Q&A: How Do You Learn Jewish Law Well and Quickly?
How Do You Learn Jewish Law Well and Quickly?
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I started learning Jewish law in a systematic way—that is, from the Tur and the Beit Yosef, the Shulchan Arukh and its commentators, and Maimonides—but it takes me a very, very long time. It turns out that before I’ll know how to actually fulfill commandments properly, a lot of time will pass. In your opinion, how can one learn Jewish law more quickly but not in a superficial way?
With many thanks.
Answer
You need to decide whether this learning is your Torah study, or whether it is only a tool for knowing what to do. If you want to learn in order to know what to do, the best approach is to study abridged halakhic manuals. If you want to learn as an obligation of Torah study, then it is worthwhile to learn from the Talmud, through the medieval authorities (Rishonim), to the Tur-Shulchan Arukh and the commentaries on it.
In the end, halakhic ruling too should come by the second path; that is, a person should implement the conclusions that emerge from his own learning of the topic, and not simply follow what is written in summary manuals or the final halakhic ruling—even that of the Shulchan Arukh. But as you wrote, this takes a great deal of time, and therefore it is customary to split learning into practical Jewish law and conceptual in-depth study.
The kind of learning you are doing is a type of in-depth study, not practical Jewish law study aimed at knowing what to do. You need to decide whether this is the kind of analysis you are interested in, or whether you want to learn from the Talmud and the medieval authorities (Rishonim) onward, as explained above.