The Comfort of Daas Torah

Place your trust in The Gedolim™

Recently a sweet charedi gentleman in his fifties came to my door to collect money to marry off his daughter (which presumably meant to buy her an apartment). I suggested to him that his children, and their future children, would be much better off if they get an education and then jobs that pay a decent wage. How else are they going to survive - are they all going to rely on knocking on people’s doors? (And I didn’t even get on to what that would mean for the country as a whole.)

He told me that he trusts his rebbe, who has set his path in life.

Okay, I replied, and what is your rebbe’s plan? It doesn’t seem to be working out for you - how is this going to work out for everyone in the community as it grows?

He told me that he doesn’t know what his rebbe’s plan is, but he’s sure that his rebbe has one.

I urged him to ask his rebbe what the plan is. He was horrified at the very suggestion, and he left.

(Of course the truth is that the rebbe does not have a plan. The Gedolim do not have a plan and don’t even think about such things.)

One of the great attractions of living in a Daas Torah community is that you don’t have to take any responsibility in life. You don’t have to think about what’s written in your kesubah, about your obligations to support your family. You don’t have to think about the rather obvious problem that your children are likely destined for destitution. You don’t even have to think about all the statements of the Sages in the Talmud about the importance of work and of raising children to be independent. After all, you have The Gedolim™!

And The Gedolim™ know all the statements of the Sages, and indeed they know all about everything in life. You’ve asked them everything - where to live, who to marry, who to vote for, what to name your children. And so if they say to learn in kollel and not to work, and to raise your children without any education to help them earn a living, or even any desire to do so, that’s obviously the right thing to do!

And if it doesn’t work out, and you are desperately struggling, then that is some sort of test from Hashem. But it doesn’t mean that The Gedolim™ were wrong. And it likewise doesn’t mean that you were wrong to place your trust in them. That would be unthinkable. After all, they’ve guided you in everything you’ve done in life!

It’s very comforting to never have to make decisions or take any responsibility for your path in life and its consequences. It must be unimaginably difficult to start having to do so. But the longer it takes charedi society to wake up to this, the greater the eventual catastrophe will be.