Q&A: Studying Talmud
Studying Talmud
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi, did you read the articles in Makor Rishon this past Sabbath about studying Talmud in high schools? There were lots of proposals there about studying relevant passages, studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) instead, and so on. What do you think specifically about the structure of Talmud study in yeshiva high schools? (Not afterward.) All the best, Reut
Answer
Hello,
I didn’t read them. Since I’m not sufficiently familiar with the situation, it’s hard for me to give a well-formed opinion. I’ll just note what I already pointed out once in an article: deciding what and how to teach is not entrusted only to pedagogical experts, because the content matters too. If they decide to teach the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) instead of Talmud, that is a decision with implications far beyond pedagogy. On the other hand, I agree that the problem can’t be ignored (I went through this myself—as a student I hated / loathed the Talmud).
I had some suggestions of my own, which appear in an article in the jubilee volume for Midrashiyat Noam (I don’t have the file). Their main point is that students need to be moved through the stage of deciphering the text as quickly as possible, and not get bogged down in close analysis and lomdus. That can be done fairly easily (see there), and I think that afterward there’s a chance they’ll enjoy the learning more. True, even after high school there is still a far-from-simple problem (among graduates of hesder yeshivot).
Discussion on Answer
At the stage when they’re dealing with the text, they should gain control of that and not get bogged down at that point in studying Talmud in the usual sense, when people don’t know how any of it connects to what’s written and in the end also don’t know how to open a Talmudic text. Obviously, at the next stage the whole point is to develop in lomdus.
Not get bogged down in close analysis and lomdus? Then in what, exactly? In trying to guess the Aramaic words?