Unpacking the Iggerot: Faith & Finances

Read more about “Unpacking the Iggerot” and see the archive of all past columns.

Kollel, Insurance & Medical Screenings / Iggerot Moshe, Y.D., vol. 4, #36

Summarizing the Iggerot
Numerous statements throughout Rabbinic literature exalt the primacy of Torah study. For instance, a passage in the Talmud (Shabbat 127a), which was incorporated into the morning prayers, tells us at the end of a list of lofty commandments that “Torah study is tantamount to them all.” There was always a select group of Torah scholars who invested virtually all of their time into this pursuit to the point of it becoming toratam u-manutam, the Torah became their profession.

Nowadays, with the ascendance of the Kollel system, there is an abundance of men who are invested in the full-time pursuit of Torah study (in some cases, women as well, althoguh usually for briefer stints). Some have a side profession, while others rely on stipends and communal charities to fund their lifestyle. R. Moshe Feinstein, in his analysis of this development, is forced to reckon with what Rambam writes in his Mishneh Torah :

Anyone who comes to the conclusion that he should involve himself in Torah study without doing work and derive his livelihood from charity, desecrates [God’s] name, dishonors the Torah, extinguishes the light of faith, brings evil upon himself, and forfeits the life of the world to come, for it is forbidden to derive benefit from the words of Torah in this world…. It is a tremendous advantage for a person to derive his livelihood from his own efforts (Laws of Torah Study 3:10–11).

There is a marked change in tone and intensity between the the two parts of this quote. The opening condemns full time Torah study with reliance on charity as immoral and evil, while the continuation meekly advises against such a lifestyle. R. Feinstein reconciles this inconsistency by proposing that they are addressing two different kinds of people. Many individuals, whether they are allotted two hours or twelve hours a day will engage in the same qualitative studying. For a person who will not maximize his time, relying on communal charity to maintain such a lifestyle is unconscionable and precisely what Rambam condemns in harsh terms.

However, for the class of select individuals who are exceedingly studious and can maintain the rigor of the curriculum and whose quality is commensurate to the quantity of allotted time, there is no defiling ofGod’s Torah—rather “there is no greater sanctification of the Name of Heaven and honoring of Torah than this.”

R. Feinstein provides us with a degree of nuance—the question of Torah study in Kollel need not be a zero-sum game. There are full time opinions and part time options, and choosing between them varies based on the individual. He further quotes Rambam who writes that: “A person whose heart inspires him to fulfill this mitzvah in a fitting manner and to become crowned with the crown of Torah should not divert his attention to other matters” (Laws of Torah Study 3:6).

He reiterates that this passage is reserved for exceptional inspired individuals, rather than a mandate for the average person.

Connecting the Iggerot
R. Feinstein also recognized a distinction between different classes of Torah scholars. For instance, while charity would be prioritized for childrens’ Torah study over a Torah scholar, one who is at the level of issuing halakhic decisions and can answers the community’s questions would take precedence, even over funds meant for childhood education (see Y.D., vol. 3, #94; cf. Y.D., vol. 5, #33). While R. Feinstein does not explicitly extrapolate it to the subject of Kollel study, it is reasonable that he might ascribe more significance to someone who studies in Kollel to achieve the necessary erudition to guide the Jewish people.

More importantly, in our main responsum, he incorporates a word of caution that once such men are married and have children the calculus fundamentally changes. While the yungerman might be willing to suffice with a life of bare simplicity, he remains responsible to tend to his family’s needs and expectations.

R. Aharon Felder once asked his teacher, R. Feinstein, for permission to take a (part-time) teaching opportunity while enrolled in the Kollel. The latter responded, “Where does it say that someone studying in Kollel should not be able to earn a living?” (Reshumei Aharon, vol. 1, p. 24; and cf. p. 29). This dovetails with how R. Feinstein explains Shammai’s exhortation “make the Torah fixed” as “meaning that a person’s primary purpose in life is the Torah.” And even the many hours that he cannot engage in Torah study, the Torah is still considered “fixed” as that is what guides him and it is what he pines for at every moment (Darash Moshe, vol. 1, pp. 329–330, cf. Meorot Moshe on Avot 1:15).

As we explored in our column on secular education (“Cheating, College & Culture”), R. Feinstein held post-high school Torah study in high regard. Yet, he also propounded a spiritual rationale for fiscal responsibility. In a 1963 responsum (O.H., vol. 2, #111), he articulates that taking out insurance policies are not at odds with faith in God, but constitute a ma’ase parnasa, a standard expectation and obligation for achieving financial security, since “we may not rely upon a miracle” (Berakhot 60a). He writes:

It is certainly forbidden to expect that God will send him a livelihood without any work or business, even though [at the same] we need to be cognizant that all that he profits from his work and business is only from God.

He further cites the Mishna in which Rabbi Nehorai declared that “I set aside all the trades in the world, and I teach my son only Torah” (Kiddushin (4:14). R. Feinstein qualifies that R. Nehorai focused exclusively on Torah study during his child’s early education, but ensured that he taught him a trade later on.

At the conclusion of this analysis he extends his logic to home and car insurance, and in a follow-up responsum (O.H., vol. 4, #48) he insists that a father or husband should purchase life insurance as well. This is consistent with what was reported by R. Chaim Mintz about R. Feinstein recommending medical insurance, seeing no contradiction with the virtue of trust in God providence (Zkeinecha Yomru Lakh, p. 129). As the adage goes, “God helps those who help themselves.”

Reception of the Iggerot
The reception of R. Feinstein’s responsa gets interesting when we look at the topic of medical screenings, which serves as another data point in how he attempted to strike a balance between human effort and religious reliance. Reportedly, after a medical professional had advised a room full of religious women to undergo additional forms of medical diagnostics, R. Feinstein demurred, suggesting that such practices were at odds with the verse “You shall be whole with the Lord your God” (Deut. 18:13). This is based on the Rabbinic teaching cited by Rashi (ad loc.) that “one should walk wholly with God and pine for and look to Him, rather than attempt to prognosticate the future” (Zkeinecha Yomru Lakh, p. 129). In a similar vein, he insisted that in order to fulfill the requisite degree of human effort, one need not seek the most expert available doctor to perform a surgery, but insisted that “any qualified physician is sufficient and the rest is up to God” (Reshumei Aharon, vol. 1, p. 27).

In 1973 a responsum (E.H., vol. 4, #10) to R. Dr. Moshe D. Tendler, R. Feinstein deliberated whether young people of marriageable age should undergo genetic screening to determine whether they are carriers of Tay-Sachs. Initially, he invokes the verse “You shall be whole with the Lord your God,” but then counters that “nonetheless, since it is easy to check, it is possible that if one refrains from getting tested it is tantamount to closing one’s eyes to seeing what is possible to perceive,” i.e., since predicating a likely tragic outcome can be determined from the start.

This ruling helped serve as a basis for Dor Yeshorim, one of the primary organizations dedicated to Jewish genetic screening for Tay-Sachs and other diseases (see Josef Ekstein and Howard Katzenstein, “The Dor Yeshorim Story: Community-Based Carrier Screening for Tay-Sachs Disease,” Advances in Genetics 44 [2001]).

Since R. Feinstein ultimately permitted such screenings, R. Moshe Kleinman, the author of the Sefer Halakha u-Refua (vol. 5, p. 257) expresses puzzlement at R. Feinstein’s initial hesitation. He argues that the commandment of “You shall be whole with the Lord your God” is to caution us against “fortune telling” through supernatural means, akin to practices such as witchcraft and necromancy. However, medical screenings which operate solely within the natural, scuentific realm should not be subject to this prohibition. In fact, R. Feinstein later in that very same responsum tips his hand, adding that there is a practical-psychological consideration for not undergoing needless diagnostics:

For many people suffer from sadness that they call “nervin” [nervousness] that causes the person to interpret something small as something huge and turn a minor concern into a major one—and this is prevalent in this country, as it is known.

R. Mintz reports along the same lines R. Feinstein claimed that “it is known that many times the worry is far worse than the actual malady.”

Reflecting on the Iggerot
The call to balance human effort with a recognition of God’s providence was something that did not simply apply to the day-to-day questions of Torah study, insurance policies, and general health, but  perhaps more so during the most dire circumstances. In the November 1973 issue of The Jewish Observer (9:7) on “The Yom Kippur War…And Us” an essay titled “Mortal Might in War and Peace” contained a distillation of R. Feinstein’s philosophy on the role of faith in times of battle:

“My Might and My Power” Do Not Exist

We have much to learn from these Kings who were so deeply concerned that people should not attribute their successes to themselves. We have an overriding obligation to avoid this pitfall, especially in this era of ikvasa dimoshicha, when we are on the very threshold of Moshiach’s arrival. The final Mishnah in Sotah describes his era as a time when the honor of Torah will suffer, the numbers of those who study Torah will diminish, many economic and material problems will beset us, and there will be no one to rely upon except our Father in Heaven. That is, after suffering material and spiritual deprivations, we will come to realize that we can only rely on Hashem. All suffering we endure is geared toward bringing us to this ultimate realization, and the sooner we come to it, the sooner we will be spared. During the War of ‘67, we were exposed to the Hand of God. Had we all been fully aware of what we had witnessed and the impact of all the stories we had heard, we would not have needed this recent war to awaken us.

As long as we persist in attributing success to “my might and the power of my hand,” we are still in need of the lesson that there is no such thing: “my might and the power of my hand” are non-existent.

This is consistent with R. Feinstein’s comment on the verse “God is a man of war” (Exodus 15:3): “We see from this a paradigm shift that in war there is no such thing as nature. Weak and strong are all the same, for ‘God is a man of war’. And even when the mighty triumph, that too is a miracle orchestrated by God” (Darash Moshe, vol. 1, p. 51).

In Iggerot Moshe (Y.D., vol. 4, #31), R. Feinstein writes that the prime directive of every teacher “is to instill in the hearts of their students faith in God and His holy Torah.” Elsewhere, he expounds that the great sin of Amalek was that they denied God’s providence immediately subsequent to having witnessed the miracles God had performed for the Israelites. It is therefore juxtaposed with the proscription against false measures, as one who resorts to fraudulent business practices is, in essence, declaring that he does not trust that God is the one who determines a man’s livelihood (Darash Moshe to Deut. 25:17, vol. 1, pp. 159-160; cf. Iggerot Moshe, O.H., vol. 4, #25, and Zkeinecha Yomru Lakh, p. 128). He further asserted that sometimes one needs to first take the leap of faith and the money will then follow. He wrote that “one must place his trust in this, and establish yeshivot to disseminate Torah, even though according to the ‘laws of nature’ he sees no [financial] way to do so” (Darash Moshe, vol. 1, p. 50). R. Baruch Saks quotes him as saying “with excuses it is impossible to build Torah [institutions],” but one must exert the necessary effort and leave the rest to God (Barukh She’amar, p. 219). This is reminiscent of a responsum we discussed in our article on “Responses to Repentance,” when he advised a young woman to leave her sinful life, find a husband, and be assured “that it is God, blessed be He, who provides bread for all flesh and prepares for you the livelihood [that you require]” (Iggerot Moshe, O.H., vol. 4, #118).

Sermons and halakhic rulings overlap, yet they are distinct genres, and we  observe this when we contrast what R. Feinstein writes in his Darash Moshe against his Iggerot Moshe. In his analysis of insurance policies (and also in Y.D., vol. 4, #51) he invokes a Talmudic passage to caution against relying upon miracles (Berakhot 60a), insisting that an individual must pursue natural means for attaining financial stability. While in Darash Moshe (vol. 2, p. 30), despite acknowledging the very same principle of ein somkhin al ha-nes, he adds a Talmudic tale:

One Shabbat evening, Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa saw that his daughter was sad. He said to her: My daughter, why are you sad? She said to him: I confused a vessel of vinegar for a vessel of oil and I lit the Shabbat lamp with vinegar. (Soon the lamp will be extinguished and we will be left in the dark.) He said to her: My daughter, what are you concerned about? He Who said to the oil that it should burn can say to the vinegar that it should burn. A tanna taught: That lamp burned continuously the entire day, until they brought from it light for havdala (Ta’anit 25a).

R. Feinstein elaborates that for most people who do not possess full authentic faith it is forbidden to rely on a miracle. But for R. Hanina ben Dosa, who completely internalized that the natural order is anything but natural, there was no fundamental distinction between oil and vinegar, since everything is through God. This latter idea is not propounded in his responsa about insurance which require a practical decision for an immediate reality. The goal of the sermon is not merely to address the immediate state of reality, but imagine and aspire for what reality can become.

Endnote: For further reading, see Dibberot Moshe (Kiddushin, #43:4) regarding Rambam’s approach to Torah study and earning a livelihood, and also Reshumei Aharon (vol. 2, p. 8) regarding one who studies Torah vis-a-vis the obligation of tithing. For more on R. Feinstein’s theology of reliance on God, see Darash Moshe (vol. 1, pp. 29-30) regarding Joseph’s spiritual failure for asking the butler for aid, and Barukh She’amar on the Holidays (p. 179) about Jacob’s blessing in Genesis (27:28).See Reshumei Aharon (vol. 2, p. 65) regarding insurance for Torah scrolls. One of the gabbaim at my previous shul, Mr. Michael Berg, cleverly pointed out that R. Feinstein’s encouragement to take out insurance seems to be at odds with what we explored in “R. Moshe’s Messiah Mentality” concerning his ruling that one should live life with the conviction that the Messiah will arrive imminently. See also Petihat ha-Iggerot (p. 599) for more on the topic of medical screenings.

Moshe Kurtz is the rabbi of Cong. Sons of Israel in Allentown, PA, the author of Meoros Moshe, Challenging Assumptions, and hosts the Shu”T First, Ask Questions Later podcast.