Q&A: A Method of Study
A Method of Study
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Can you give me concise guidance on a method of study that includes what the Torah requires of a person in terms of the commandment of Torah study?
I simply don’t know whether I first need to know the entire Talmud, and only afterward delve into intricate analyses, and in the end become a halakhic decisor—or the other way around, to study a bit topic by topic without necessarily mastering all the subjects.
And what about review and knowing the Torah well enough that you don’t stammer over it?
And also, what about midrashim and Jewish thought, etc.?
I’m a bit confused.
I am 32 years old and have been learning in kollel for 10 years.
Answer
I don’t think there is a “school-answer” to this, meaning one correct answer. Certainly not the same answer for everyone, but not even one objectively correct answer for a particular person. This also obviously depends on whether you are aiming for practical halakhic ruling or for analytical Talmudic learning.
My own personal view is that after you understand how the whole thing works—and I assume that after ten years in kollel you are certainly already there—there is not much point in focusing on broad coverage, and it is preferable to learn analytically. It is more useful and more fruitful, requires fewer reviews in order to retain it, and gives you no less broad knowledge of Torah (in fact more, because the learning is more organized and its details are interconnected). Midrashim and Jewish thought, in my opinion, are a complete waste of time, and I wouldn’t touch them.
Discussion on Answer
A response to the Rabbi:
Okay, but I don’t really have anyone with whom to test and verify the things I learn analytically—or at most only at the stage of the sugya itself (that is, what is written in the Talmud or in Tosafot or in this or that medieval authority)—because from that point on, most of the learners around me (who were not educated that way and of course don’t espouse any value of autonomy) get stuck in the Beit Yosef and the Shulchan Arukh with their commentaries and the like, Mishnah Berurah and the Chazon Ish. Only sometimes does the lamdan of the group manage to get to some Or Sameach, which of course is not adopted in practice as Jewish law (because, according to them, he was not accepted by the public, like Rabbi Shimon Shkop, who were too innovative or too extreme in their views—and I’m guessing that here you [Michi] identify very strongly).
So I remain trapped in a kind of learning of “what did this one say and what did that one say,” and in the end I have a page full of terribly boring opinions, and that’s what almost my entire public does. The only ones who don’t do it hide so people won’t look at them and then they’ll lose out on getting called up third to the Torah, or on being considered an outstanding match, etc.—enough said, a hint is enough.
In short, isn’t there some solution for learning with people who like to feel that they are alive, and not feel that others are living for them?!
It’s just frustrating when almost all kollels are dealing with one kind of recitation or another.
Help!
To the Scatterbrain,
At the stages before yeshiva, and in yeshiva itself at limited times. Broad coverage is not primarily intended to give you broad knowledge, but mainly to give you skill in the Talmudic text.
Y.M.,
You’re exaggerating. Are there no kollels in the universe? I’m sure there are kollels that learn analytically. It won’t be something exactly according to the formula that interests you, but you need to choose something close.
Maybe you should open a kollel—I’ll be the first avrekh.
What do you say?
To do it without money,
so that only the serious people come.
I’m willing to help.
If after you understand how the whole thing works there is no point in broad coverage, and before you understand how the whole thing works—meaning in the yeshiva years, when you’re developing skill—there is also no point in broad coverage, then when is there a point in broad coverage?