Not that I have anything to offer in cyclones, but I think what personally helped me a lot was to make sure to study the standard Talmud page with Tosafot and Maharsha on every passage we learned, whether in the in-depth study session or in the broad-coverage session. First of all, to get the data and the logic sitting in an orderly way, and only afterward move on. My feeling, which is hard for me to articulate, is that Maharsha is one of the greatest teachers I learned from (almost no one around me ever opened Maharsha. And to my taste, many of his questions are an excellent litmus test—if you don’t sense them on your own, that’s a sign you need to review the passage again very carefully).

I was raised on the idea that Maharsha is the beginning of in-depth study (because it clarifies the plain meaning before you enter into deeper analytical learning). As I got older, I became less sure of that.

Interesting. I was raised on the idea that maybe once in a generation someone opens Maharsha. But I read articles by Rabbi Meir Mazuz that speak at great length about how necessary it is, so I tasted and saw that it was good (even in the “broad-coverage” sessions). It wasn’t always easy to find a study partner who would agree to “waste time” on it. But it’s not only clarifying the plain meaning; it’s also the habit of placing things in an orderly structure. You can apply the Maharsha-type approach even when learning Sha’arei Yosher; in the end things need to fit into the larger whole besides understanding the pure reasoning itself. Someone who is mentally organized enough may not need that kind of training.

Could you elaborate more on the updated view you came to in your maturity? Obviously, after clarifying the back-and-forth of the sugya, you have to understand what the underlying reasoning is and what the implications are, etc. By the way, in the books of the Tunisian scholars, like Mishmerot Kehunah (and Zera Yitzhak and Shalmei Todah and others), they relate to Maharsha the way Maharsha relates to Tosafot, and continue in his path. But that seems like a different line of development than the line of Pnei Yehoshua and Tzelach and onward to the analysts, and after trying it for a year I personally came to the conclusion that it’s already too much dealing with the “secondary stuff” (I couldn’t find a more refined expression). In particular, because many of the answers there don’t add insight, but only remove some tiny little burr. It’s hard to discuss this from above without a few sample passages, and I don’t have enough knowledge, but even hearing your conclusions without a comprehensive basis is interesting.

By the way, one more small thing. A very good friend and study partner of mine (who later also studied with you at the institute at Bar-Ilan. And even once before that we came to you together from the yeshiva and you received us in your office at Bar-Ilan. But since then many waves have crashed onto the shore), a Jew blessed with a pretty quick grasp, used in his first year every evening to spend an hour or two on a Raider-style summary book like “Ohel Torah”—just reading and understanding what was there without digging for hours. I didn’t do that (it’s hard for me to swallow things quickly, and I also grasp more slowly), but he found it very helpful. There are personality types for whom that probably fits, and it seems to me it’s worth a try.

It’s hard for me to write something sharply defined. It’s a general feeling. There’s no doubt that studying Maharsha straight through contributes a lot, but not always because of what he writes; rather because of the habit of thinking through every step in the passage or in Tosafot and getting a systematic view of the flow. Somehow, as I got older, I got the feeling that sometimes it’s too nitpicky and that the answers are less good than the questions. Beyond that, sometimes after finishing him, you never get around to thinking about the analytical layer and remain stuck in decoding the flow of the argument and debate. And if you do think about the analytical layer, then sometimes his words are unnecessary because you arrived at it yourself.
That ethos accompanied my studies; everyone spoke in terms of that being what one ought to do. Because of the difficulty, very few people actually did it.
To my shame, I don’t know the Tunisian analytical works. A former student of mine (a Yemenite himself) dealt with them a lot and also recommended them to me. Apparently I never got to it in time.
Your study partner’s recommendation was already written by me above here. (Though I don’t know “Ohel Torah,” aside from the Branovitz journal, and I assume that’s not what is meant.)

In Ohel Torah there is a concise summary of the positions of the medieval authorities and the investigations of the later authorities on all the important points in the passage. It’s like a source-sheet collection that doesn’t make do with referring you somewhere, but also summarizes what’s written there and organizes the picture.

I can’t say I spent a lot of time on the Tunisian analytical works, but not all that little either, and I have the honor not to recommend them. It seems to me that exactly the unease you described about the investment of time in studying Maharsha is what I felt about studying them (but not about Maharsha himself).

And are they all like that? Is that what’s called “Tunisian analysis”? Is there no analytical learning there on a level similar to the Ashkenazi style?

From what I know, yes, they’re all like that. It’s pretty presumptuous of me to make declarations, but it’s not even like Mishneh LaMelekh and the other Turkish works (Machaneh Ephraim, Sha’ar HaMelekh, and others), and not even Pnei Yehoshua (though they do deal with him sometimes), and certainly nowhere near the advanced Ashkenazi analytical learning. They discuss local plain meaning, and with every important note of theirs you can wonder why it didn’t already appear in Maharsha.

What do you mean, “not even”? The Turks are truly superb analytical learning (of course, the Ashkenazi analysis that was built on their backs went further on to more conceptual planes and finer distinctions). But I’ve been very impressed for years by what happened in Turkey in the middle of the modern era.

That’s exactly what I meant. The Turks started the commandment and the Ashkenazim finished it, and the Tunisians don’t even reach the level of the Turks—whom they knew—and instead of continuing to hew further onward, they decided to dig in where they were. For years I’ve had a dream of analyzing methods of learning through the lens of the Talmudic passages in a close and detailed way, and examining types of questions and answers and topics and trying hard to define them, but it’s beyond my level and beyond my knowledge and my time. A lot of doctorates are missing on this subject.

And if it bothered you that I placed Pnei Yehoshua as a more advanced stage than the Turks, that may just be my ignorance. I learned the chapter “HaMafkid” in “broad coverage” with Maharsha and Pnei Yehoshua straight through, and I felt my eyes were really enlightened because of him. Ever since, I’ve had a certain soft spot for him without knowing how to describe what it’s based on. Only the feelings remain, without what brought me to them, so maybe it’s just exaggeration. It’s a shame that analyzing stages in analytical learning from within actual passages is so demanding and complex, so all that remains is vague musing piled on vague musing.

In my opinion, he really is not more advanced than the Turks. There was a conference about him at Bar-Ilan, and there I discussed Brisk-style beginnings in his thought. Among the Turks there’s more than just beginnings.

Fascinating! Is that available anywhere (in writing or video)? Here I found only a short title in column 230.

I don’t know. I tried to look for a recording and didn’t find one. But maybe I didn’t look well.

Any chance, please, of releasing the main points, even very briefly?

Now I see that it was in 2006. Quite a long time ago. I’ll copy the main points here, although I don’t know how understandable it is.

On dichotomous analysis in the Brisk style and what lies beyond it, in the thought of the author of Pnei Yehoshua. We will see sparks of such an analysis through discussion of two examples: the nature of the prohibition of a married woman. Ownership without produce-rights in a slave. And finally we will see a synthesis through identifying the factor that obligates payment in cases of monetary damage (negligence or ownership) in the thought of Pnei Yehoshua.

1. The non-effectiveness of betrothal with a designated maidservant (the dispute with Avnei Milu’im in sec. 44): two laws.
2. The concept of ownership in a slave whose bill of emancipation is being withheld (Gittin 42b): abstraction and generalization.
3. In the inquiry into what creates liability in monetary damages: a dialectical synthesis.

About five minutes will be devoted to an introduction on the problematic nature of the history of ideas (who owns the copyright on an idea or a mode of thought). After that I will define modern Brisker analytical learning, and its juristic-analytic character, as opposed to earlier forms of learning.
About five minutes will be devoted to topic 1, another five to topic 2, and as time permits I will address topic 3 (where his approach is astonishingly complex, and it appears that he goes beyond modern analytical learning in the direction of the postmodern. He unites the two poles of the yeshiva’s dichotomous inquiries). Total: 25 minutes.

Source sheet: Sparks of Brisk-style analytical learning in the teachings of Pnei Yehoshua

A. A slave whose bill of emancipation is being withheld: ownership without rights

Babylonian Talmud, tractate Gittin 42b
They raised a dilemma: With regard to a slave whose bill of emancipation is being withheld, does he have a fine or does he not have a fine? “He shall give thirty shekels of silver to his master,” the Merciful One said, and this one is not a master; or perhaps, since he still lacks a bill of emancipation, we call him master?…
Come and hear: If he knocked out his tooth or blinded his eye, he goes free on account of his tooth and gives payment for his eye; and if you say that he has a fine and the fine goes to his master, now if others injure him they give it to his master—if his own master injures him, does he give it to him himself?

Tosafot on tractate Gittin 42b
“If others injure him they give it to his master”—even though his handiwork belongs to himself, since the fine goes to his master, injury payments as well go to his master; for what difference is there between killing him entirely and killing him halfway?

Pnei Yehoshua on tractate Gittin 42b
Tosafot, s.v. “If others injure him they give it to his master.” “Even though his handiwork belongs to himself, etc., for what difference is there between killing him entirely and killing him halfway.” End quote. But it is still difficult to me: how are they comparable? Granted, if he killed him entirely, the liability of thirty for a slave is a fine, for even if he is worth only a shekel he gives thirty sela’im, and he is liable only by a decree of Scripture. Therefore one may doubt that the Torah granted this fine to the master, even though he no longer has any monetary rights in this slave. Nevertheless, since he is still called master with respect to the body, he thereby acquires the fine by decree of Scripture. But if he killed him halfway, such as injuring him or blinding his eye, where the liability consists of the five categories and all are genuine monetary payments according to all decisors except Maimonides, of blessed memory, who holds that damages and pain are a fine, as I will explain shortly—if so, from where would the master derive a right to it, since he no longer has any monetary rights?…
And it appears that in truth the Talmud here is not asking from loss of work, medical costs, embarrassment, and pain, but only from damage itself. Since the body still belongs to his master, it appears to the Talmud that because Scripture revealed in the case of the thirty for a slave that it belongs to his master wherever he is called master, the same applies to damage: what difference is there between killing him entirely, etc….
And according to what I have written, two expressions of Maimonides, of blessed memory, that contradict each other are resolved for me…
And what I have written appears correct to me, with God’s help, and I have many such matters in resolving the language of Maimonides, of blessed memory, but this is not the place to elaborate. Examine it well.

B. Marriage without an eternal prohibition

Pnei Yehoshua on tractate Gittin 43a
There, Rav Hisda said: If a woman who is half maidservant and half free woman was betrothed to Reuven and then emancipated… “and I do not read concerning her ‘the wife of two dead men,’” etc. It is difficult to me, for you can still find a case of “the wife of two dead men” where she was not emancipated and then was betrothed again to Shimon. For although Reuven’s betrothal takes effect with her, nevertheless, since one is liable because of these betrothals only to bring a guilt-offering, as is implied by Rashi, of blessed memory, and as the Rosh wrote [sec. 37], it would seem that Shimon’s betrothal also takes effect with her; for we maintain that betrothal takes effect even in cases of those liable for prohibitions, and here there is not even a prohibition but only a guilt-offering. (Second edition from the author, of blessed memory. All this belongs under the wording of Tosafot s.v. “and I do not read,” for they imply that we do not find at all a bond to two levirs on the Torah level, and therefore had to explain that we do find it elsewhere. And regarding this my difficulty is indeed sound, for you can find it in the manner of our passage when she was not emancipated. See Tosafot below and examine carefully.)
And it appears to me to resolve that when we hold elsewhere that betrothal takes effect in cases of those liable for prohibitions, this refers to ordinary prohibitions, but not to a prohibition created by betrothal itself. Otherwise, you could never have one betrothal after another, for once Reuven’s betrothal has taken effect, she is in his domain and has no power to accept betrothal from another. So it seems to me.

C. The factor that obligates the owner of damaging property to pay: an implicit example

1. In a case of doubt about the damager’s negligence:
Hazon Ish, Bava Kamma 7:7: the burden of proof is on the damager.
Pnei Yehoshua, Bava Kamma 56b, s.v. “In the Gemara, shall we say”: the burden of proof is on the injured party.

2. In the case of the owner of a dog who incited his own dog:
Pnei Yehoshua, Bava Kamma 24b, and Hazon Ish, Bava Kamma 5:7: according to the side that if one incites another person’s dog against someone else, both the dog’s owner and the inciter are exempt—then even when the inciter is the owner himself, he is exempt for the damage.

Ugh, I really can’t manage to understand. Even though the passages are somewhat familiar, I couldn’t understand what special thing you found there. I’ll tuck myself away here on the side until one day this topic shows up. [I understood the idea that the status of “master” grants rights over damages even though they are monetary. And the idea that in betrothal after betrothal, what blocks it is not the prohibition but the conceptual point that there isn’t room for two. That’s nice, though I don’t quite detect the special sting. The burden of proof being on the injured party—I need to look inside to understand what is special about that.]
By the way, can I raise a question in which I argue at length about Pnei Yehoshua regarding one who incites his dog [because I think that in his view, in the conclusion, one who incites his own dog is liable], or is that a different tractate entirely right now.

From today’s perspective, there’s no special sting here. But these distinctions are very similar to Brisker distinctions.
If you want, it’s better in a separate thread.