Q&A: Study
Study
Question
Hello Rabbi, if a person loves to study and become wiser, and doesn’t have any particular inclination toward a specific field, is it preferable for him to invest his energy in Torah study or in studying some secular profession or other?
Answer
I didn’t understand the question. It’s like asking: should a person who has no particular inclination to help others invest his time in making money, or help others? In any case, the question isn’t defined, because what does it mean to invest his time? How much time? It’s not as if all of one’s time goes to a single goal.
Discussion on Answer
As I said, the question isn’t well-defined. Are you asking what he should do with the main part of his time—what his profession should be? That’s not connected only to the question of what is more important, but also to the obligation to earn a living, the need to acquire a general education, and the obligation to study Torah. Each person should make his own balance among all these. That’s it, I’ve exhausted the point.
The question is: what would you advise a person who loves studying—to study Torah his whole life, as a kollel scholar, or perhaps to pursue another field of study as a profession (a doctorate in some subject, or medicine, and so on and so on)?
Hope that’s clearer.