“An aversion to secular studies is one of the defining practical characteristics of charedi Jewry today. IT is not something that always existed.”
My point is that an aversion to secular studies is not one of the “defining characteristics of chareidi Jewry today.”
I don’t even think it’s a characteristic of Chareidi Judaism at all. A desire to remain unaffected by secular influence is a defining characteristic of Chareidi Judaism. Likewise, a desire that boys not be mevatel Torah is a defining characteristic of Chareidi Judaism.
Someone can be very into secular learning and consider himself Chareidi and be part of the Chareidi world and no one would say, “He’s not Chareidi because he is into secular learning”.
“what I meant was that you were right in identifying a change in charedi Judaism (kudos to you, many will insist it was always this way)”
I should just qualify my original post by saying that my knowledge of history is lacking, and I was making an assumption based on various things I’ve heard, but I really don’t know what was going on in pre-haskala times.
I also didn’t necessarily mean to compare to pre-haskala times per se’ – I just meant that during the haskala and then later, during zionist times, some of the attitudes were based on trying to stay away from haskala or zionistic influence. But I can’t really compare to the attitudes towards secular learning in prior times, since I know nothing about what was going on then.
If you are talking about college education, I don’t think that Frum Jews were attending college 500 years ago. And if you are talking about informal secular education, most Chareidim are not against that. I went to Chareidi schools and lived in Chareidi communities, and I was always taught to value secular education, and most people I know think that knowledge is a very valuable thing. Of course, it shouldn’t be at the expense of Torah or Torah hashkafa, but that is something else.
“He wasn’t against Michlalah because of the secular studies.”
“Have you read it? I’ll be happy to provide quotes later.”
Not recently, and I may not have read the same ones that you read. I think he has several. It certainly wasn’t the only reason he was against Michlalah. For one thing, you can go to Michlalah and not study secular studies. Also, what I think I remember was something about the way they teach Limudei Kodesh. In any case, I’d be happy to see it.