Q&A: A “great rabbi” said that a principal who moves to the State Haredi system will lose his share in the World to Come. Is that serious?
A “great rabbi” said that a principal who moves to the State Haredi system will lose his share in the World to Come. Is that serious?
Question
I saw that they published a statement by a certain “great rabbi” saying that a principal who moves to the State Haredi school system loses his share in the World to Come.
Is that serious?
Should one be concerned about what he says?
By the way, this is not the first time I’ve seen that the words of that same great rabbi, and how well they fit wisdom and reality, do not always go together.
Does that change the picture?
Answer
Is this a troll? If he isn’t great, then he isn’t great. What exactly is the question? There are quite a few people who possess a lot of Torah and very little judgment. And the Sages already said: any Torah scholar who lacks judgment—even a carcass is better than he is. As for the matter itself, I don’t know the background and I haven’t seen the statement, so I can’t express an opinion.
About everything people say, “he loses his share in the World to Come.” Usually it’s an expression with no real substance, or a way to scare people so they’ll obey or won’t treat commandments lightly. Usually it’s based on nothing, and there isn’t a single source that can support it.
In this case, if his issue is specifically with core curriculum studies, then there is actually more reason to be concerned with what Maimonides says—that philosophical and scientific inquiry is essential for attaining the World to Come.