Kollel
In the past 30 years about 50 Haredi Judaism North American "community kollels" have been opened by yeshiva-trained scholars as centers for adult education and outreach to the Jewish communities in which they located themslves. The activities of these institutions have caused Jewish communal leaders to look seriously at the need for adult Jewish education and to address this need with more extensive programming including sincere and successful efforts at reaching out to the unaffiliated Jewish community.
Another development has been that a small number of kollels have been opened by those affiliated with Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism.
In the Orthodox Jewish community a kollel is effectively an institute for advanced Talmudic study often attached to an estblished advanced yeshiva in a large Orthodox community that is devoted purely to post-graduate studies by advanced scholars. A "community kollel" on the other hand, connotes the inclusion of a community education outreach program. Topics include everything from basic Hebrew to advanced Talmud. A motto of the community kollel may be "Come Learn With Us!" and the emphasis would be on textual study focusing on the original sources words, rather than on the teachers' "opinions".
Community kollelim basically strive to bring the excitement, wisdom and a personal connection to Torah to every Jew regardless of background or affiliation. Across the United States, community kollelim have been a catalyst for the community development in Torah knowledge and observance of Judaism through successful outreach to the unaffiliated Jewish community. In the non-Orthodox Jewish community a kollel is an adult-ed program or center that has courses available on Talmud, Midrash, learning Hebrew, Jewish ethics and related topics; less emphasis is given to Talmud.
A great champion for kollelim was Rabbi Aharon Kotler, the founder of Beth Medrash Govoha, one of America's largest yseshiva located in Lakewood, NJ. The community kollel movement was fostered by Torah Umesorah (The National Society for Hebrew Day Schools) (guided by Rabbi Kotler until his death in 1963) in the early 1970s with kollelim were functioning in in Los Angeles, CA and Detroit, MI. Other examples of successful community kollelim include, kollelim in in Dallas, TX, Atlanta, GA and Phoenix, AZ.
Many Orthodox Jewish yeshiva students study in kollel for a year or two after they get married, whether or not they will pursue a rabbinic career. Modest stipends or the salaries of their wives and the increased wealth of many families have made kollel study commonplace for yeshiva graduates. The largest U.S. kollel is at Rabbi Kotler's Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood N.J. with over 1500 scholars attached to the yeshiva which is 3500 strong in total. In the Israeli Haredi Jewish community thousands of men study full-time for many years in hundreds of kollelim. This has been known at times to cause a great deal of friction with the secular Israeli public at large, and garnering criticism from the Modern Orthodox, non-Orthodox and secular Jewish community. The Haredi community defends this practice with the argument that Judaism must cultivate Torah scholarship in the same way that the secular academic world does, no matter how high the costs may be financially in the short run, in the long run the Jewish people will benefit from the large number of learned laymen, scholars, and rabbis.
Yeshiva students who learn in Kollel often go on to become rabbis, poskim ("decisors" [of Jewish law]), or teachers of Talmud and Judaism.
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See also
External links
- Community Kollels in North America
- Atlanta Scholars Kollel
- DATA Kollel
- Phoenix Community Kollel
- Torch Kollel Houston, Texas
- Jewish Learning in the Diaspora - List of places to learn
- Religious Zionist Kollels in the USA
- List of Kollels in the USA
- A liberal Jewish Kollel in Ontario, Canada
- A Reform Jewish Kollel for liberal Jews
- Conservative Judaism's online adult-ed program
- Torah.org Orthodox Jewish internet education - Learn what they learn in the Kollels
Sources
- The World of the Yeshiva: An Intimate Portrait of Orthodox Jewry William B. Helmreich, KTAV Publishing House; ISBN 0881256412; Augmented edition (February 2000)
- The way we were before our destruction: Lives of Jewish students from Vilna who perished during the Holocaust Yulian I. Rafes, VIA Press ; YIVO Institute for Jewish Research; ISBN 188556306X; (July 1, 1998)
