Adjusting Torah
Should Torah sources be misrepresented to promote innovative halachic positions?
I recently heard a respected yeshiva leader being asked whether a kollel student should feel guilty for accepting charity in place of a livelihood. After all, there are many Torah sources recommending self-sufficiency and productive participation in a society's practical welfare. And, in any case, which decent human being doesn’t experience at least some discomfort at failing to support himself and his family.
The rabbi replied by first noting that he wasn't going to address any specific rationale explaining the importance of foregoing seeking a livelihood in favor of devotion to learning. Instead, he would focus specifically on the immediate question. In fact, the rabbi began, wealthy people have an absolute halachic obligation to direct their money to kollel families. As evidence, he referenced a comment of the Ohr Chaim to Vayikra 19:13.
Since the rabbi's response revealed a lot about the way he understands a Jewish economy should ideally work, I'll quote and analyze that Ohr Chaim one step at a time. He first quotes a Yalkut (remez 934) which, in context, reads:
התורה אמרה לפני הקב"ה כתיב בשמאלה עושר וכבוד מפני מה בני עניים, והקב"ה משיבה להנחיל אוהבי יש, למה הם עניים בעוה"ז כדי שלא יעסקו בדברים אחרים וישכחו התורה דכתיב כי העושק יהולל חכם
The Torah said to the Holy One: "Is it not written: 'in His left hand is wealth and honor' so why are my sons poor?" The Holy One replied: "'For the use of those who love (things of) substance.' Why are they poor in this world? So they should not engage in other [distracting] activities and come to forget the Torah. As it is written: 'For the oppressor will be praised as wise.'"
That last quotation (from Koheles 7:7) seems difficult to fit into the rest of the midrash. Presumably, it's for that reason that the Ohr Chaim quotes the Ari saying that:
The world can't withstand the immense goodness that is given because of tzadikim, for that reason the goodness is directed to mediocre individuals [בינונים], and in that way, bnei Torah are fed.
The Ohr Chaim concludes:
This teaches you that the wealthy are simply a conduit prepared for the needs of tzadikim. And God commanded that one shouldn't oppress his fellow who is a tzadik, as it is written "For the good of my brothers and fellows" - but he wouldn't give [his fellow] his proper portion. This is obvious oppression [עושק מפורסם].
Now, by oppression (עושק), the Ohr Chaim is clearly referring to the sin of unlawfully withholding money owed to employees or merchants (Vayikra 19:13 - the subject of this comment). But the Ohr Chaim, in a decidedly non-halachic thought, appears to extend the prohibition to bnei Torah with whom any one wealthy individual in particular might have had no previous business relationship.
Of course, the yeshiva leader I’m quoting has taken even the Ohr Chaim quite a distance beyond it’s actual words. Let’s strip down each source to its bare elements:
The quotation from Koheles 7:7 is, naturally, ambiguous. It could mean, as the Ari - by way of the Ohr Chaim - would have it, that failing to support a tzadik is an act of oppression (although fitting that into the dikduk of the verse won’t be easy). But it could just as easily have been hinting that insufficient attention to Torah can lead a person to oppressing others (i.e., that is the distraction that should concern us). Or there might be any number of alternate readings.
The midrash’s actual answer to its question (“why are bnei Torah poor?”) was that too much wealth could lead them to distractions. The Ohr Chaim ignores that answer.
The Ohr Chaim (quoting the Ari) himself only makes his suggestion in the explicit context of bnei Torah who are tzadikim. There’s no evidence he would have applied that to large populations of people who haven’t necessarily reached that level.
So the various quotations from Tanach, Chazal, and even the Ohr Chaim itself can hardly be considered sources for that yeshiva leader’s opinions. But, in my humble opinion, the whole thing also represents a weak - and potentially dangerous - mixing of non-halachic thinking into a halachic context.
After all, according to the unambiguous Torah law, withholding payments is forbidden regardless of who it's owed to. The Shulchan Aruch (חו"מ שנט:א) explicitly applies the law even when the money is owed to non-Jews. This new suggestion, besides having no real source, risks misrepresenting halacha and damaging the popular perception of what, in the best of times, is a difficult halacha to properly observe.