Photo by Hagai Fried in Haaretz-An employment fair for the Haredi community
I have always been befuddled by the kollel lifestyle. Growing up in a secular home, I was raised to believe that the husband was the breadwinner for the family. Even in my day, the idea was becoming outmoded, and the trend was that husbands and wives shared the burden of earning a living. However, my parents were an older generation than most of my friend’s parents, and this was how they were raised.
Even though I always knew I wanted to attend college and have a career, it was still ingrained in me that my husband would be the steady financial provider throughout our marriage. However, we have taken turns throughout our marriage for being the main breadwinner. In general, women make less money than men do. The first few years of our marriage, when my husband was still in school, were lean years indeed. Despite our initial hardships, we always looked forward to the day when my husband would graduate, and begin to earn a decent wage.
The kollel lifestyle is one where the husband is not expected to financially provide for his family. Rather, he will spiritually provide for them by sitting in a beis medrash and learning full time for the rest of his life. His wife’s parnassah (salary), parental assistance, and in some cases, government assistance will be expected to provide for the financial and material needs of the family. This way of life has become more popular as the orthodox community becomes more haredi. It creates a system of continuous poverty that necessitates these large families having to ask for tzedaka from their families, friends, communities, and the government.
Of course, there are superstars in the torah world who should be sitting and learning. Men who have an aptitude and interest in devoting their lives to torah study deserve the opportunity. However, not everyone is cut out to be a scholar. For those best suited for the workforce, they would receive more merit for providing for their families and giving tzedaka to others with their earnings, than hanging around the coffee urn and being a bench warmer.
As I said earlier, it is hard for me to understand why any woman would want to enter into this kind of marriage. The burden of child bearing, child rearing, homemaking, working, and bill paying is almost incomprehensible. There is a website that gave me some insight into the minds of young women in shidduchim who are looking for “learners.” The site is called aptly enough, In Shidduchim. It is a forum for girls in the same “parsha,” who are looking to get married.
The girls on the site seem so young and innocent. They seem to have seen so little of the world – particularly the world of men. They also seem to play such a passive role in the matchmaking game. It seems that the boys have so many dates to choose from, while the girls seem to have much fewer options. It seems there is a rush of girls lining up to support a kollel husband for life. The girls are relegated to sitting at home and hoping the shadchan calls with match. Sometimes the phone doesn’t ring for months.
Because the shidduch process moves so quickly, there is pressure to determine if they want to marry a boy after only one date. Marriage being such a monumental decision, girls are constantly doubting their own judgement. If they say no to another date with the boy because they didn’t feel a “spark,” it is entirely possible that they will have passed up their last opportunity for marriage. Boys don’t need to think that way, because there is always a healthy line of marital candidates in their dating queue.
Most of the girls on the In Shidduchim site are looking for kollel guys. Rich or poor, most of these girls want full time learners. They are fresh from seminaries that teach them that the greatest merit a woman can earn is to support a torah scholar. All the merit he earns, she will earn as well for being his aizer kenegdo (helpmate). Some of these girls have fathers who are kollel guys, but many have working fathers. They don’t know what it is to live in poverty with all the burden of supporting a family on your shoulders. The kollel life is a romantic fantasy of being in love with a talmud chachum, living in the heart of an ultra orthodox community with other young married kollel couples, and raising lots of Jewish babies – all on a teacher’s salary.
Young men and women are being indoctrinated at a fast pace that the kollel life is the only life for a torah true Jew. Even young men and women who grew up in working families are adopting this mindset. I think that Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s proposed “budget of hope” is not going to have the effect he anticipates if implemented. He believes that cuts in government spending will move Israel from a “culture of stipends to a culture of work.” He has no idea what he is up against.
If anything, Lapid’s plan will make those in the kollel movement dig their heels in even more. For them, this is a war on torah Judaism. They truly believe they are protecting the people of Israel as well as Jews everywhere with their learning – and maybe about 10% of them are. Most people have a hard time getting motivated to go to work in the morning when it is expected of them. If your wife, your parents, your friends, your neighbors, and your rabbi were all telling you shouldn’t even think about working a job, that it actually is a sin to work – would you be compelled to rebel?
Practically speaking, Lapid’s proposed budget cuts for child allowance programs are going to hurt the main haredi population who are working – the women! Without the child allowance subsidies, many women might not be able to afford childcare to go to work. These women, financially speaking, are like single mothers. Yes, some might have parental help, but as we are getting into second and third generations of kollel lifestyle families, previous generations are as broke as the next.
So many kollel wives are struggling with the herculean task of working while raising large families. It is the children and women who will suffer under these cutbacks. I don’t know of a way to “punish” the men into the workforce without punishing their wives and children too. All I do know, is that ultra orthodox women should not be lumped into the same category as their men. Women are workers, and it would be nice if Lapid made that distinction.
