Thanks. Apparently I wasn’t clear, and apparently I made a salad out of your classes on halakhic ruling.

Studying Jewish law from the Talmud is what everyone does, but once that has been done, is studying the reasoning of the medieval and later authorities for the halakhic ruling, according to their objections, considered Torah study? You answered me here that it is.

So what actually counts as studying Jewish law and not Torah?
Just the plain do / don’t do, without the reasoning?

Right. Kitzur Shulchan Arukh. Shemirat Shabbat KeHilchatah.

(Maimonides daily 🙂 )

Yes, I understood that the daily Maimonides also counts as not Torah study..

A bit depressing—I studied it for years and thought that was my daily learning..

Okay, so from here there’s somewhere to progress.

Beyond the Five Books of the Torah, Mishnah, and Talmud, does the Rabbi have recommendations for books that fit the definition of Torah study?
Is your book "Walking Among the Standing" considered Torah study?
And your books with Gabriel Hazut?

Thank you very much

If you study Maimonides in order to acquire general knowledge and concepts as a foundation for future study, then yes, that is Torah study. Kitzur Shulchan Arukh is a more fitting example of what I meant.
My books that are not in Talmudic scholarship are Torah in the sense of the person. Like Kant, Guide for the Perplexed, the Maharal, and Russell. My scholarly books are indeed Torah in the sense of the object. Like any book of Talmudic analysis.

Isn’t the study of Jewish laws—even from abridged books like Kitzur Shulchan Arukh—parallel to what the Talmud in tractate Berakhot 11b calls Mishnah, which requires the blessings over Torah study?

In my opinion, no (not because of local interpretive considerations, but because in my opinion it doesn’t make sense). The Mishnah is not Kitzur Shulchan Arukh, and the indication beyond its structure is that it also includes the laws of sacrifices, the Temple, and ritual impurity, which were not practiced then. The Mishnah is the initial raw form of what would later be called the Talmud.

Just as “Talmud” there in the Gemara is not a book but, as Rashi explains, a type of study, so too “Mishnayot” are not Rabbi Judah the Prince’s Mishnah but a type of study that condenses the conclusions of analysis into practical legal instructions for the public. You can also see this from the prohibition against issuing halakhic rulings from the Mishnah, which has applied to every law book throughout the generations, as the Rosh writes about those who issue rulings from Maimonides. And still, the Talmud says that blessings are recited even over Mishnayot. So the Mishnah is not Kitzur Shulchan Arukh (although for its time it was close to that), but Kitzur Shulchan Arukh is Mishnah according to the Talmud’s definition in Berakhot, and therefore studying it is indeed considered Torah study and requires the blessings over Torah study.

(When they took away the books of Jewish thought, I always said their status was questionable. When they took away the aggadic texts, I said that Arukh HaShulchan also holds that way. When they took away rabbinic laws, I was silent in amazement. Now that they’re taking away the law books, there’s no one left to protest…)

You’re mixing up a summary of the law (= the Mishnah) with its bottom line (Kitzur Shulchan Arukh). They are not at all the same. The Mishnah is not Kitzur Shulchan Arukh, and proof of that is that it brings different opinions. The Mishnah is a summary of the Oral Torah.

The distinction you’re drawing between Mishnah and law is artificial. It’s pretty clear that the Mishnayot functioned in their time as law books. The fact that they included collections of laws that for most people—or even everyone—at that time were not relevant doesn’t mean much. For most people today, a large part of Choshen Mishpat is also basically inactive. Does that mean that Orach Chayim has no significance? The warning against issuing rulings from the Mishnah merely recalls similar warnings that were repeated throughout the generations regarding Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh, and shows that the Mishnah functioned similarly in its time.
As for Kitzur Shulchan Arukh, although it is fairly monolithic, it is not completely monolithic. Additions also developed around it over the years, like Halikhot Eretz Yisrael by Rabbi Tukachinsky, and editions with notes, like those of Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu. So yes, Kitzur Shulchan Arukh is a somewhat extreme phenomenon, but it really isn’t all that far off. The fact that the Mishnah contains different opinions doesn’t mean much. The Shulchan Arukh also brings different opinions, but nobody mistakenly thinks it’s a scholarly work. What matters is the genre of study—law (“Mishnah” in the language of the Talmud in Berakhot) or analysis (“Talmud” in the language of the Talmud in Berakhot). So yes, Rashi there also writes that Talmud is primary, but he doesn’t claim that studying Mishnah in order—that is, law—is not Torah study.

It seems to me that you’re just being stubborn. In my opinion the distinction is clear and not at all artificial.

Let’s ask it differently: in your opinion, is studying Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh in a non-analytical way considered Torah study, like studying Mishnah?

That’s “differently”? Scroll up to the last message before you came in here.

What you wrote there is also true of Kitzur Shulchan Arukh, especially for someone who has neither read nor reviewed. In that case, his Mishnah and his Talmud come together.

I thought there might be another proof from the Talmud in Megillah 26b for the claim that even studying Jewish law counts as Torah study:
"Rava said: A Torah scroll that has worn out is placed in genizah beside a Torah scholar, even one who merely reviews halakhot."
And Rashi says:
"Even one who reviews halakhot—that is, even if he did not apprentice himself to Torah scholars in the Talmud and Gemara, but only in Mishnayot and baraitot."
Two points emerge from the Gemara. First, that the identification of the genre of Mishnah with the genre of halakhah is correct, since Rashi himself makes that identification. And in addition, that the very study of them—and not only for the sake of acquiring general knowledge and concepts for future study, as you wrote—counts as Torah study, on account of which a Torah scroll is buried with such a person.

(And although the Talmud in Megillah 28b brings a view that treats such a person as a basket full of books, in practical halakhah it still grants him the status of a Torah scholar.)

Nice. But Mishnah is not really halakhot, and therefore your assumption that the study being discussed is not for the sake of knowledge for analytical study is, at the very least, not necessary.