Zohran and the Zohar

Socialism, Mysticism and Kollel

This was an extraordinary week. We saw the US engage in a spectacular act of destruction, that will take years to rebuild, if ever. I’m talking, of course, about New York politics.

Enough has already been written about the Israelopathic socialist catastrophe that is Zohran Mamdani. But I would like to pick up on something interesting that Mayor Eric Adams said in response to Mamdani:

Adams perfectly expressed not only the ideology behind capitalism, but also traditional Jewish values, as reflected in countless statements of Chazal that are also echoed by the Rishonim. “Wonderful is the study of the Torah when combined with derech eretz, for toil in them both keeps sin out of one’s mind. And Torah which is not combined with work, in the end comes to be neglected and becomes the cause of sin” (Avot 2:2; see too this post). “"Whoever does not teach his son a trade... it is as though he has taught him to steal" (Kiddushin 29a; see too this post).

And this is considered to reflect an innate instinct (which it indeed does - providing for one’s family is a biological instinct found in all higher species and even many lower ones). The concept of the food that a poor person receives being called nehama d'kisufa, "bread of shame," was so obvious that it became a metaphor in Jewish thought for other things.

Yet Adams’ words are the polar opposite of cultural norms in the charedi world. I once attended a charedi wedding at which guests were given a “Torah booklet” published by the chosson, in which he explained why the greatest thing that the (working) guests can do with their money is support him and his friends in kollel forever. They see no lack of dignity in that. And the charedi community as a whole clearly sees the role of everyone else as financially providing for them.

When this happens in the USA, with charedim feeling no shame in taking advantage of government money, it can perhaps be explained as a cultural hangover from Europe where the governments were often the enemy of the Jewish People. But how are we to explain when it’s charedim feeling no shame in being supported by other Jews? A previous charedi mayor of Beit Shemesh, now an MK, once gave a speech in a local dati-leumi shul where he proudly declared that it is their responsibility and privilege to support the charedi community in kollel. It didn’t even occur to him that this might not go down well with the audience. And in the wedding story that I related above, this was even with regard to working people in the charedi community.

So what is the explanation for this? How do charedim overcome thousands of years of Jewish values, not to mention millions of years of biological evolution?