Q&A: Broad Vision
Broad Vision
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I read your articles and enjoy them very much. I wanted to relate specifically to the more analytical/Talmudic articles.
When I read them, I notice that the Rabbi manages to grasp the topics in a broad way, as general principles and not as mere clever insights or isolated distinctions.
I wanted to ask how one can develop this skill. Thank God, I’ve already been learning for several years, and when studying Talmudic topics I usually manage to get the "read" right and hit on the possible ways of understanding the laws and concepts, but I don’t manage to grasp things in such a broad way. In your opinion, is this simply a matter of time, or is there a more specific method worth trying (for example, writing articles and the like) in order to practice it?
Thank you very much
Answer
That is indeed true. I worked on it quite a bit, but I don’t have an algorithm. I recommend acquiring knowledge and insights in as many areas as possible, because then everything joins together and pops up for you during learning. As a rule, after you finish the yeshiva-style analytical discussion, you should ask additional questions that they usually don’t ask in yeshivot (I discussed this at the end of Two Wagons, regarding conceptual questions): 1. About the specific passage: why is this a law in the object and that a law in the person? 2. What, in general, is the difference between a law in the object and a law in the person, and how does that relate to other similar distinctions? By the way, be very careful not to force the answers or look for flashes of brilliance in the form of cute little insights (what in yeshivot is called a "lighter"). In my opinion, it’s better to leave something as requiring further analysis, and to keep these questions until you encounter an idea that suggests a direction for answering them. The more such questions you accumulate, and the more they bother you, in the end things will connect.
I think that the more you ask yourself questions like these after you’ve finished the analytical learning, the more you’ll be able to enter an additional layer. I’m fairly sure that with time it will come, just as it came to me with time.
Discussion on Answer
I only meant to distinguish between two kinds of questions: 1. Questions about the result of an analytical study of a specific passage. Suppose you concluded that Maimonides holds that a certain law applies to the person, while Rashba holds that it applies to the object. You can ask why Maimonides thought this way and Rashba thought that way (to ask the “why” that Brisk considers illegitimate), and you can ask what the difference is between object and person in general (not in this passage), and what the relation is between this distinction and similar distinctions.
Excellent, thank you very much
Just to note: if it were only in the analytical columns, I’d say it’s selection bias—those that contain broad general principles get uploaded to the site, and the rest (along the lines of whether a left-handed person uses the right hand in the meal-offering of the High Priest, and what branches off from that) are inscribed only on the tablet of the heart. And on that note, this is a good opportunity to tell a nice story transmitted in the name of the Chazon Ish. They challenged him—I don’t know whether the details are accurate; this is how I remember it being told—that the Talmud says “everyone needs the master of wheat,” yet in most disputes between Rabbah and Rav Yosef, the law follows Rabbah. He answered that indeed, whenever Rav Yosef found a baraita supporting his view, the dispute was no longer a dispute. So where did the dispute remain? In cases where no proof was found—and there, “the uprooter of mountains” is indeed preferable.
Well said.
I didn’t quite understand the Rabbi’s example of “about the specific passage.” Could you expand a little?