Why do working people tend to not be as ruchniyus as Kollel people?

to give people here a chance to….

Are you referring to balebatim, working b’nei Torah, or both?

(Should posterity be unaware, >this thread< was active at the time.)

this is unfortunately true but dont forget that there has to be special people who will get the zechus of supporting them like the 2 shivatim one supported the other learnt.

I work. I also keep halacha and make time to learn Torah. My parents work. They also keep halacha and make time to learn Torah. My grandparents work. They also keep halacha and make time to learn Torah. Please explain how we are any “less religious” just because we choose to put food on our table instead of relying on assistance from other people?

M.A., we are not supposed to be monks. We are supposed to elevate the material by being active in the world. All of the Tanaim and Amoraim either worked or lived from the rents paid by sharecroppers (which required knowledge of how to deal with them). They dealt with real-life legal problems and discussed psychological insights (e.g. “ain adam meiz panim bifnei baal chovo”). This is the true realtionship of the Jew with Hashem. Thus, when the Bet Mikdash is in place we can bring shelamim and eat them b’kedusha. A goy can only bring an olah, which is completely given over to Hashem.

this is not true. i work to support a husband.

Maybe your assumptions fuel your conclusion.

What does the phrase “not to be as ruchnius” mean?

I think we need to define what the OP means by ruchniyus. Do people have to wear their ruchniyus on their sleeve for others to behold or is it an internal feeling?

Zahavasdad: To qualify, I think “people” is too general. The working wives certainly have to be concerned with these issues unless they happen to have parents that sustain them and fill in for whatever they themselves don’t earn to make ends meet.

To be unconcerned with gashmius seems wrongheaded. Who then is supposed to be concerned with basic needs? For some reason, the current system of wives supporting makes a joke out of the terms of the kesubah. If the husband doesn’t work, how he can he meet his obligations? Obviously, the husband needs to have some gashmius concerns.

This is true you cant judge people who work they may want to learn full time but they need to support their families.

If your definition of ruchniyosdik is hard working then I disagree with the question.

This thread bothers me on many levels, and I believe it was started just for the sake of being controversial (what a shocker!). Kollel people have not cornered the market on ruchniyus. They are no more ruchaniyim (the grammatically correct expression, in the context of how the thread was titled) than any other frum person who is devoted to Torah and Mitzvos.

As a matter of fact, going by the expression that Yom Kippurim is a yom k’Purim, I would tend to believe that the person who earns a living, supports a family by that living, and STILL manages to find a goodly amount of time to learn every day, has fulfilled his ruchniyus quota for that day. It is very easy to think oneself to be filled with ruchniyus when one avoids exposure to ALL aspects of the outside world, sitting in a Bais Medrash all day. But for that same person to still be filled with ruchniyus while exposed to the outside world – well, I have a great deal of respect for that person, because his yetzer hara is that much stronger.

Amichai: “I can not believe you can write something like this.

I know many many balei batim, young and old that have only one

thing they would want to be doing and that is learning.

they are at daf yomi at 5.oo am, then davening.

middle of the day after mincha there are shiurim in offices, maariv

at nite at home and shiurim at nite or daf yomi.

don’t ever say balei batim are not spiritual like kollel avreichim”

Amichai, if they would rather be learning than doing anything else, that means that they think that it is better to learn (if one can). Why do they think that it is better to learn if one can? And why do they try to spend as much time learning as they can? It is because they think that learning makes a person more Ruchnius and the more they learn, the more ruchniusdik they will be. So you have just proven the OP’s point that the more someone learns, the more ruchnius he will be.

Note: That does not necessarily mean he is a better person. Only Hashem can judge who is a better person than who. We do not know and have no way of knowing what people’s bechira levels are, and therefore we can never possibly discuss such a thing. Whenever we talk about someone being better, we can never mean who is a better person in terms of how much they have grown and how much reward Hashem will give them, since we never have any way of knowing such a thing.

We can only talk about who is “more ruchnius” in this world and who has it better in the here and now. The more a person learns (all else being equal), the more ruchniusdik he is. That is why everyone should learn as much as he can (“as much as he can” obviously involves many factors and is very subjective), and should be happy that he has as many opportunities to learn as he does, and be jealous (kinas sofrim) of those who learn more and realize how lucky they are to be able to learn more then him and strive and daven for more opportunities to learn.

GAW – we are only talking about a case where all else is equal, and it shouldn’t have even been necessary to write that. I only wrote that in case there were people who didn’t realize that any time you compare one thing to another thing, you have to assume that everything else is equal or the argument is pointless. It’s like when you are conducting an experiment to compare two things and you have to make sure that everything is equal besides the thing that you are testing (is that the variable? – I can’t remember the scientific terms right now.)

One of the most ruchniyusdik people I know has been involved in Kiruv for over 40 years. He has smicha. He gives regular shiurim. I’ve never known him to say no to a request to participate in an event, a shabbaton, or an urgent need. He gives significant tzedokoh. He is a worldly, knowledgeable well known and beloved where he lives in Toronto, in New York, in Israel and around the world. He does tons of hidden chesed work. And he is always always looking for ways to share his elevated spiritual connection with HKBH.

And he runs a successful private investment fund, full time.

GAW – we are only talking about a case where all else is equal, and it shouldn’t have even been necessary to write that.

So your posts are only on an academic level and are never meant for anyone to apply to real world situations?

In that case….

All else being equal one should learn all day

All else being equal one should do chessed all day

All else being equal one should teach their children Torah themselves

All else being equal one should support their family

All else being equal one should not marry, as it takes away from learning

All else being equal one should marry, as it saves them from the yetzer,

Need I go on?

A better Title for the thread

Only if the purpose was to have a discussion, but not if the purpose is to imply insult, and HAVE a bashing/comparing thread.

Huju – no, only the ones who feel a need to bash the people who are learning Torah all day.

Person1: “My answers to the OP question: there are many people who are in kolel and are complete batlonim and have no yiras shomaim. Just mitvas anoshim melumodo.”

Those are obviously not the people that the OP was referring to. If they are batlanim, they are not “in Kollel” by definition, even if they spend their day hanging out in the Beis. For that matter, you can say that the janitor is in kollel too (that would actually be more accurate than saying that the batlanim are in kollel.). Additionally, they are a minority and should not be brought up in every Kollel discussion in order to make it sound like that is what kollel is about. All Avreichim whom I know are extremely serious masmidim and bnei Torah and bnei aliyah.

“I do agree that there are more gdoylim (in both torah and maasim tovim) to be found inside the kolel than outside. That’s not surprising, because someone who is ben alie will try harder to stay in torah learning.”

That had occurred to me as well. That someone who is a more ruchniyus person to start with is more LIKELY to end up in Kollel (not to imply that there can’t be very Ruchnius people who are working, just talking about probabilities here. After all, someone who has no desire for Ruchnius is a lot less likely to consider going to kollel).

Sparkly – what’s not true?

No one said that there aren’t people who work who are very Ruchniusnik. It was a question of averages. Since it’s a hard thing to measure and can only lead to Sinas Chinam, I don’t know that I agree with the whole topic being raised in the first place. But your point does not really prove anything.

LU now that I’m reading the question again I see it says: “tend not to be” so it allows for a minority who are in kolel and are not so ruchnius (is it used as an adjective?) So I take back what I said. I thought it referred to all people.

Yet we have different opinions about the dagrees of batole in kolels. That’s ok. I’ve no way to show I’m right, and I don’t think you have, so there is no point arguing.

It’s good to know you agree with my second point.

Because you defined ruchniyos as being in kollel.

Person1: Yet we have different opinions about the dagrees of batole in kolels. That’s ok. I’ve no way to show I’m right, and I don’t think you have, so there is no point arguing.

That’s true. We obvious know different people. I feel bad for you that you don’t know the same kind of people that I know – I wish I could introduce you to them. They’re very kidai to know. But since they are not the type to hang out on CR (since they are real masmidim), I have no way to do that.

“It’s good to know you agree with my second point.” 🙂