Conflicted on Kollel

I have started a post on this topic more than a few times, and sent it to the trash bin every time. But after a particularly vociferous debate on the topic with a close friend this week, I am resolved to finally write a post about the elephants sitting in the living rooms of so many in the Orthodox world.

Kollel.

Everyone knows the drill. It happens to parents in all walks of Orthodox life. You send your kids off for the obligatory year of learning in Israel, and they come back with the loftiest of intentions: to spend the rest of their life learning in Kollel, or married to someone who is. More and more yeshiva students are approaching their parents with this life plan to immerse themselves in full-time Torah learning, and many are doing so with the expectation - or at least the hope - that their parents will support them in this endeavor.

Ostensibly, parents who raised their children in the Orthodox Yeshiva system should be ecstatic at the fact that their offspring are internalizing all they were taught about the value of learning Torah. But the reality of the situation is that there is such a mass of young men and women embracing the Torah lifestyle due to the enthusiastic endorsements of their Rabbis and teachers, that this trend, while being a very encouraging sign of how much the learning of Torah is valued in the Orthodox world, is simultaneously creating a very worrisome situation.

On the one hand, I agree that it is wonderful that the younger Orthodox generation, even with all the talk of the growing numbers that are going "off the derech", or abandoning an Orthodox lifestyle, are embracing a fad that encourages more affiliation with Orthodoxy, instead of less. And by all rights, these young idealists should be correct in their expectations that their parents and other wealthy community members have somewhat of a Torah obligation to help support those who spend their days in the pursuit of Torah learning. Doesn't everyone learn in elementary school about the partnership between Yissachar and Zevulun? I know I did.

But that biblical partnership becomes much harder to strive for when parents who have worked hard their whole lives to ensure financial security for themselves and their families in the face of raising their children in today's age of astronomical costs of Yeshiva tuition, kosher food, and living in an Orthodox neighborhood, are asked by their children to help support them in a Kollel lifestyle. Many parents simply cannot afford the added expense of supporting another family - especially a family that grows as fast as a young Kollel family is wont to do. It becomes even more impossible when parents who have many children find themselves in the position of having one grown child after another approach them to ask them for assistance. There are many parents who can and do support their children in this lifestyle, even if it means giving up their own hard-earned material comfort and financial security. I have even heard of a father who is supporting a few married children who are learning in Kollel, to the point that he was forced to push off his own retirement, and with it, his own dreams of learning full-time. To these parents, I say Kol HaKavod. May they reap the rewards that the support of learning Torah brings. But what of the parents who simply cannot afford to do so? What of parents that are not willing to endure hardship to do it?

Unfortunately, the Charedi Yeshiva world has so embraced this lifestyle "choice", that it becomes less and less of a "choice" every day. Whereas in the past learning in Kollel full-time was reserved for the very brilliant, the exceptionally dedicated, or the wealthy, these distinctions no longer seem to exist. The Kollel lifestyle is becoming more and more de rigueur of a career choice for young men and women in the Yeshiva community. Which again, is something I have no trouble viewing as an altruistic ideal that embodies true Avodat Hashem. But I also view the fact that the pressure in the Yeshiva world is so high to reject working for a living in favor of learning full-time, as extremely dangerous. How is this ever-increasing lifestyle choice going to remain sustainable for the Yeshiva community? Yeshiva tuition is already almost unaffordable for the working family that is living on an average salary - how are the Yeshivas going to fill in the ever-widening gap that is going to continue to grow as fewer and fewer families are making the money that allows them to foot their full share of tuition? And even the children of the wealthy are putting theselves in a potentially precarious position when they forego any sort of professional training to remain in the kollel world. It is not unheard of for people with the greatest of financial security to suddenly find themselves in a much less assured position. What of their children, who can rely on them for support no longer, but yet have no marketable skills if forced by circumstances to go out and (gasp) find a job?

This trend has also created major issue in the shidduch world. Whereas people in the Yeshiva community have always been known to "check out" prospective matches for their children ad absurdum, now an entirely new category of requirements has emerged. A young woman is considered an extremely desirable prospect if (in addition to her other attributes - such as wanting only a "learning boy") her parents can afford to support a future son-in-law "in learning" indefinitely. Of course, the shidduch world is (not too shockingly) a man's world, so a young man of less than expansive means is never considered anything less than desirable if he is considered a "good learner". But a young woman with less than expansive means will either have to snag the prize of a wealthy young learning man (not an easy task), or give up on the Kollel ideal that all of her friends are likely aspiring to. Which of course brings up the obvious question. Twenty or so years down the line, when all of these Kollel couples have children who are reaching marriageable age, who in the world is going to support them if they choose a similar lifestyle?

I am not willing to say that the Kollel lifestyle should be abandoned. Too much of our tradition is tied up in the pursuit of learning Torah at all costs.

But I believe I've raised some serious questions here about the present and future economic health of the Yeshiva community in the face of this trend. I also worry about the cost to the self-worth and emotional well-being of prospective singles who don't quite fit in with the wave of Kollel conformity that is sweeping the Yeshiva world.

I wish I had answers.