Q&A: Haredim + Torah Study for Women + Change in Jewish Law
Haredim + Torah Study for Women + Change in Jewish Law.
Question
Hello Dr. Michael Abraham, I am a Haredi young woman and I have a few questions for you:
- You argued on the site against the Haredim that they live at the expense of the state treasury. I couldn’t understand: every person has the right to choose to live in greater poverty if he wants. Why haven’t we heard similar claims from you about all the Ethiopians who (generally speaking) also earn very little, and sometimes their education is enough only to barely open a grocery store. In addition, before the state treasury is hurt by this, the first ones harmed are the Haredim themselves. So maybe I can understand calling it foolishness, but wickedness?
- I’m very distressed by my ignorance in the Talmud and I’m looking to fill in the gaps. I looked a bit into women’s study programs, but from what I can tell they are all shallow and don’t come anywhere near the level of study in yeshivas. Do you know of an institution for Gemara study for women at a reasonable level, one that aims at understanding the Talmud and not presenting it from a “feminine angle” for the participants’ comfort?! Or am I doomed to remain in my ignorance?
- I understood that you support changing Jewish law. My question to you is: based on what do you decide what can be changed and what cannot? The criterion obviously cannot be how much a certain law bothers us. Thank you very much—from me.
Answer
- Anyone can live in poverty, but he shouldn’t throw himself onto the shoulders of the public. Let him remain poor. And here we’re talking not only about an economic burden but also a security burden, a medical burden, and many others. They receive all these services from the surrounding society. If the Haredim bore the costs of their choice, I would keep quiet. But they do not. They impose the costs on others. Besides, the Haredim chose this path as a group and not as isolated individuals, and therefore there is more room to criticize them. I do not know any Ethiopian who chose to be poor.
- Yes. Yeshivat Derisha in Kfar Etzion. There is also the women’s study hall in Migdal Oz. There are frameworks for Haredi women as well, and you can ask Tehila Gado, who teaches Gemara to Haredi women. Only just now I saw an interview by Esti Shushan with a Haredi woman who also says that she studies Gemara (I don’t know in what framework).
- It’s hard to lay it out here. This is a whole doctrine that I have expanded on in several places. The main thing is in my book Moves Among the Standing. There you will find a full and detailed theory of change.
Discussion on Answer
Indeed, according to the data there are more Ethiopians with academic degrees, but Haredim earn more on average. And the discussion here was not about academic degrees but about money. You don’t cook food for children with academic degrees. In addition, I did not smear anyone (unlike you), but simply presented the facts as they are. And the proper term is “Haredi woman,” not the other form you used.
Hey, Haredi woman,
Again, I don’t know what you’re basing those numbers on. Also, what does it mean that Haredim earn more? Out of those who work? Because only 50% of Haredi men work, and many of the rest are supported by state benefits. According to the Kohelet Forum, 90% of the Haredi public draw more money from the state than they contribute. I have no idea what the number is among Ethiopians; I assume it’s lower.
What is this playing innocent about a degree?! An academic degree opens up more options and presumably raises the standard of living. An upward trend in this area will also be reflected in higher wages and greater productivity for the state.
The difference between Haredim and other groups is that Haredim sanctify poverty and ignorance, whereas in other communities poverty is simply the default.
One last thing: the Haredim have a constant birth rate, they control centers of power, the Knesset members know the numbers and ignore the problem (I say this from personal knowledge and acquaintance). They are already 14% of the population, and with such a parasitic lifestyle the state will not survive. This is on the level of an existential danger to the state.
You can also say “Haredi woman” in the other form. Relax.
Hello Eli,
1. You can play with the data endlessly and present it in a way that flatters either Ethiopians or Haredim, as whoever-it-was said, “Nature will confess to anything if only you torture it enough.” I’m not interested in who is more and who is less. My claim was that one has no right to come at a person over his choice to live in poverty, and therefore I brought Ethiopians as an example, since at present they live in poverty and I have not heard any complaints against them. And despite what Michi said, I still do not understand how one can accuse the Haredim of immorality. If there were a sector in Israel that decided the teaching profession was a supreme value and educated its children to engage only in that, at the expense of medicine, security, and so on, I would accept your deciding not to fund them because it does not contribute to your state—but to come with claims that they are immoral? Every person chooses a profession according to his ideology and what suits his way of life. The Haredi person values career less, sees family as the supreme value in his life, and prefers a Haredi workplace in order to preserve his way of life. For these reasons he indeed contributes less to security and the economy. But it is ridiculous to attribute immorality to that.
2. Regarding a degree—you are right.
3. Haredim do not sanctify poverty or ignorance; they simply value career and general knowledge less. And there is a difference.
4. You claim that if the Haredim multiply, that will be an existential danger to the state. That is an interesting claim. In everything related to Ethiopians, you are willing to be very optimistic: they will study, the numbers are rising. So first of all—there is also an upward trend in the Haredi public, slow but real. Second—suppose the Haredim are an existential danger to the state. So what then? Every ideological group imposes costs on the rest of society, and you have no right to demand that it change its ideology because of that. And if I think the political left is an existential danger to the state, in your opinion do I have the right to demand that they change their ideology, or at least show some consideration for the rest of the population and have fewer children?
5. True, you can also say it that way.
You’re beating a dead horse. Everything was explained above, and the rest is just typical Haredi stubbornness.
Not everything was explained. You argued that it is immoral for a group of people to leave the economic burden on the rest of the public, and I answered that every public has the right to choose how to work according to its ideology, even if that places a burden on the other groups (for example, groups for whom teaching is a supreme value). (And the Rabbi has the right to decide that this does not contribute and not to fund their institutions.)
Haredi woman, what are you basing your data on regarding Ethiopians? There are statistics from the Central Bureau of Statistics, and about a third of young Ethiopians are doing a bachelor’s degree (a quarter of them at universities), and the trend is still continuing. There is also wage growth. There’s still more to do, but at least they show a trend of improvement, unlike the Haredim.
Haredim will smear every other group and their women, as long as it helps justify their parasitism.