The Kollel-Man Masculinity Crisis

Among the topics that most intrigue outside onlookers is the social status of Charedi women. I often encounter probing questions about “women’s status in your society,” mostly accompanied by characteristic condescension. Every time, I swallow a small smile and think to myself—there are some thoughts best kept inside—that if there is a status we need to be concerned about, I am far more concerned for that of the Charedi man. As I will try to explain below, I do not mean this tongue-in-cheek.

 

Who Wears the Pants?

Every election in Israel—the upcoming one will surely not be an exception to the rule—sees the question of Charedi female representation rise anew among the same circles. The absence of Charedi female representation, the social norm of gender separation, male-dominated rabbinic leadership, and the male monopoly on institutionalized Torah study makes Charedi society seem a highly patriarchal space. Just the other week UTJ MK Uri Maklev was interviewed by (the secular) Yediot Acharonot, and of the many statements he made during the interview, the headline for the resultant piece was the quote: “Women Do Not Need to Be in Politics. It’s Bad for Them.”

Charedi society sanctifies the inner, concealed place of women and thus refrains from involving them in the political arena, the most public of human playing fields. Estee Rieder, a Charedi feminist activist, was less enthused by Maklev’s statement and didn’t miss the opportunity to attack all of Charedi society and present it as a group that represses women.

[A]nyone familiar with Charedi society from the inside knows of strong subterranean gender streams that developed out of radical changes in the most fundamental issues of human living, namely: the transformation of women into the primary breadwinner of the household

This is fine and dandy, providing good material for Israel’s secular press. Undoubtedly, Charedi Judaism remains far from current feminist agendas. There is nothing terrible about that (in my opinion), and the fact that women do not become public representatives is but one expression of this social attitude. However, anyone familiar with Charedi society from the inside knows of strong subterranean gender streams that developed out of radical changes in the most fundamental issues of human living, namely: the transformation of women into the primary breadwinner of the household. This anomalous situation (certainly for a conservative society like ours) has entirely changed the balance of power between Charedi men and women within the family unit and even among the entire community. In this article, I wish to examine this change, focusing specifically on its consequences for the Charedi man.

Entirely unintentionally, the gender power balance within Charedi society has shifted, and not necessarily to its benefit. Charedi society still holds fast to traditional gender approaches, in which men and women do not share the same status. However, the fact that women are the primary providers while husbands remain ensconced in the Yeshiva Study Hall—this, at least, is the situation in the Litvish community—has created a society in which the reality of gender status is far from the rhetorical ideal. The situation can be tormenting for women, who expect husbands to be “men” in the traditional sense, but even for men who feel their dignity has been taken from them.

 

Passive Feminization

In western society, the agenda of gender equality has been driven from above by thinkers and academics who developed the ideas and by social activists who implement them, culminating in the revolutionary ideological movement known as feminism. Down the line, feminist ideas trickled down to the regular woman-on-the-street—the “reasonable woman”—reshaping relationships between men and women everywhere and their mutual expectations of each other.

In contrast with this order, in Charedi society, the Rabbinic leadership and official ideology—the hashkafa taught in schools and promulgated by Charedi newspapers, magazines, and media outlets—continue to oppose feminist ideas stridently. A Charedi girl grows up thinking that “feminism” is verboten; calling someone a “feminist” is a slur. The traditional roles of women as mothers, wives, and housekeepers continue to be praised, while egalitarian ideas are condemned.

Ironically, however, the practical state of affairs in the Charedi community, especially among Kollel students, is one that sworn feminists could only dream about. Even today, after the great strides towards equality taken by the different waves of the feminist movement, many feminist activists continue to complain about how the old order of gender relations remains operative in many aspects of society. Men continue to be the “strong” side of the relationship and the primary providers, with traditional gender arrangements still designating the private sphere to women and the public domain to men. In most homes, women are charged with the principal responsibility for raising kids and caring for housework, while men enjoy meaningful careers. Men are the chief “ambassadors” of the family unit, while women, broadly speaking, are more tied down to home and children.

However, the feminist utopia is very much realized in many Charedi homes. Without any ideological prodding, Charedi homes have experienced a gender role reversal that defines women as the sole or primary breadwinners in the family unit. They rush to work in the morning, participate in highly influential work meetings, and are often absent from the home in the afternoon when kids return from school. Every Charedi area in the country witnesses male Kollel students pushing strollers in the morning and early afternoon, a trail of kids in tow. The path to rolling up sleeves to thoroughly clean the house and rule the roost at home to feed hungry kids is a relatively short one. And if we’re already doing the cooking, why not exchange recipes at the local Kollel?

This picture presents us with a reality that contrasts sharply with the typical image of Charedi women. The situation on the ground is that excepting strictly religious spheres, politics is practically the last bastion where male exclusivity is preserved. Everywhere else, women dominate.

These are all everyday matters. At a conference attended by leading Rabbinic figures several years ago, Rabbi Meir Kessler (Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Sefer) described this phenomenon at length, making his disdain for the new reality palpably clear. The headline that one Charedi news outlet gave was “City Rabbi Cries Out in Pain: ‘Kollel Students Have Become Cooks.’” Rabbi Kessler gave a fascinating description of how women in Kollel families have become “women of the world,” making a career and handling the family’s foreign relations, while men have become “househusbands.”

This picture presents us with a reality that contrasts sharply with the typical image of Charedi women. The situation on the ground is that excepting strictly religious spheres, politics is practically the last bastion where male exclusivity is preserved. Everywhere else, women dominate.

Allow me to clarify. Certainly, I do not consider traditional female roles inferior to the newly defined roles of modern western culture. Yet, in a society that grants importance to gender roles, which in turn grants men and women their sense of self-worth and dignity, a man that finds himself executing traditional female jobs on a regular basis may cause a sense of frustration and even exasperation. Indeed, many Kollel students try to conceal the fact that they are effectively housekeepers. As noted at the outset, Charedi ideology is markedly distant from feminist thought, espousing (at least on formal and rhetorical levels) the traditional divisions between men and women. A Charedi family in which the man performs traditional feminine roles, due to circumstances rather than conscious choice, may lead to unease at best and a sense of crisis at worst.

 

The Dissonance Between Ideal and Reality

The Litvish education system preaches clear and defined roles for each gender: men are charged with the spiritual side of the home and society, and women with the material side. These roles are not symmetrical. The male, spiritual side is far superior to the female role. The distinction is especially prominent in the utterly asymmetrical marital arrangements. As opposed to the traditional system in which men must pay a given sum to wed the desired bride—the traditional dowry—in Litvish society, the woman’s side must lay out a handsome sum to wed the coveted groom, the Torah scholar.

However, this ideal is not always borne out in the practice operation of the Charedi home, where the woman becomes the family’s “ambassador” and occupies the position “(s)he who has the gold makes the rules.” The pampered Kollel student, who legitimately anticipated the higher status in the social pecking order, encounters in real life an independent and powerful woman, one already used to executing all sorts of tasks in which he has no business. The social order that sends women to work “for the sake of her husband’s Torah study” has created a situation in which women are tasked with managing all the family’s relations with the outside world while the man manages its internal affairs. Later in the above-mentioned speech, Rabbi Kessler continued to describe this situation:

After all, some matches are made based on the woman’s high salary that can provide for the home and enable the husband to sit and study, resulting in his being entirely enslaved to the home. He sends out the kids in the morning, he greets them in the afternoon when they come home, and he also needs to cook.

The man’s troubles and, subsequently, the woman’s, begins when the husband fails to maintain his end of the bargain.

The social order that sends women to work “for the sake of her husband’s Torah study” has created a situation in which women are tasked with managing all the family’s relations with the outside world while the man manages its internal affairs

The Charedi woman is taught to admire Torah scholars. She knows how to appreciate a man of learning and character and is the first to give her husband space, time, and respect so he can flourish in the Torah world. But things don’t always go quite as planned. When a woman sees her husband is not entirely thriving in his devotion to serious Torah study, as common for a less-than-negligible percentage of Yeshiva graduates, her practical sense (used to juggling infinite tasks) urges her to enlist him to the unending chores that await performance. There is insufficient justification for maximal and perpetual self-sacrifice when her husband seems a little less preoccupied. Moreover, a woman’s absence from work means an immediate financial cost, so both spouses often prefer she stays at work and the husband, who is almost invariably more local and more available, stays home and helps whenever needed.

In other words, it isn’t easy for the Charedi Kollel student to maintain his elevated status and remain untarnished by the radical changes in Charedi gender roles. Doing so is contingent on fulfilling the role of Kollel student with perpetual energy and verve, with the passion that Torah study can command but that most find it challenging to maintain, full-time, over long years and decades. Such individuals, who in a different life would cut it as professors of Talmud, can maintain the initial status quo and division of labor. His Torah remains sacrosanct, something that cannot be interfered with. Whatever his wife does, he will not become the family cook. But when the father of the family becomes “just a Kollel student”—somebody for whom Kollel is a workplace rather than life itself—he may find himself in a masculinity crisis.

 

Hard Labor, 2020 Style

Many Charedi women are true superwomen, used from an early age to perform a large variety of tasks.[1] Whenever a husband falls short in discharging his spiritual responsibilities at home, they might also take command of the spiritual aspects of the home, in addition to material occupations at home and outside. Many Charedi women have extensive halachic knowledge and impressive erudition in terms of Mussar literature—areas in which they can even challenge the average Yeshiva student.

In the build-up to Pesach, I often hear women at work conversing on the phone with their husbands, managing preparations remotely. Women who work practically up to the moment of bedikas chametz are forced to enlist their husband, who is home with the kids, to get preparations moving. To generalize, my sense in these situations is that wife and husband would very much like to trade places. She would love to be the one making the home spotless, and he would like to get as far away from it as possible. Contemporary hard labor, a la Pharoah.

The problem is that for the gender relationship to work, our “reasonable Avrech” doesn’t do the job. If a husband can conveniently be home between 2:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon while the wife cannot, why go the extra mile?

To emphasize, I am not describing some sluggard, a man who finds himself learning Torah against his will and is simply wasting his time in Kollel. I am referring to the mediocre to good Kollel student, one whose position in the Kollel and the community is stable and who is truly interested and devoted to the world of Torah and the values of a Torah life. This is a man who does not search for opportunities to skip a learning session. He enjoys being in the world of Torah study and would not leave it unless he really had to. He is the “reasonable Avrech,” the one with whom we are all familiar. But like most Kollel students, he also has a life outside Kollel. His counterpart in the working world is the “responsible employee” who does his job and goes home. He’s not made of the stuff of being on call 24/7, his life revolving around the office. Our world is replete with such people, and there is nothing wrong with that or them. The problem is that for the gender relationship to work, our “reasonable Avrech” doesn’t do the job. If a husband can conveniently be home between 2:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon while the wife cannot, why go the extra mile?

The implicit and unfortunate message projected to the Kollel student who fails to live up to the perfect ideal is that he’s practically superfluous. His wife can do his jobs better than him. He neither lives up to the ideal of the Torah scholar nor that of the expert housekeeper. It is a tough place to be.

 

Harming Domestic Tranquility

The situation detailed above ultimately harms both partners in the Jewish home. Lacking significant and rewarding activities while living alongside a spouse who juggles a plethora of meaningful tasks is a recipe for disaster. The same nice guy who was pampered with a “full ride”—the apartment his father-in-law purchased for him upon marriage—may find himself in an utterly different situation shortly after the wedding. The inconceivable gap between his theoretical status as “king of the home” and becoming the junior partner of his wife can break his spirit. Naturally, this situation hardly benefits the woman of the home, who needs a strong husband in her life no less than he does.

I am describing a reality I see all around me and which I hear time and again from female peers who share their experiences—experiences of living with a husband who feels unrealized and dissatisfied, leading to understandable problems at home.

The inconceivable gap between his theoretical status as “king of the home” and becoming the junior partner of his wife can break his spirit

A sense of achievement is a necessary part of the psychological well-being of anyone, and certainly of men; it is important both for them and for the home. Sometimes, the privileged Avrech will find himself a shtele, a Torah position as a teacher in a Yeshiva, or another position in a religious institution. But this provides only a partial solution. Charedi men employed in Torah frameworks often suffer from low pay and bad conditions, so the position only slightly lifts the morale and diminished stature of the Charedi man. Moreover, the number of available shteles is small, and tens if not hundreds of Avrechim complete for each available position.

So, where does that leave us?

***

Under the radar, we have witnessed the emergence of a society with reversed gender roles, one which even the most radical feminists could not have aspired to. Absurdly enough, this reality has developed in a society raised on traditional gender norms and which abhors, at least in an official capacity, the ideals of liberal feminism. This state of affairs has a far from simple effect on the emotional state and morale of the Charedi man, as well as the Charedi family and community as a whole. As a mother of small boys, I worry over their future far more than I do over my girls.

The division of labor in the Charedi family has taken a sharp and unsettling turn over the past few years, yet it seems the matter is not being handled or even substantively raised by the different echelons of Charedi leadership. At the end of the aforementioned speech by Rabbi Kessler, he expressed this confusion, even if not very precisely:

We truly face great confusion. I don’t know if there is a public solution to all these issues. The high-school (seminary) principals offer what they have within their limits. Every individual needs to know what fits their hashkafa, their way of life, and the traits of their daughter. And all this does not absolve us from trying to figure out the issue.

Admitting a problem is the first step in dealing with it. But we should recognize that doing so cannot imply a return to the “sun and moon model”—belittling the woman and her salary or forcing her back to the traditional, private realm will not work. We cannot turn the clock back. The horses have long since fled the barn. Whether we like it or not, Charedi women are not returning to the grindstone and the loom.

So what is the solution? I don’t know. I’m just someone who hears the distress signal, giving it a voice and a platform and hoping that someone listens. Charedi women need to be aware of what is happening around them rather than hunkering into the familiar track without considering their partner for the journey. If both are aware of the relevant issues and guide their path wisely, we can reduce and provide some relief for those paying the price of all this.

In addition, we are in serious need of leadership. What needs to be in the behavioral, emotional, and Torah toolbox of the Charedi family emerging before our eyes? Do we need a new direction, a new horizon? We would do well to give these questions careful consideration; far better than allowing the answers to emerge from a new reality molded by a distorted agenda not of our own making.

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[1] Though not all make it; see Maayan Meir’s article on the subject.