Klal Perspectives: New Issue on the Ben-Torah Baal-HaBayis
It wasn’t so long ago that when people spoke about the issues bnei Torah faced in the workplace, they meant how to deal with the power lunch at a treif restaurant, and the hand proffered by a female executive.
Things have changed, and not for the better. We had the vocabulary to deal with the old issues. Various positions emerged; none of them upset existing protocols or deeply-held beliefs.
Not so today. The angst faced by working bnei Torah has no easy antidote. Baalei batim struggle to keep afloat financially, attempting to satisfy the demands of an Orthodox household that far exceed the earning power of most couples. At the same time, the self-image of the ben Torah which had been so inextricably bound up in earlier years with the quantity and quality of learning takes a merciless beating as there just isn’t enough time to go around between responsibilities of earner, husband, father, and community member.
Nothing could work, short of changing the way we have been taught to think for many years. But we are suspicious of such change – rightfully so. We understand the human capacity for rationalization, for developing intellectual castles in the sky built upon subjective wants, rather than listening to what the Torah wants. (This is yet another way of underscoring the difference between legitimate Orthodoxy and the neo-Conservative Open Orthodox.) We recognize that any protocols of thought that will be valuable to us must emerge from Torah itself, and applied under the direction of genuine talmidei chachamim.
Such change must and will come slowly. The first steps are awareness of the problem, incubation, and the first glimmers of creative light that are then shared with the public. Klal Perspectives has always attempted to play a role in greasing the wheels of the vehicle of public discussion of cutting-edge communal issues. It does so once more with the issue released a few hours ago, and available for viewing or download.
Here are the summaries of the articles in the new issue:
Rabbi Herschel Welcher: Measuring the Journey
Too often, individuals who achieve enormous success in managing their multiple roles of husband, father, breadwinner and oved Hashem (servant of G-d) view themselves as failures. Ironically, it is often those with the most to be proud of who are the most discouraged and frustrated, and the least appreciative of their own achievements. Yet, from their rabbi’s perspective, these men are giants. Why the apparent disconnect? Why do they not see what is so obvious to their rabbi?
Rabbi Yisroel Reisman: The Primary Challenge of Being a Baal Habayis
Unlike an angel, which can have only a single mission, people are endowed with the capability, and sometimes, the responsibility, to be what’s called a בר ב’ שליחויות – a man of multiple missions. Throughout the yeshiva years, young men are on a single mission, immersing themselves in learning to the exclusion of all else. For most talmidim, however, this idyllic period comes to a close, and they must adopt additional missions. Though many of our talmidim have not been adequately prepared, with proper effort and mindset, multiple objectives can be harmonized, and pursued collectively.
Tzvi Pirutinsky, Ph.D.: Continuity and Connection versus Disruption and Disconnection: Observations on the Transition from Kollel Yungerman to Ben Torah Baal Habayis
Many of the challenges facing the ben Torah baal habayis trace their origins to the especially vulnerable period of transition between yeshiva or kollel and the workplace. This period is so vulnerable in part because of the “availability heuristic,” which can substantially narrow a young man’s sense of his options and opportunities. Additionally, there is currently no support system available to serve as a “transitional space” to bridge the great distance between the insulated walls of the yeshiva and the workplace outside. Perhaps yeshivas and kolles could create programs to help young men adapt more smoothly to their new identities, in a safe environment in which to discuss and adjust to new spiritual challenges, while preserving their connections to their Torah institutions as well as to each other.
Rabbi Menachem Zupnick: The Simple Jew is not Simple
The non-Chassidic community can learn three key lessons from the Chassidic community that would assist b’nai Torah in maintaining the intensity of their commitment after leaving yeshiva or kollel: (1) do not invest your self-image in striving for unattainable greatness, (2) strive to be associated with a good chevra (social group) and (3) appreciate and embrace a Rav.
Moishe Bane: Recalibration
The ben Torah baal habayis is a most impressive oved Hashem. One can only imagine how much more he could be if taught to appreciate the growth he can yet achieve after leaving yeshiva, if he were allowed and even encouraged to find his personal voice within an understandably conforming-oriented community, and if he were assisted in choosing a career that complements his strengths and interests.
Charlie Harary: Having It All: Setting Priorities in a Busy Life
The key to a successful life includes identifying and pursuing goals, as well as learning how to prioritize them appropriately. Although there is no magic formula for selecting appropriate goals, this article suggests a four-step process: articulate specific goals, examine the motives behind the goals, ensure that efforts are geared towards the ultimate goals rather than mere results, and remember that success is not measured in comparison to others.
Alexandra Fleksher: From Learning to Working: Adding on another Room
When a man struggles to balance his identity as both a ben Torah and a baal habayis, one can expect that his wife will struggle with their family’s identity, as well. In fact, there is often a sharp disconnect between a wife’s initial expectations of an inspired family life and the reality she faces once her husband enters the ordinary workplace, often leading to her own crisis of identity. Suggestions include raising the stature of the baal habayis in the community, redefining “working” as part of the life of a ben Torah and not separate from it and a concerted effort by the baal habayis to develop close relationships with a rav and with peers.
Aaron Berger: Addressing the Baal Habyis’s Challenge – a Baal Habayis’s Take
A ben Torah baal habayis should embrace his role with a positive attitude, develop and follow a goal-oriented plan and engage a rav as a support system. The community can help by providing rabbanim with the capacity to engage a community of baalei batim serious about avodas Hashem, tweaking the messaging about the stature of the baal habayis as a serious ben Torah and, perhaps, by acknowledging the role of the yeshiva system in preparing talmidim for the futures that await them.
Rabbi Benzion Shafier: A Successful Model: Tiferes Bochurim – A Misgeres for Growth
Many of the most serious yeshiva students often allow their Torah studies to dwindle, if not lapse entirely, during their transition into baalei batim. With the exception of the Daf Yomi movement, there has been, unfortunately, relatively little communal effort to address the spiritual needs of this segment of the community. However, there is a model from pre-war Europe that has been successfully replicated in recent years in many communities throughout the world. Called Tiferes Bochurim, this approach provides a social network for young baalei batim to learn together with an insipring rav, socialize together, and become a chevra (peer group) through their shared spiritual aspirations.
Rabbi Boruch Clinton: 21st Century Parnassa: There’s No Reason Why Not
While a successful transition into today’s workforce is certainly no trivial matter, on the whole, it is unlikely that things right now are any worse than at any other time in the past, and we would be better served by recognizing that. Some areas that deserve attention are the need to be comfortable with compromises, for increased financial training and vocational planning and the tendency to downplay certain principles in Torah.
Many of the writers wrote, in different ways, of how special the working balleboss is, how strange it is that they don’t get kibbudim and honors, etc. That’s all true. But it must be stressed, it’s not that working men are there out clamoring for honors. We do not see ballebattim walking about downtrodden and woebegone. (I personally have not see any appreciable lack of self-esteem that some writers spoke of.) Rather, this is something that is necessary for the community, as an organic whole. A community that doesn’t properly respect its ballebatim is a flawed community. And it begins with the schools and the shuls, the mouthpieces of organized orthodoxy. Schools that encourage their students to read and give book reports on “Gedolim biographies” should encourage similar projects about laymen. Rabbis that preach regularly about “daas torah” and related concepts, should expand their repertoire. A shift in public attitude is not something that happens overnight. But step by step by step, it can happen. And it has to happen.
“Nothing could work, short of changing the way we have been taught to think for many years. But we are suspicious of such change – rightfully so. We understand the human capacity for rationalization, for developing intellectual castles in the sky built upon subjective wants, rather than listening to what the Torah wants. (This is yet another way of underscoring the difference between legitimate Orthodoxy and the neo-Conservative Open Orthodox.) We recognize that any protocols of thought that will be valuable to us must emerge from Torah itself, and applied under the direction of genuine talmidei chachamim.”
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As the Talmud says – this paragraph demands explication!
“Nothing Could work ..” -implies that the only thing that could work is chnging the way we have been taught. But perhaps you will ask isnt this contradicted by “applied under the direction….” when what we have been taught was at the direction of genuine talmidei chachamim? The matter requires investigation
As a baal habayit who tries to be a ben torah I would share that the importance of the paradigm shift can not be overstated – having had role models (avi mori vrabi zll”hh and imi morati who strove to live Kipling’s “If” (If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man(me -read mentch/ben torah), my son!) is key. You might also consider that mentoring “in the real world” is done by those who have walked a little further down the path than you have -they have the knowledge and credibility that others lack. Perhaps a little less reliance on the theorists and a buddy system with those in the foxholes would make sense.
KT
It is a great resource. And your summary really helps get into it!
I have to take exception to the gratuitous bad-mouthing of “Open Orthodox”, though. It was not necessary, and detracts from the article. I am turned off by “Open Orthodoxy”, but I am just a turned off by the religious arrogance which presumes to speak in the name of “legitimate orthodoxy”.
[YA – When was the last time a young engaged couple came to you, distraught over discovering that one of them was not considered Jewish because his/her mother had undergone a Conservative conversion? It has happened to me – too many times. They had to delay the wedding by as much as a year, until a proper geirus could be navigated. In every case, the Conservative rabbi had reassured the original convert, i.e the mother, that her conversion would be every bit as valid as if presided over by an Orthodox rabbi. Of course, it wasn’t. Open Orthodoxy is starting their own batei din, the first one recently announced for the Beltway. There is no question that the products of these batei din will be viewed as non-Jewish by the Orthodox community, like it or not. You can’t stop that, nor will Cross-Currents’ branding of them as neo-Conservative make things worse. But our calling them out is an attempt to at least allow for informed consent for those contemplating a conversion through them. Their children will not be regarded as Jewish, and they need to know that up front. We don’t harp on the matter as part of some witch-hunt. There is a good reason for it, and if you believe that it is arrogant, you just might be leveling that charge against some pretty moderate rabbonim and roshei yeshiva!]
kudos though for addressing the issue, I’d like to see an MO version of this. It would have some very similar articles and others addressing the problem of those who think Shabbat morning drasha is a sufficient connection and are happy with it.
KT
“it’s not that working men are there out clamoring for honors”
– that’s what I had thought at first. But informal research uncovered that there does exist a critical mass of baalei batim who feel bad about themselves and the esteem in which they are held in their communities. I tend to suspect that it exists more in haredi style wealth oriented communities, but I think that some formal data gathering is in order, to understand precisely if, when, and where this is happening.
I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the notion that running one’s business according to Choshen Mishpat is a “lower” level of avodat Hashem than considering lomdische chakiros in Choshen Mishpat. That does not seem to be the attitude of Chazal, who say that the primacy of Talmud Torah is because it leads to practical observance.
Joel Rich says: kudos though for addressing the issue, I’d like to see an MO version of this. It would have some very similar articles and others addressing the problem of those who think Shabbat morning drasha is a sufficient connection and are happy with it.
KT
There are two aspects that need exploration. (And I’m waiting to get my hard copy; I process the written word better on paper than computer so can’t comment yet.) One is, how the full-time yeshiva student transitions, whether before or after marriage. Another is, the responsibility and transformative powers of talmud Torah, and how one shouldn’t settle for the minimum, as you mention. And I think I can safely say that’s not exclusive to the MO community.
Torah is everyone’s morasha.
Even women’s, and not just vicariously, but that’s another topic.
“There is no question that the products of these batei din will be viewed as non-Jewish by the Orthodox community.”
There is much question.
The RCA has made no declaration to that effect, has not clearly denounced OO as outside of Orthodoxy, has not declared OO graduates to be ineligible to be mechanchim in Jewish day schools and rabbis in OU synagogues, etc. This is the same meekness that led to silence regarding the halachic and theological travesties of Yitz Greenberg and E. Rackman’s “beis din.”
[YA I beg to differ. The acceptance/rejection of OO maasei beis din does not depend on any declaration of the RCA, but what rov minyan and rov binyan of rabbonim who deal with these matters think. The bottom line has already been assured.]
I have not yet finished reading the issue but appreciate the challenge of balancing multiple roles – as well as the sense that men’s self-worth can be impacted by the transition to the workplace. These are issues that directly affect my husband (and consequently our relationship and family) so I am reading the articles with that perspective.
(After reading the introduction to the issues discussed, my husband and I had the same thought – if men have all these responsibilities, when are they supposed to find the time to read KP 🙂
I would also love to see an issue of Klal Perspectives dedicated to the multiple roles that woman are juggling. They have done an issue on women working a few years ago, but my interest is more about how women can remain remain connected to their Judaism intellectually and spiritually while raising families. I would be happy to help with and possibly contribute to such an issue.
The Torah itself assumes that its adherents are “ba’alei batim” –farmers, shepherds, merchants, soldiers, etc. I don’t mean to suggest that this publication isn’t needed or that there aren’t real reasons that it is needed. Rather I wish to point out how strange it is when looking at the big picture that “ben Torah-ba’al habayis” is thought of as some new and unique hybrid.
To me, one of the strangest things about these essays was the repeated reference to the alienation and loneliness so many of those making the transition feel. A related thought was how sad it was that few of the writers made any mention of looking toward one’s own parents or other family members as role models.
We are talking about men in their late twenties or maybe early thirties, right? My kids’ ages. I presume that many of these guys grew up in families like mine and those of my contemporaries, all yeshiva people who after a couple of years of learning, went out to work, with many doing quite well for themselves. They are bnei Torah baalei batim in every sense of the word.
There is, of course, one major difference: My husband and his cohort also went to college. Presumably many, if not most, of those other parents did, too. Are these guys simply too embarrassed to try to see their parents now as role models, after decidedly rejecting a major aspect of their parents’ way of doing things? Are they afraid to hear “I told you so?”
Re Shmuel’s assertion that this is nothing new: this is the ideal. But a few thoughts:
– In the times of the Bais Hamikdash, those living in outlying areas got an evidently needed spiritual boost during their maaser sheini Yerushalayim stay. So it’s definitely fitting to discuss how to maintain ongoing connections.
– It does seem that it’s only been a generation or two, going on three, of the kollel revolution, which might be the catalyst for this KP. But if only all the “baalei batim” were knowledgeable and able to transmit that mesorah. (And if only all the “baalei batim” did in fact own property…)