[Avodah] Tzvei dinim to bitel torah

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, June 20, 2007 3:47 pm, A & C Walters wrote:
: Reb Boruch Ber ztvkl"a ...
:    also brings the Reb Chaim tzvkl"a that Reb Chaim was asked during
: the war if he could work in an office to avoid the draft, even though
: it would require writing on shabbos. Reb Chaim mattird because pekuach
: nefesh is docheh shabbos. A second person asked if he could go to
: university to avoid the draft. Reb Chaim paskened that yehareg ve'al
: yovo (it's minus).

R' Shimon Schwab asked Reb Borukh Ber if he was supposed to go to
yeshiva full time, or follow the TIDE of his mesorah. Reb Borukh Ber
replied (copied after his comments on the mishnah about teaching your
son a parnasah) that TIDE was a hora'as sha'ah.

I heard a similar story about R' Elchanan Wasserman. The threat was
the approaching German occupation, the job was to work in the US
embassy and the University was YU and RIETS. REW was not a fan of the
Goldener Medinah nor of TuM. Here is what he wrote R' Elchanan
Hertzman (a talmid of the Mir who eventually did get to NY):
> I received your letter, but unfortunately there is nothing I can do.
> The yeshivos in America which can bring talmidim from overseas are
> the yeshivah of Dr. Revel (YU) and [HTC in Chicago]. However, both
> are places of spiritual danger because they are run in a spirit of
> disloyalty to the Torah. Therefore, of what benefit would it be to
> escape [Europe] from physical danger to spiritual danger.

But as RAWalters writes, that's not about bitul Torah, that's about a
perceived threat of kefirah.

: However, to learn secular subjects, not bekevius, by oneself is mutar
: (as per the Ram"o YD 246)

Unsurprising, since this was the mehalekh of the Gra, the CI, talmidim
in Slabodka, etc... As already discussed on a thread that seems to
have just evaporated two weeks ago.

:> ... my rav ... does glance at the NY Times, probably in the room
:> the Gra used to study math, probably because he holds there is
:> to'eles  in being an informed person, or possibly because he could
:> not otherwise distract
:> himself from having hirhurim of Torah in an inappropriate place.)

FWIW, the bit about studying math in the bathroom has to be a legend.
Outhouses have a nauseating smell and no lighting. You don't sit there
and read. It's anachronistic, a mental image that is only plausible
after indoor plumbing.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter