Benefits Galore

Benefits Galore

Now we have to realize what it means ‘for their benefit’. It doesn't mean that they're going to get big positions in synagogues or in yeshivos, that they’ll make a decent parnassah. It can’t mean that because in those days when this was said nobody received any pay for teaching Torah. There was no such thing. Way back there was no heter; no permission was given yet. Even in the times of the Rambam the controversy was still very much alive. The Rambam said nothing doing; no pay. Later, the Beis Yosef has teshuvos in which he justifies taking pay, but the Rambam says that when they started taking pay he said כבה מאור הדת – the light of the Torah was extinguished.