The answer you hear depends on the room you’re in. In one room, a man’s place is the beis midrash and everything else is a compromise; in another, working for a living is the normal expected path. So what does halacha itself say about going to work – or to the army – instead of learning Torah all day? Is learning all day really meant for everyone, or only for the few who are actually cut out for it? And where does the wife-works-husband-learns setup fit – a legitimate arrangement or an exception that turned into a system?
Work, the army, or learning all day – what does halacha actually expect?
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These are very important questions, and unfortunately they have become so political that sometimes the answer depends more on what community you are standing in than on what the sources actually say. So let’s take the politics out of it and look at the halacha.
Is a man supposed to work, or learn Torah all day?
For the normal person, I think the answer is very clear: you work, you support yourself and your family, and you make Torah an important and permanent part of your life.
That does not mean you stop learning. I worked my entire life and never stopped learning. Torah is supposed to remain part of your day whether you are a businessman, doctor, plumber, lawyer or anything else.
The Gemara itself discusses this exact question. Rabbi Yishmael understands “ואספת דגנך” — “you shall gather your grain” — to mean:
הנהג בהן מנהג דרך ארץ
“Conduct yourself with them in the normal way of the world,” meaning that a person also works for a living.
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai presents the other possibility: if a person is plowing, planting, harvesting and working all the time, “תורה מה תהא עליה?” — what will become of Torah?
Then Abaye tells us what actually works:
הרבה עשו כרבי ישמעאל ועלתה בידן, כרבי שמעון בן יוחי ולא עלתה בידן.
“Many followed Rabbi Yishmael and succeeded; many followed Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and did not succeed.”
(Berachot 35b)
That is an extraordinarily important statement. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s model exists. There can be people who live that way. But Chazal themselves tell us that when הרבה — the masses tried to make that the universal model, it did not work.
The Gemara in Kiddushin is even more practical. Among a father’s obligations toward his son it lists:
וללמדו תורה… וללמדו אומנות
“To teach him Torah… and to teach him an occupation.”
Rabbi Yehudah adds:
כל שאינו מלמד את בנו אומנות מלמדו ליסטות.
“Anyone who does not teach his son an occupation is effectively teaching him robbery.”
(Kiddushin 29a)
Why robbery? Because eventually the person has to eat.
The Aruch HaShulchan says this very strongly:
ומי שיש לו אומנות דבר טוב הוא… וכמה טועים בזה לאמר שהאומנות הוא דבר של בזיון.
“Someone who has a profession — that is a good thing… and how mistaken are those who say that having a profession is something degrading.”
He points out that many Tannaim and Amoraim themselves had occupations.
(Aruch HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 156:1)
And then there is the Rambam, whose language is about as strong as language can be. He writes about someone who decides that he will learn Torah, not work, and live from charity:
כל המשים על לבו שיעסוק בתורה ולא יעשה מלאכה ויתפרנס מן הצדקה… חילל את השם וביזה את התורה.
“One who decides to study Torah, do no work, and support himself from charity… has desecrated God’s Name and disgraced the Torah.”
And he concludes:
וכל תורה שאין עמה מלאכה סופה בטילה… וסוף אדם זה שיהא מלסטם את הבריות.
“Torah which is not accompanied by work will ultimately cease… and the end of such a person is that he will rob other people.”
(Rambam, Hilchot Talmud Torah 3:10)
The Rambam immediately continues:
מעלה גדולה היא למי שהוא מתפרנס ממעשה ידיו.
“It is a great virtue for a person to support himself through the work of his own hands.”
(Rambam, Hilchot Talmud Torah 3:11)
So I have a hard time understanding how earning an honest living somehow became regarded in some circles as a spiritual failure. It is certainly not how Chazal or the Rambam describe it.
Then is full-time Torah learning wrong?
Absolutely not.
This is where people make the discussion too simplistic.
Klal Yisrael needs people learning Torah full time. We need people capable of becoming serious rabbanim, poskim, dayanim, teachers, principals and Torah leaders. Those people need years to develop, just as someone going to medical school or law school needs years of training.
The Aruch HaShulchan makes exactly this distinction. Regarding the literal concept of learning all day and all night, he writes:
דבר זה אי אפשר לכל אדם הטרוד בפרנסתו, וזהו רק ליחידים שבדור.
“This is impossible for every person who is occupied with earning a livelihood; it is only for the exceptional individuals of the generation.”
(Aruch HaShulchan, Yoreh De’ah 246:7)
יחידים שבדור. The exceptional few.
Not everybody.
The Rambam himself recognizes such people. At the end of Hilchot Shemittah VeYovel he says that it is not only Shevet Levi, but any exceptional person:
אשר נדבה רוחו אותו… להבדל לעמוד לפני ה׳ לשרתו ולעובדו
“Whose spirit moves him… to separate himself and stand before Hashem, to serve Him and worship Him.”
Such a person, Rambam says, can devote himself in an extraordinary way to Hashem.
(Rambam, Hilchot Shemittah VeYovel 13:13)
And the Kesef Mishneh famously disagrees with the strict practical application of Rambam’s prohibition against supporting Torah scholars. He says that Jewish communities accepted the practice of supporting scholars because:
שאילו לא היתה פרנסת הלומדים והמלמדים מצויה… היתה התורה משתכחת חס ושלום.
“If support for those who study and teach were unavailable… Torah would, God forbid, be forgotten.”
(Kesef Mishneh, Hilchot Talmud Torah 3:10)
Exactly.
We need to support people because Klal Yisrael needs them.
But that is very different from saying that every normal eighteen-, twenty-five-, thirty-five- or forty-five-year-old man should automatically remain permanently supported in kollel simply because learning is wonderful.
Learning is wonderful for everyone. Full-time communal support is something else.
And what are those full-time learners supposed to be learning?
This is another piece of the discussion that people sometimes don’t want to hear.
If we are saying that these are the יחידים שבדור, the select scholars whom the community needs badly enough that everybody else should help support them, then they have to actually be becoming Torah scholars.
That cannot mean spending fifteen years learning how to make sophisticated arguments in selected sugyot while not knowing basic Hilchot Shabbat, Berachot, Kashrut, Tefillah and Yom Tov.
I am not saying Bava Metzia or Yevamot is not Torah. Of course it is Torah. Deep Gemara learning is enormously valuable. But it has to be part of learning Torah, rather than permanently learning how to learn Torah.
The Chafetz Chaim says in his introduction to Mishnah Berurah:
עיקר לימוד האדם צריך להיות בלימוד המביא לידי מעשה.
“A person’s primary learning should be learning that leads to practice.”
(Mishnah Berurah, Introduction)
And regarding ordinary working people who nevertheless manage to learn three or four hours every day, he says:
לא ילמדו בגמרא לחוד
“They should not learn Gemara alone.”
They must also learn poskim so that they know practical halacha.
(Mishnah Berurah 155:3)
And this criticism is much older than the Mishnah Berurah.
The Orchot Tzaddikim, in Shaar HaTorah, complains:
בדור הזה נשתכחה התורה… סבורים לעשות כמו הראשונים להחזיק בפלפולים… אלא מבלבלים זה את זה.
“In this generation Torah has been forgotten… they think they are following the earlier scholars by engaging in pilpul… but instead they confuse one another.”
He criticizes people who jump immediately into elaborate Tosafot and “חידושים וחידושי דחידושים” without first possessing the Torah itself.
(Orchot Tzaddikim, Shaar HaTorah)
The Shelah is even more severe. He attacks the argument that artificial pilpul is worthwhile because “החילוק מחדד” — “it sharpens the mind.”
He writes:
יש כת משוגעים האומרים החילוק מחדד… ועוד כשנעשה מחודד, מה עושה בחידודו?
“There is a group of foolish people who say, ‘The chiluk sharpens the mind’… but after he becomes sharp, what does he do with that sharpness?”
He says the Baalei Tosafot became extraordinarily sharp through real Torah knowledge, tremendous bekiut, constant study and review, not by inventing intellectual exercises for their own sake.
(Shelah, Masechet Shavuot, Ner Mitzvah)
And the Gra has a magnificent explanation of the bizarre Rabbah bar bar Chanah story in Bava Batra about the gigantic one-day-old re’em.
In the actual sefer of the Gra, he describes the proper sequence of learning as first acquiring:
מקרא, משנה, גמרא בבלי, ירושלמי, תוספתא, מכילתא, ספרא, ספרי…
“Tanach, Mishnah, Babylonian Talmud, Jerusalem Talmud, Tosefta, Mechilta, Sifra, Sifrei…”
and only afterward developing through:
שימוש תלמידי חכמים… פלפול חברים
“Serving and learning from Torah scholars… and analytical discussion with colleagues.”
The re’em is בר יומיה — one day old. The Gra explains that this represents the beginner who has barely started learning and already wants enormous “horns” with which to gore other scholars in pilpul. He has not yet acquired Torah, but he already wants to demonstrate how brilliant he is.
That criticism could have been written yesterday.
First learn Torah. Then become sophisticated in Torah.
So if society supports someone for years as an elite learner, I would expect him eventually to know Torah well enough to teach it and use it. Otherwise, what exactly are we supporting him to become?
What about the wife working while the husband learns?
It can absolutely be a legitimate arrangement — if that particular couple wants it and it works for them.
But don’t rewrite halacha and pretend that this is the default obligation of marriage.
The halachic structure begins with the husband responsible for his wife’s support:
מזונותיה וכסותה ועונתה
“Her food, her clothing and her marital needs.”
(Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer 69:2)
Her earnings were instituted in exchange for her support, and she can say:
איני ניזונת ואיני עושה
“I do not want you to support me, and I will retain my own earnings.”
(Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer 69:4)
So if a woman says, “I enjoy my profession, we can afford this, I want my husband to learn for several years,” wonderful. If the parents are wealthy and want to support them, wonderful. If the husband is genuinely accomplishing something in Torah, wonderful.
But if the wife is working full time, having the babies, raising the children, running the house, preparing the food, and then he comes home from yeshiva expecting lunch because he is the one “learning,” you had better ask whether the arrangement still makes any sense.
A Torah system that destroys shalom bayit has missed something very basic.
And then there is the army
This is obviously politically explosive in Israel, but again, let’s begin with the halacha rather than the politics.
The Rambam defines one type of milchemet mitzvah as:
עזרת ישראל מיד צר שבא עליהם
“Defending Israel from an enemy who has come against them.”
(Rambam, Hilchot Melachim 5:1)
And the Mishnah says regarding a milchemet mitzvah:
הכל יוצאין, אפילו חתן מחדרו וכלה מחופתה.
“Everyone goes out — even a groom from his room and a bride from her wedding canopy.”
(Sotah 44b)
That is pretty strong language.
There is certainly another source that needs to be acknowledged. Bava Batra says:
רבנן לא צריכי נטירותא
“Torah scholars do not require protection,”
and therefore exempts Torah scholars from certain municipal expenses for walls and guards.
(Bava Batra 8a)
That is a real source. But it is discussing the assessment of municipal security expenses, not giving a blanket statement that every person registered in a yeshiva is exempt from participating in an actual milchemet mitzvah.
Likewise Rambam’s description of Shevet Levi and exceptional people wholly devoted to Hashem gives a real basis for maintaining a special Torah cadre. But again, that does not mean that every person sitting in a yeshiva automatically becomes Shevet Levi.
I believe a Jewish society should preserve a serious group of exceptional Torah scholars. I am not giving a magic number — whether it is hundreds or some other number depends on the needs of the generation. We always need genuine rabbanim, poskim and teachers.
But I do not see a halachic basis for taking the entire ordinary population of yeshiva-age men and saying: our children do not share in the responsibility to defend the people among whom they live because they learn Torah.
The Gemara itself gives us a beautiful model:
אלמלא דוד לא עשה יואב מלחמה, ואלמלא יואב לא עסק דוד בתורה.
“If not for David, Yoav could not have waged war; and if not for Yoav, David could not have studied Torah.”
(Sanhedrin 49a)
We need David and we need Yoav.
Torah protects the Jewish people spiritually. Soldiers protect Jewish people physically. Those are not enemies.
And Tanach certainly never creates an image in which the more religious and spiritually serious people were therefore beneath military service. David HaMelech himself was a warrior. Many of the greatest figures in Tanach led armies.
Being a great Torah person is not a reason to look down upon the people defending you.
This permanent kollel system is also historically quite new
People sometimes speak as though today’s mass kollel arrangement is the way Jewish society always operated. It isn’t.
There were certainly always individual scholars supported by wealthy families or benefactors. But the modern organized kollel for married scholars was an innovation of the late nineteenth century.
The Kovno Kollel, established around 1877–1880, was an organized institution supporting selected married scholars for advanced study. Historical scholarship describes it as a new institutional model; importantly, it was intended to develop exceptional scholars capable of serious halachic leadership.
That concept I understand completely.
My father learned under Rav Aharon Kotler in Lakewood. He was the only Sephardic student there, and he used to tell me that Rav Aharon was constantly looking to place developed students into rabbinic positions.
In fact, my father sometimes found it frustrating. Whenever a Sephardic community needed a rav, Rav Aharon would come to him because there were very few qualified Sephardic students available. My father would say, essentially, “Give me a chance! I still want to learn. Why are you trying to send me out when my contemporaries are still here?”
But that was the model: learn, develop, become qualified, and then go serve Klal Yisrael.
A kollel can be an extraordinary institution. A medical school is also an extraordinary institution. But nobody says, “Medical school is so holy and valuable that the goal is to remain in medical school for the rest of your life.”
Eventually you become a doctor.
Likewise, if someone is being supported so that he can become a rav, posek, dayan, teacher or major talmid chacham, then wonderful. Let us support him properly and give him the opportunity to become great.
But the purpose has to remain:
ללמוד וללמד, לשמור ולעשות ולקיים
“To learn and to teach, to observe, to do and to fulfill.”
So, bottom line
Is working for a living a compromise? No. For the normal person, it is the normal halachic life. Work honestly, support your family, and make Torah a serious permanent part of your life.
Is full-time Torah learning legitimate? Absolutely. Klal Yisrael desperately needs exceptional people who can become genuine Torah leaders. But, as the Aruch HaShulchan says, that model is for יחידים שבדור, not automatically for everyone.
Can a wife support her husband while he learns? Certainly, if she genuinely wants to and the arrangement is healthy for that family. It is a voluntary arrangement, not the basic halachic structure of marriage.
And the army? When Jews need defending, defending them is a mitzvah and a shared responsibility. I would preserve genuine exceptional Torah scholars where that is necessary for Klal Yisrael, but simply being enrolled in a yeshiva does not, in my opinion, create a blanket exemption from that responsibility.
And finally, if we are going to call someone one of those exceptional Torah scholars whom everybody else should support, then let him actually learn Torah — broadly, seriously and practically — so that someday Klal Yisrael will have something extraordinary from all those years of learning.