[Avodah] Torah Study vs. other contributions to society

[Dov Bloom]

I met last night with Aaron Eliahu ( a brother of the former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu). The father of the Eliyahu family was R. Salman Eliyahu, a well-known kabbalist in the old city of Jerusalem in the early 1900's. R' Salman is the author of the popular commentary on the "Eitz Hayyim" of the ARIZ"L entitled "Kerem Shlomo", which is still available nowadays and apparently popular among those who learn nistar.

R. Salman Eliyahu was proficient in Hebrew, Arabic (having grown up in Turkish governed Jerusalem) and also English, having been sent by his father to study in London. He thus was able to serve as the personal secretary of the first British High Commisioner of the British Mandate, Lord Herbert Samuel. 

I asked his Aaron Eliyahu his son (who is now well into his 80's) wasn't it unusual for a talmid hakkam and "mekubal" to hold down such a "secular" job. He answered me "In Jerusalem in those days no-one thought anything of it, no one even raised such a question. Look at the Rambam and the Abarbanel..."