t learning and were engaged, say, in medicine, lives would be saved — and all the same, throughout all the years Judaism always had people who studied. And also regarding desecration of God’s name, for example, there’s that gentile who said about Rava that he was reckless, but clearly that caused a desecration of God’s name (I don’t have a specific situation in mind right now, but I assume you would agree with that).

Israel (2025-11-17)

In my opinion, the problem in my eyes is not on the religious side; it’s on the human side.

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