1. Read it in the WSJ a short while ago. Feel free to search.
2. Source?
1. Couldn't find it. In major cities, real estate produces a good living.
2. Although I wasn't able to contact the Rosh, one of my friends just told me that he heard from him that the Rebbe
approved the English program in LA to attract kids that otherwise wouldn't go to Yeshiva. Which echoes the Rebbe's
sicha in 12 Tammuz 5717, in which the Rebbe stresses that it was only in order to save kids that schools were allowed
to have limudei chol and that it's ridiculous to draw conclusions for other places. The Rebbe likens it to telling a healthy person
to take medicine.
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=25052&st=&pgnum=145Here(
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14934&st=&pgnum=160), the Rebbe gives a clear ho'roah to teach
kids strictly al taharas hakodesh without mixing in
any limudei chol. I previously mentioned Simchas Torah 5715(
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=4584&st=&pgnum=74). In
it the Rebbe states his unambiguous position that limudei chol is metamei the brain of a child and should be avoided as much as possible. In Purim 5722(
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=4589&st=&pgnum=359), the Rebbe ridicules limudei chol as well.
I spoke tonight with R' Leibel Groner(a decades-long personal secretary of the Rebbe), who told me that the only exception to the Rebbe's fierce opposition to limudei chol was when he answered college students who became frum and were finishing their degree.. He relayed to me that when parents were pressuring R' Michoel Teitelbaum to include basic mathematics in the Oholei Torah curriculim, he wrote to the Rebbe. The Rebbe answered him "b'shum oifen nisht"(not under any circumstances).
Again, the Rebbe's ho'roah lerabim during
all public addresses and 99.99 of letters was to shun limudei chol. There were rare exceptions. The Rebbe publicly appealed in 12 Tammuz 5717(mentioned above) not to extrapolate to other cases/situations.
Maybe this is beyond the scope of this thread, but what did Chazal (meaning Rabbanim who lived many many years b/f the Rebbe) say about learning secular topics to help with having a parnassa? Shouldn't their opinion (yay or nay) enter into this conversation at some point, or did the Rebbe's psak's eclipse e/t else?
How about prior Rebbe's? Did they voice an opinion on this matter?
The chiyuv to teach ones son a trade (learned by many Rishonim and Acharonim[including the Alter Rebbe{Ba'al haTanya}]) is after one teaches(or sends to melamed/yeshiva) him Torah. The Rebbeim of Chabad, along with most old-school Gedolei Yisroel during the past several generations, took that approach. The Rebbe wasn't against learning a trade after a bochur's formal yeshiva years, rather during them.
The Rebbe didn't issue a "psak" and none of this is as clear cut as anyone would have you believe.
If "psak" is synonymous with "ho'roah" in Chabad vernacular, then yes, the Rebbe did issue a psak(the Alter Rebbe already did in Hilchos Talmud Torah{which the Rebbe quoted regarding this}) to avoid limudei chol as much as possible. Countless sichos, letters, and yechidusen point to that. Just like the Rebbe 'paskened' not to drink more than 4 l'chaims equaling a revi'is, notwithstanding the famous exception in the Deutch's Sukkah or to native Russians.