Food for Thought

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n a column a little over two years ago, I shared my view that the solution to the spiraling consumerism and runaway material extravagance afflicting frum life will not be found in community-wide measures dictated by its leadership.  It requires individuals and families to decide to break free of the indulgent mindset and embrace a deeper, spiritually oriented way of living.

I also suggested that Talmud Torah — more specifically, amalah shel Torah — could play a pivotal role in that process. The ideal of Talmud Torah involves becoming not merely occupied but preoccupied in deed and thought with Torah. There’s nothing like ongoing, focused involvement with G-d’s Will as expressed in His Word to help a person lose interest in the cheap desires to which our lower selves are drawn.

The Chazon Ish often described in lyrical terms the power of toil in Torah and its resultant joy as antidotes to materialism. In Emunah U’Bitachon (3:7), he writes: “Toil in Torah has the ability to purify the soul, to render it sensitive and lustrous such that it draws nigh the pleasant feeling of purity and sanctity, and to implant deeply in one’s heart a visceral disgust with meaningless pleasures.”  In one of his many letters of encouragement to young Torah students he writes (Koveitz Igros 1:9): “Sweet things… cannot compete with the rarified pleasure to be derived from toiling for wisdom, whereby man’s soul is lifted above the worldly din to the highest heavens, where it delights in the radiance of the supernal wisdom.”

But even if a large-scale return to Torah study as it was meant to be can help transform attitudes and values vis-?-vis materialism, how would this work its effects upon women, for whom intensive Torah study of this sort isn’t intended to be a prime focus?  I conjectured that for many, the example set by husbands and fathers in opting for the real over the contrived and the deep over the shallow would elicit strong feelings of admiration and support from their spouses and families, who would follow suit in moderating their lifestyles.