n0mesorah:
The implied accusation is that too high a percentage of entrants to kolle are doing so because of a trend or style. Our hope that they are engaging in Torah Lishmoh is wishful thinking. It simply doesn’t “paas” for many to go directly to work. “He’s nebach a working boy.” Yet, no one utters a single disappointing word about someone that makes himself into a public expense. I’m not against kollelim. We all did that. But our contemplation about career needs to have been initiated in our teen years. For some who are a good fit for it, full time learning is the direction. For most, it is not.
I once observed that we recite the posuk, ועמך כולם צדיקים. We do not utter ועמך כולם רבנים, nor do we proclaim ועמך כולם חכמים. Those without the erudition in Torah can still be tzaddikim. I know that chassidus had as one of its original tenets the kedusha of the simple Yid who would sustain himself with daily work, perhapos without the scholarship in Torah, but performed mitzvos with devotion and ehrlichkeit. I do not consider a kollel yungerman better than a working boy. Each is fulfilling their takkid. The caste system that labels the honest working boy who does his tafkid as somehow “less than” is missing the point. Did Yaakov Avinu bless his children with various forms of parnosoh, with only Yissachar designated to be the learner? And in most psukim, we find Zevulun mentioned before Yissachar, his older brother.
So if we make it unfashionable to work, we have women doing anything possible to earn a dollar so that the husband/father gets to spend the day in kollel. It cannot not exist. But this as a style is not healthy for the Klal. הרבה עשו כרבי שמעון ולא עלתה בידם.