Thought for the Day: That Section of עולם הבא? Only for Those Who Learned on Their Own Time

While discussing how much I appreciate living in the Chicago Jewish community with a good friend and long-time/native resident, he made this observation: We have everything a Jewish community needs. We don't have the quantity that New York or Lakewood has, but we are not lacking anything in quality. The Midwest Bais Hora'ah, a dedicated group of five rabanim headed by R' Shmuel Fuerst, shlit''a, that handle nearly 800 calls a month (much, much more around Pesach, of course), is a shining example of that. They recently had their annual parlor meeting to raise needed funds. (Due to the volume of calls -- which is always increasing -- R' Fuerst would like to add two more rabanim; which takes money.)

The highlight of the parlor meeting was divrei bracha from R' Fuerst followed by divrei chizuk from HaRav Avrohom Schorr. As R' Fuerst finished his divrei bracha, he prefaced his last point with: You may not want to hear this, but it is important. Everyone was very quiet. R' Fuerst looked around the room and said (I am more or less quoting from memory):

I see many rabanim and מלמדי תינוקות/Torah teachers. There is a special section of עולם הבא to which you need a special ticket to get entrance. That ticket come from being קובע עיתים לתורה/dedicating your time to learning Torah. You should know that any time for which you are getting paid does not count. You get reward for learning Torah, but that section of 

עולם הבא will be closed to you unless you dedicate your own -- unpaid -- time to Torah study.

Rav Schorr argued they were not getting paid that well, so it still counted (it was in Yiddish; got some chuckles); R' Fuerst responded that they took the job understanding the salary; so, no, it doesn't count.

I asked R' Fuerst at mincha the next day about yungeleit learning in kollel; he told me it was the same thing. R' Fuerst asked me if I had looked it up. I said, "No, I believe the rav!" He told me that a lot of people didn't believe him, so he showed me. Sha'arei T'shuva 155. (Look it up, it's right there in black on white in your Mishna Brura.) R' Fuerst also mentioned that the Kaf HaChaim, quoting the Birkei Yosef, notes that there may be room to distinguish between someone who teaches Torah and someone learning in kollel. Nonetheless, the Kaf HaChaim continues, since it is a ספיקא דאורייתא/uncertainty about a Torah obligation, one must be stringent and dedicate some of his unpaid/free time to learning.

Since I learn in kollel now, I was able to spend an hour (unpaid! woo-hoo) or so the next morning looking at the original sources. I  have rarely enjoyed this world so much. And now I know that it comes with a ticket to the executive chambers!