I became Torah observant, but I had questions. People at shul said, you have to go to yeshiva for that. I was supposed to go for one year. I went but they wouldn’t answer any questions. We just studied Baba Matzia all day. [A tractate of the Gemara.] And then they wouldn’t let me leave. They treated leaving yeshiva as if that was the worst thing you could do, an act of near apostasy, as if it would be the end of my life. I’d be taken in by the world they said. “Why would you want to leave this beautiful environment,” they said, as if there was nothing else in life worth doing. They wouldn’t even talk about job training or any kind of careers. That was a verboten subject. I asked how I was going to earn a living. I was told, “You don’t need to, other people will give you money.” The rabbi who told me that lived in a house that is now valued at $850,000. I said, “Really? Is there someone who will pay for my medical insurance right now?” He told me that I didn’t need health insurance. If I got sick, the community would pay for my treatment. Well guess what, I got sick, and nobody was there to pay for it.
Shlomo
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