Q&A: Several Questions About the Method of Analytical Study
Several Questions About the Method of Analytical Study
Question
I was recently exposed to different methods of analytical study than what I knew in yeshiva, and that made me wonder:
A. In the Rabbi’s opinion, is the goal to come away with a map of the different approaches in the passage, or is there also value in forming your own opinion on the passage?
B. There is an accepted approach in part of the Religious Zionist yeshiva world according to which the main focus is on Gemara, Rashi, Tosafot, and Maharsha, and from the Talmudic text itself the student tries to raise the questions in the passage on his own and, broadly speaking, arrive independently at the different opinions in the passage, with some guidance from the teacher, and with relatively little attention to the medieval authorities and later authorities. What does the Rabbi think about this method?
C. There are yeshivot where it is customary to learn in-depth study relatively quickly, to understand more or less what the two or three sides of the medieval authorities and later authorities are in the passage and why each did not say what the other said, and to leave it at that. And there are yeshivot where they spend four or five days on every small passage in order to clarify each opinion from every angle and define it very precisely (at the cost of covering relatively little, of course). What does the Rabbi think is preferable?
D. I saw that the Rabbi recommends mainly studying later authorities and books of conceptual Talmudic analysis, whereas almost everything I heard in the yeshiva world (the Religious Zionist one at least; I don’t know the Haredi one) placed a very strong emphasis on medieval authorities, with debate over how much, if at all, it is worthwhile or necessary to study later authorities. Why does the Rabbi think it is preferable דווקא to study later authorities?
Answer
A. Both, of course. The more advanced you become, the more important it is to end by forming your own position. At the beginning it matters less, because you’re not yet sufficiently developed and not really capable of that.
B. I definitely agree that it is worthwhile to begin that way before moving on to the commentators. But afterward, don’t cut corners with the commentators.
C. It is preferable to linger, because learning in yeshiva is preparation for learning throughout life. There it is more important to learn method, ways of analysis, and conceptual learning skills, and less important to cover material and gain broad familiarity. You have the rest of life for that. Once you become skilled in conceptual learning, you will be able very quickly to get to the core of passages and won’t need to linger. Contrary to the Talmudic saying, in my opinion nowadays it is correct first to reason things out and only afterward to cover the text.
D. Because they have methods of analysis. The knowledge of the medieval authorities is more important, but as I said, yeshiva is preparation for learning, and there the goal is method rather than information. The later authorities are no worse than the lecture you hear from your teacher. With the later authorities, you are getting lessons on the passage from some of the greatest Torah scholars of all generations. Isn’t it worthwhile to take advantage of that? Why is that less obvious and in more need of justification than going into your teacher’s lecture (with all due respect to him)?
As a rule, it seems to me that the generalizations you bring here are not correct. I don’t think you are describing the prevalent approach in all yeshivot, or even in most of them.
Discussion on Answer
No need to apologize for mistakes (even if I’m right that it is a mistake). 🙂
Personally, I like their method, but that’s my personal taste (and that of many others too). To each his own taste.
I do think you should learn that as well, so that it gets added to the toolbox you’re developing. Whatever you put into it is pure gain. The question of what to focus on is subjective, and there’s no point in over-clarifying it. Try it and see what speaks to you. In general, both things are important, and if there is a place that emphasizes one of them, then try to learn that from them, and then go to a place where you can get the other. In the end, you’ll study with the method you develop for yourself and with your own emphases. Along the way, try to accumulate whatever you can. From my experience, trying to figure out what to focus on and how to learn is not very helpful. Do your best in every place according to what is done there, and in the end you’ll formulate your own path. These kinds of deliberations only introduce hesitation and insecurity into learning, and in the end anyone who studies seriously grows.
What about the Rogatchover’s method?
I’ve seen that the Rabbi refers to him in almost every article of Middah Tovah. Does he have unique importance? Is it worth investing time in order to study him and become familiar with his style of thought?
[Obviously he is meant for the especially advanced, but presumably there are readers here who fit that description too..]
It’s hard to do justice to this in a short answer. In general, he uses a philosophical conceptual system taken from The Guide for the Perplexed in order to analyze and classify passages and opinions in the Talmud. That is why his connections seem far-fetched at first glance (and sometimes they really are far-fetched, in my opinion). You can read about him and his method in Personalities and Methods by Rabbi Zevin, and more fully in Deciphering Mysteries by Rabbi Kasher.
I think it is definitely worthwhile to study him too, or at least to become familiar with his method. In my youth I had a hobby of learning him (and Kli Chemdah) mainly on Sabbaths. He has a work (an anthology published by the Tzafnat Pa’neach Institute) on the Torah, which is one of his regular analytical works and in his usual style. That way you can get acquainted with him on Sabbath around the weekly Torah portion. There are editorial notes there at the bottom, which makes deciphering his words easier (though in my opinion they are not always right).
In my humble opinion, the goal of studying the medieval authorities is so that you yourself will eventually become part of the later authorities. Meaning, when a person makes the effort to study a medieval authority analytically, in the end he himself comes up with the move of the later authority, and essentially the teacher’s lecture (at least at the beginning) is meant to guide you so that you really are learning correctly. And that’s how what is called a “Torah mind” develops—through your own effort and without being spoon-fed what the later authority writes.
Thanks to the Rabbi and to the others who answered!
One more small question:
Assuming later authorities are like a teacher’s lecture, then for the teacher’s lecture too I study the Talmud and the medieval authorities for, say, two study sessions (something on the order of 7 hours) for a lecture of about an hour and a half. Should one learn the later authorities that way as well?
If you hear five lectures on the same passage, there is no need to prepare it five times.
Thank you very much, Rabbi, and I apologize for the incorrect generalization.
One more question (and I should warn that I still haven’t succeeded in clearly defining for myself the differences between the methods; my knowledge comes only from limited exposure to their study and a little reading on the subject, but still):
Does the Rabbi think the Brisker method is preferable to a mode of learning that places greater emphasis on the flow of the passage and the wording of the Talmud itself, or vice versa (or neither)? If one method is preferable, why?
I assume that in every yeshiva there is at least some degree of Brisk, but is it worthwhile to study specifically at one that teaches Brisk in a clear and emphatic way and places emphasis on it, rather than at a yeshiva whose learning method tends more in the direction of emphasizing the flow of the passage and the language of the Talmud?