Is Kolel a Mental Disorder?

by @azigra 

The Jerusalem Post carried the following story on Sunday:

Finance Minister Yair Lapid said Thursday the harshest cuts in his controversial budget were aimed at haredim in hopes of pushing them into the labor force. “I already cut for the haredim more than ever has been,” he said in a Facebook chat Thursday night, alluding to cuts in child allowances that disproportionally affect the ultra-Orthodox community, whose birth rate is four times the Israeli average. “Israel doesn’t need a culture of allowances, but a culture of work.” “What are child allowances? Child allowances say ‘I have kids but want someone else to pay.’ Who is paying? Someone else who has kids, who is taking from his kids and giving to others’ kids,” Lapid said. The cuts, he continued, “act to push people to the job market.”

One questioner, who said he was a full-time yeshiva student, complained that cuts would leave his family short of money, and said his wife would have to divorce him to obtain a subsidy for single mothers in order for their family to survive. Isn’t that a “piggish” intervention in his wife’s private life, the man asked? Lapid’s response: “There’s another

option – that you’ll work.” Noting that the man would only need to work for 10 hours a week to bridge the difference, Lapid shot back, his decision not to work was the gross intervention into his wife’s private life.

As someone who has studied in Lakewood yeshiva I should be able to say this isn’t shocking to me but it is. The idea of getting a job never even occurred to this young Torah Scholar for a single second! It’s not even an option to consider. In this man’s mind divorcing his wife and tearing apart his family, makes more sense than finding gainful employment.

Is this about Torah and religion? Is it about someone on welfare who has become addicted to it? Why doesn’t he fake a claim that he has AIDS and get help that way? Would his rabbis sanction a divorce instead of finding work? Do you think this would be a common response from many people in his circles? 

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