Kollel Guy Seeking Career Advice

Definitely would first need a degree in PT.

Why are you being mean?

Perhaps he agrees with Yisroel Besser and Eitan Kobre of the Mishpacha, who have stated it is a tragedy for anyone to leave learning. According to them, the only reason why you are leaving is because you haven’t put in enough Amailus in your learning and haven’t Davened with enough Kavannah.

I would recommend reading “48 days to the work you love” by “Dan Miller. It will really help you clarify the right job fit and practical ways to apply for the job.

most economically savvy option: Take a semester or so worth of courses online from your local community college. Must be courses for general education credits. English 101, math, psychology, biology.

then go to Touro…

you can pay me $500 an hour to be plumber or electrician etc… i still wouldn’t be successful cause i don’t enjoy doing these things.

I’d take it and spend 200 a week on therapy until I liked it.

gavra_at_work: the reason I apologized so profusely for being so mean is because I realized that he must be feeling really bad that he is leaving work, and he knows a kollel guy shouldn’t really be looking in to careers.

Enjoying a job is one of those rare things that everyone wants but most of the time you only get paid for doing things that are not enjoyable.

. . . I realized that he must be feeling really bad that he is leaving work [sic], and he knows a kollel guy shouldn’t really be looking in to careers.

(I assume you meant to write that he feels bad because he’s leaving kollel to work.)

This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read in the CR, and that’s saying a lot.

I was in yeshiva for high school then in BM for a number of years. I knew I wasn’t gonna be there forever, my heart just wasn’t in it. So I enrolled in Touro and now I B”H have a successful career developing mobile apps.

I’ve spoken with my friends who come from similar backgrounds and the common denominator that I’ve seen is that when one is in yeshiva/kollel they aren’t aware of the career options available. A close friend of mine is in college now for mechanical engineering and he loves it. When he was in yeshiva (then kollel) he never dreamed of loving calculus and thermodynamics, but now that he’s been exposed to options he chose one that he enjoys.

So my advice to you would be along the lines of Frozen’s comment above. Enrole in Touro and take some basic level courses to see what you like. Once you’ve found a topic that you enjoy, figure out what are some career options in that field.

Under no circumstances should you ‘settle’ for a career that you dislike. It is ok to temporarily work at a subpar job, but always know that you are working towards a career that you want. You will be spending 40+ hours a week at your job and it will become miserable very quickly if you don’t like what you are doing. Trust me, it’s not worth it. I left a great job because the work environment was toxic and it was affecting me on my off time.

@RebYid Anyone can work at a job they love. I think the hardest part is to figure out what you love. Once you know that make a plan to get there and do it. The path may not be easy, but if you want something you have to work hard for it.

To all the people posting negative or unhelpful remarks:

This person has a serious life question and you have no place ridiculing him or posting nonsense comments. None of you know his situation and have no right to judge. Many people today have this dilemma and I’m sure there are others reading this thread. Please try to be helpful and understanding.

To all the people posting negative or unhelpful remarks:

To all those who are the slightest bit critical of the questioner

I only noticed one, and it’s not the first troll comment from that poster.

There might be some here in the CR.

I heard of a yeshiva guy who was trying to decide what profession he should study. His rebbe asked which masechta he most enjoyed learning. He said Eruvin. His rebbe advised him to become an architect.

The modern-day kollel system is a phenomenon in Jewish history. In the past, people worked and learned. The system is unsustainable and those currently learning full time won’t have the funds to provide a similar lifestyle for the next generation. So, Big Boy, your comment is not helpful. The original poster is right to pursue a career to help support himself and a family. If not him, then who?

FLATBUSHER

“In the past people learned and worked”

That is not what the original poster said he wishes to do. He said he wants to “move on” AKA leave learning

You should definitely go into real estate.

It worked for me, I’m really rich.

Why would you ask people who spend their days in CR for career advice?

( just a thought)

As far as guys learning and then going into the working world later- this isn’t always “just as good” as going out to work younger, or at an age more comparable with the rest of the world.

My dad works for a large financial institution which has hired (over the 20+ years he’s worked there) many, many frum people in his department. Nearly all of them were hired before their 30th birthdays, and most of those were more than ten years ago. His job is hi-tech, and companies don’t want guys in their thirties in those sorts of jobs. They barely want the seasoned older guys who at least have experience, forget about the ones who are straight out of a quickie program. It’s all about youth in the industry, especially as you can get even younger and even cheaper employees in India. It’s nearly impossible to get a job in that kind of a company now straight out of a degree program above age 24-25, and it shows in the frum population at the company. While I can only give first-hand information about my dad’s company, he says that many of his friends say the same about their fields.

In addition, every year you work technically translates to more money you are worth. If you have two thirty-five-year-old men working at the same company in the same position, but one’s been doing it for two years and one’s been doing it for eight, the one doing it longer is getting paid more. He’s also going to be promoted first. All of that is money that is sorely needed in this ridiculously expensive frum society, and holding people back from the workforce is depriving them of years that could really help the financial securities of the wives and families for whom they signed a kesuba promising to support.

People have been saying that the kollel system has been predicted to die and has still survived, but it survives only through brute strength. It is ripping up homes and causing shalom bayis problems and agmas nefesh, both among beleaguered parents and parents-in-law who overextend themselves to support their children beyond their means or among the married children themselves who either are thrust into the world of kollel without fully understanding the sacrifice or are supported on an artificial, unsupportably high standard of living and then can’t sustain it once they are no longer being “helped.”

I think that kollel is a wonderful idea. I would have no problem if my future husband were to choose that lifestyle, as long as first we had a frank discussion about it and how we would support ourselves, with no expectations from society as far as standards or our parents as far as money (beyond, should it be the case, what they should choose to give). Just like so many things in the frum community, it is once it turned into a “system” (like the shidduch system, the seminary system, etc) that it turned sour.

(Wow. I’ve been gone from here too long. That felt good. 🙂 )

I’m not saying they do- I’m saying the kollel system intrinsically has the power to introduce a form of marital stress. I’m not saying that when you weigh all forms of stress in a kollel family and in a working family, the kollel family will for certain have more- I’m just saying that, independent of other variables, having either a steady income or a sustainable and realistic idea of how to live are decently good ideas to help shalom bayis. Other random family-by-family things will always be present, but this is just something that I’ve seen in people. (I’ve also seen kollel people who are super happy, but these are usually the kind of people who would have moved to Lakewood in 1960- they want the lifestyle for what it is, not because it’s what everyone else is doing. That is a pretty big part of my argument.)

Big Boy, I didn’t get the impression that poster wanted to give up learning altogether. There are plenty of people who work and have chavrusa, chaburuas, reguar shiurim, etc. As for those who think the system is sustainable, well unless they are waiting for their inlaws and parents to kick off and leave a yerusha, where will they get the money to support their kids who want to sit and learn if they themselves are not making a living on their own?

“I’m saying the kollel system intrinsically has the power to introduce a form of marital stress…”

I would imagine that having the wife be the family breadwinner while the husband sits and learns could upset family dynamics in unforeseen ways.

To those who think the kollel system is unsustainable, I ask two questions:

1) How has it lasted until now and why do think that will change?

2) If you’re correct, should it change anyone’s life choices?

DY, I’m not sure you’re reading what I say. I’m saying that financial security can help shalom bayis and financial insecurity can hurt it. That’s not rocket science. What people choose to do with that information, and whether or not that is mitigated by other factors, is each family’s business. The fact is that I know many families where, either as supporters or supportees, they are indeed adversely affected. Many, such as some of my cousins, are not.

If you look at the discussion points in the frum community now, you can see that many of them are related, some more or less directly than others, to the kollel system: shidduchim (girls not finding shidduchim without clear statements of support), entitledness (among many peer-pressure kollel couples), tuition (in a community where, as I said in my last post, people are losing valuable years and percentages of income by entering the workforce later), huge amounts of money expected to be spent by parents on their own kollel children. I’d say that these are the cracks in the facade of the kollel system- a phenomenon which I thought I took pains to separate from the institution of kollel itself, which I think is a wonderful thing. The kollel system is only 15-20 years old, and around now is its moment of reckoning. It is a system where what you do depends on what yenem does to an absurd degree. It is a system where nobody will change anything unless there is a community-wide move- if you can’t afford a fancy chasunah, don’t go shouting from the rooftops for takanos or gvirim to support, make a cheaper chasunah.

I’ll be thrilled if I marry the kind of man who would want to learn in kollel. I refuse, however, to buy into a system which suppresses individual choice and which is drowning the community under the force of its own demands.

Tell me what positive aspects do you like best, Daas Yachid? The lakewood method where mothers and fathers transports their infants from one baby sitter to another at a very early age so that Tatty doesn’t have to work and Mommy can’t stay home to raise her kids?

Flatbusher & those with that mentality:

Are your similarly opposed to two working parents, if that means the mother won’t be home with the children?

Or is the vitriol only reserved for Kollel?