Q&A: Analytical Study or Broad Coverage
Analytical Study or Broad Coverage
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I am a first-year student in a hesder yeshiva that is considered relatively good, and I’m also among the stronger students in analytical study in the class. But in terms of broad coverage, I’m like an average first-year student, in my opinion—I haven’t even finished half of the Talmud, I haven’t finished Maimonides, the Shulchan Arukh, and other foundational books of that sort (not to mention how much I remember of what I have learned). So it feels a bit ridiculous to me to study analytically—to spend hours being precise about a very specific topic when there are very basic things I simply don’t know. So I’m considering shifting to invest much more time in broad coverage. My question for the Rabbi is: is there value in learning analytically when there is so much much more basic knowledge that I don’t know in broad coverage? Wouldn’t it be a better use of time to study broad coverage instead of analytical study?
(It should be noted that the plan is to stay in yeshiva for many years.)
Thank you.
Answer
I have written more than once that nowadays it is correct to act opposite to the Talmud’s recommendation: first develop understanding, and only afterward cover material broadly. Broad-coverage study does not give you much, because you do not remember it, and it is also not all that important to remember what this or that person says, or what questions and answers are offered. It is more important to remember the principles underlying the discussion, and you reach those through analytical study. After you acquire analytical skill, broad-coverage study will have much more significant value, because you will be able to understand the basis of the argument fairly quickly, even without opening all the commentators.
Discussion on Answer
That is Rabbi Ovadia’s approach, and of course also that of many others who recoil from deviating from the Talmud’s instruction. But in my opinion they are mistaken. I’m not looking for sources, because this is not Jewish law but guidance/recommendation, and recommendations are evaluated by logic, not by sources.
Rabbi, you wrote: “I have written more than once that nowadays it is correct to act opposite to the Talmud’s recommendation: first develop understanding, and only afterward cover material broadly. Broad-coverage study does not give you much, because you do not remember it, and it is also not all that important to remember what this or that person says, or what questions and answers are offered. It is more important to remember the principles underlying the discussion, and you reach those through analytical study.”
But in my humble opinion, the way to arrive at analytical study—which is the longed-for goal—is in fact according to the method of the Sages: to learn a great deal. When a person learns a great deal, his heart opens and he will delve deeply.
And the words of the Sages in tractate Shabbat and tractate Avodah Zarah are trustworthy for us.
Can the Rabbi point me to a place where he expanded on this?
I just saw that Rabbi Ovadia, in the responsa Yabia Omer, rules that even nowadays “Sinai” is preferable to “one who uproots mountains,” and he brings many sources for this among the later authorities. For example, the Havot Yair (sec. 123):
“Let him not waste his time on empty distinctions and hollow sharpness that have spread in these generations because of our many sins, for woe and alas for the choicest time, when they sometimes waste most of the day on these distinctions, whereas instead they could have learned several pages of Talmud and halakhic decisors.”