tzippi – thanks for the comment – by “low paying professions” I did mean klai kodesh kollel, chinuch, etc, but I do feel that what I said equally applies to making a decision about lower paying professions that have nothing to do with yahadus. I was not making judgments, nor bashing kollel/klai kodesh, etc, ch’v, just making an observation of reality and I hope my words were carefully chosen so as not to seem so. I meant that a person should probably stop and think if they really can accustom themselves to the lifestyle that they probably will need to lead. If you truly can do that that is a sacrifice of gashmius that should be looked to for chizuk. But when making that decision I think people need to be careful and intellectually honest with themselves, that’s all.
Oomis1105 – thanks. I am not trying to pass judgment about those who are on any form of welfare – we US taxpayers have made a social decision to allow these programmes to exist to help those who find themselves in in need. Its making a conscious decision TO ENTER a lifestyle or profession by saying “oh, well i can always dip into welfare” that I feel is wrong.
Joseph- I will preface my comment on you post by saying that I am not really a “flamer” when it comes to blogging or forum posting. Having said that, I do not appreciate the tone of sarcasm in your post. I have some very passionate feelings about this topic but tried to bend as far backwards as I could in presenting my thoughts on the matter in a tone and with language that would be the least offensive or misconstrued. I am a human being, with failings, and may have let passion get the better of me in previous posts, but I tried hard in this post to do better. I probably wasn’t 100% successful in this regard, but I tried pretty hard. You obviously jumped to a conclusion from a screen name, then read the post with an obviously strong agenda. It appears as if you may have zoomed through the entire post before zeroing in on what you perceive to be a slight on our gedolim and manhigim, but missed something that I wrote that could be particularly salient to your point of concern: “This is something that is a very serious matter and should be of grave concern (unless it already is)…” There’s a reason why I wrote that at the very beginning. I’ve been a ‘lurker’ here for some time and noticed in your posts that jumping to a conclusion a little prematurely because of an agenda seems to be somewhat of a signature. I don’t think that’s a fair way to engage in debate nor is it, in due respect, a fair way to respond to fellow Jews. Why do you feel the urge to be combative? And, given my inference from your post that gedolim have come up with answers, HAVE our manhigim said anything yet (and I DO NOT mean this to be critical, just an innocent question) – is it a BAD thing for manhigim to take any input at all from the klal????? I’m sitting here scratching my head while trying to figure out what exactly prompted the tone and wording of your response.