After my wedding, I started learning in an excellent kollel in Givat Shaul. I lived in Yerushalayim, and every morning I would board the 15 bus, which, back then, would go to Givat Shaul. It was a very successful kollel, which at the time paid more than the accepted stipend. I was happy to be able to achieve my goal of sitting and learning while bringing home enough money to cover our needs, baruch Hashem.
At one point, the 15 bus line was cancelled. It had been a mehadrin bus, with men in the front and women in the back, and thus there was no problem of shemiras einayim. Now, in order to get to kollel I would have to take the 11 bus, which was not a mehadrin bus. I boarded the bus and immediately felt that this was not a place for me. I could not travel this way each day. It was totally unsuitable, and under these circumstances I would have to leave my kollel. I didn’t want to learn Torah in a way that would compel me to see forbidden sights on the way.
“But it’s a really good kollel,” a voice inside me said. “They pay much more than other kollelim. How will you find a kollel near your home now? Don’t you think leaving your kollel is a luxury you can’t afford? Just close your eyes, and you’ll be fine.”
But I knew that it was not a luxury. I could not close my eyes the entire way, day after day. If there was no mehadrin bus, I could not travel that way regularly; that was a simple fact.
I got off the bus at the next stop and went to the beis medrash of my chassidus. The minute I entered the beis medrash, my friend from yeshivah greeted me. He was an American bachur who wasn’t yet married. He told me shalom aleichem and said, “I was actually looking for you.”
In answer to my unasked question, he told me, “I’m looking for a chavrusa, and I think you would be ideal for me. What do you say?” I told him it was actually a good idea, and I thought to myself that until I’d find a kollel, this was a really good arrangement. If not money, at least I’d have a good chavrusa.
He hurried to call his Rav, who was happy for him that he’d found an excellent chavrusa and wished him hatzlachah. Next he called his father. “He can learn with me today,” he told his father, “but he is an avreich kollel, and I don’t know for how long he’ll be able to continue.”
“No problem,” his devoted father responded. “Tell him I’ll pay him as much as they paid him in kollel!”
He told me what his father had said. That’s how I got an amazing chavrusa, the same salary I’d had up until now, and all close to my home, without my
