I attended a lecture last night by R. Shlomo Pearl, Rosh Kollel at the Bostoner in Flatbush. He raised a number of interesting questions on Kibud Av v’Em that deserve further study. One case follows:
You learn in a kollel and your parents are so against it that they threaten they will take your younger siblings out of yeshiva and place them in public school unless you quit kollel and get a job or go to college.
What should you do?
Rav Yitzchak Zilbershatyn held that sending children to public school is like shmad and to prevent that he should go to work and learn between 4-6 am and 8-11 pm.
Rav Elyashiv held he should go to kollel and the rest is in Hashem’s hands. The mitzvah of Kibud Av does not apply when it conflicts with doing a mitzvah.
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4 comments:
I don't understand RYZs psak.What if the person in question does not have the strength to learn the hours he suggests.Should the person then remain in kollel?What if the only job the person can find will barely allow him to be kavaeh ittim?
Dear Yehuda!
See my post on July 3, May a Doctor Get Up Early to Learn?
On that question RYZ paskened that a worker has to conserve his energy for his employer.
I hope that Dear Yehudah! wasn't meant in sarcasm.In any event I still don't understand RYZ.This shaalo sounds like a yes or no question and i don't understand him putting in stipulations of what hours the person should learn unless he felt that if the person can't do so he should remain in kollel.
Yehuda, no sarcasm intended with the word dear. Perhaps I am not accustomed to the informality of blogging.
In any event, I understand the psak to mean that the need to prevent shmad overrides the mitzvah to learn, in the sense of, 'es la'asos l'Hashem heifeiru sorasekha. Hence, the answer of no kolel for that person, go to work. If he has the stamina to learn early in the morning and/or late at night, he should be kove'a ittim at those times. If not, he still has to go to work to prevent shmad.
I would not read anything into it in the vein of saying: stay in kolel.
Kol tuv and hatzlacha!
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