Q:
What should be done when the in-laws don’t let their son-in-law study Torah?
A:
What should be done when they don’t let him eat kosher? He disregards them.
Now, I don’t know what you mean by studying Torah. If it means lying in bed all day long, then the in-laws are right. You have to go to work! You have to support your wife. That’s what a man has to do. Unless he has some source of income – then certainly learning all day is a very good thing.
But if it’s just a question of going at night to study Torah or Sundays or Shabbos, so your in-laws have nothing to say about it, just like they have nothing to say about keeping a kosher home. He has to keep a kosher home no matter how much they disapprove. And learning Torah is part of a kosher home. Like it says ודברת בם – you have to speak in the Torah, בשבתך בביתך – when you sit in your house. And if it’s necessary to go to the beis hamedrash to learn, you have to do it too.
TAPE # 256 (February 1979)
