For me it is ideology. It has not and will not change no matter how good they are. I am here for lomdei Torah, not academics. Since the lomdei Torah keep us all going and they are targeted [by the government] it is my job to assist them, no one else…
…I follow what I was taught by Maran HaRav Shach and do my best to assist anyone and everyone that comes to me.
KB: I never heard you stutter like today… You are in an untenable situation. Perhaps it is time to reconsider and look at the generation and it is time to change things around
Gafne: … there is nothing to change, not even one millimeter. This is what it is and will continue to do. This is our job and our responsibility.
Well if there was any doubt about how the Charedi world looks at those – even of their own people – that are not in full time Kollel, this should settle it. They have lost their Charedi credentials. This is the legacy of Rav Shach. And it is still being followed to the letter by Charedi leaders and their politicians.
The problem of course (as I’ve said many times) is that the fruit of their labor is a bitter pill for them to swallow. Extreme poverty that seems to be increasing every year by leaps and bounds.
Yet another article in the Forward reminds us about the Taub Center report that found the poverty rate in Israel among Charedim increasing to 66% in 2013, up from 60% in 2012.
I do not understand the kind of thinking that Rabbi Gafne has expressed. Does he really believe what he is saying? Does he really believe that this is what God wants of His people? To study Torah all day long in increasing poverty? This and only this?! Does he really believe there is so little value in anything else? Medicine? Scientific research? Supporting one’s family? Protecting the public welfare via the police and army? …all not worthy of any support in the Charedi world?
And this is what the Torah world in America want’s to emulate?!
In my view this kind of thinking is obsessive. It is compulsive. And it is counter to the values of the Torah to ignore anything else but its own study. Maybe at some deep level even Rabbi Gafne realizes that. Maybe that’s why this interview made him stutter.
Update: It appears that the YWN translation is inaccurate. This post was based on the assumption that it was. He did not say that there is no such thing as a Charedi worker. He only said that he does not accept that as a separate category. But he did say that working Charedim are second tier.
This does not take away from the fact that Rabbi Gafne’s words indicate that in the Charedi world there is an unhealthy obsession with Limud Hatorah (to the exclusion of all else) that borders on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.