My wife has decamped for Poland with a group of seminary students. And my only daughter is busy cleaning her own home for Pesach in Bnei Brak. That leaves only us guys to take care of the last heavy cleaning.
The absence of female hands on deck means that this year I won't have to listen to the results of surveys in my sons' yeshivos showing that no good yeshiva bochur has any cleaning responsibilities prior to Pesach. No need to threaten to deduct any money spent on mercenaries from that available to replace shiny suits, misshapen hats, and shoes with holes in them.
Yet I have heard enough anecdotal evidence over the years to know that the informal surveys cited above are not entirely a figment of my sons' overactive imaginations. And that is too bad.
One can certainly understand how a parent's heart swells with pride at the sight of a bochur who at the end of a long winter zman still wants nothing more than to put in a full day in the beis medrash. Yet parents would still be well advised to avoid freeing their sons from all Pesach cleaning responsibilities on that account.
Bein hazemanim, as the term implies, is not simply a continuation of the zman in a different setting. Rather it is a time for a different type of growth than can be achieved in the yeshiva. I heard recently from Rav Reuven Leuchter, one of the closest talmidim of the famed Mashgiach Rav Shlomo Wolbe, that bein hazemanim is a time for a type of interaction with the world that cannot take place hunched over one's Gemara. As the Steipler Gaon used to say, it is hard to even assess a bochur's middos while he is in yeshivah. After all, did his shtender ever speak back to him or express a contrary opinion?
Talmudic prodigies exist. But there is a certain type of wisdom that only comes with age and life experience, no matter how brilliant a person may be. That is why the leaders of the Torah world are inevitably drawn from the ranks of the ziknei hador. If the first adjective still used to describe a person is ilui, he is probably not yet ready for leadership. Bein hazemanim is the time for acquiring some of the experience of interacting with the world that is crucial for the development of middos and self-knowledge.
The second major reason not to grant draft exemptions from Pesach cleaning is that it fosters a sense of entitlement that can work against true striving in Torah. Contrary to the common impression among yeshiva bochurim, limud Torah is not a general exemption from all responsibilities in life. As one who was zocheh to learn in kollel for nearly 15 years, I view the expansion of kollel learning as the glory of our generation. But nothing will ever come from one who views yeshivah or kollel as life with an E-Z Pass.
One who accepts upon himself the yoke of Torah will, as the Mishnah in Avos (3:6) teaches us, find the yoke of derech eretz lifted from him. That is both a result of the siyata d'Shmaya that he merits and a natural response to his diminished involvement in the material world: the less concerned he is with material objects the less the burden of their attainment weighs upon him.
But acceptance of the yoke of Torah must come first. One does not demand that one be freed from responsibilities in order that one can learn. Nor does the yoke of Torah provide one with a right to demand from others that they take on one's responsibilities. One of Eretz Yisrael's leading young poskim was asked why his shul only sponsors a bein hazemanim yeshiva in the morning. He replied that bochurim also have to share in Pesach cleaning. The obligation to clean falls on all members of the house not just the women.
More and more, especially in shidduchim, we hear the attitude expressed that a ben Torah is entitled to be spared all life's worries and to be able to live in comfort in order that he can learn in peace. Such an expectation is both unrealistic and dangerous. It is impossible to protect oneself from all worries: illness strikes, fathers-in-laws' businesses go bankrupt, wives who undertook the burden of parnassah find that they are no longer physically or emotionally capable of doing so six children later, or that the children are suffering from having a permanently drained and part-time mother.
The quest for comfort can be inimical to spiritual growth in general and to growth in Torah learning in particular. When the Mishnah in Avos (6:4) describes the way of Torah – "bread with salt shall you eat, water by measure shall you drink, on the earth shall you sleep" – it is hardly describing a life of comfort.
What distinguished the gedolim of pre-War Europe from today's bochurim was not kishronos, but what they were willing to forego for Torah. As a student in Volozhin, Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer often went days without food, and his nephew Rav Elazar Menachem Shach testified the same about himself. When Rav Aryeh Leib Gurwicz's father sent his young son across the border to learn in Lithuania, he never expected to see his son again. Knowing that his son would be sleeping on a bench in an unheated beis medrash, he gave him the greatcoat off his back.
Today when even average bochurim often seek the type of lifetime support that was once reserved for future gedolei hador, one still sees that an overwhelming percentage of the greatest talmidei chachamim live in very strained circumstances. That is not accidental. According to their willingness to sacrifice for their learning, do they wax great.
Among the "comfort" items, we hear on some shidduchim lists is that the girl not be too frum – i.e., she won't push her husband too much – an explicit recognition that comfort and spiritual growth can be tarti de'sasri (mutually exclusive).
Rav Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler's message to both the chassan and kallah under the chuppah was to dedicate themselves to being givers and not takers. Just as at this moment of your greatest happiness, you are filled with a desire to give to each other, he would tell them, may you always be filled with the desire to give to one another. As soon as that desire begins to wane, so too will your happiness.
Nothing could be more antithetical to that spirit of giving than approaching marriage with the attitude of "What's in it for me? What are they offering?" When such questions begin to seem normal, there are no limits. An acquaintance told me recently that her brother had been advised against a certain shidduch by his friends. They had pointed out that the girl's parents were already in late middle-age, and that she had only one sister, so she might end up having to take care of her parents one day. At least her brother was embarrassed when she pointed out: "Oh, so you expect your in-laws to support you for twenty years, but, chas v'Shalom, you should ever have to do anything for them." No doubt such bald-faced selfishness is rare, but the extreme examples often reveal more than we care to admit.
Surely one of the reasons that early divorces are far more common today than they used to be is marriage is being approached selfishly, i.e., as means of facilitating an easy life, with a minimum of responsibilities. Under the best of circumstances, those who are not committed to building a partnership based on mutual sharing will never know the true joy of marriage. And such a marriage will never be able to survive the types of setbacks and external pressures that are part and parcel of this olam ha'asiya.
If for no other reason than to help prepare our sons for the next stage of their lives, we owe it to them to make sure that they make themselves available for a few hours of helping with Pesach cleaning. Not for our good but for theirs.