Q&A: Drawing the Talmudic Discussion Toward Practical Jewish Law
Drawing the Talmudic Discussion Toward Practical Jewish Law.
Question
Hello to Michi, and my respects to you.
You often argue (at any rate, in your lectures) that there is a problem in the yeshiva Torah world: they study the Talmudic logic of the passage properly (as you put it), but they do not carry through to the formal halakhic conclusions, and instead they open the Mishnah Berurah.
I didn’t understand how exactly they are supposed to implement this. After all, they do need to know concrete Jewish law, right? And they also need to study properly and in depth. So what are these holy people supposed to do? The Orach Chayim section is not exactly overflowing with complex logic (“one who wishes to become wise…”); therefore they study Nashim and Nezikin, but those sections do not affect their concrete practical Jewish law in the slightest. Are they judges on a religious court? What do you think they are supposed to do? Either they study Orach Chayim in depth—which is not all that interesting or effective, but then they could study it toward practical Jewish law—or they study Nashim and Nezikin, but on the practical level it is irrelevant to them.
Isn’t that so?
Answer
First of all, Nashim and Nezikin are also applicable. Second, I never said anywhere that one should not make use of the Mishnah Berurah. On the contrary: as long as you are in the preparation stage for life—that is, in yeshiva—study the Talmudic passages that will help you develop analytical learning skills in the best possible way. And alongside that, if you want to know what to do in practice, look in the Mishnah Berurah. But the ideal model is to reach a point where you study passages and derive the halakhic conclusions from them. At some stage you also need to study passages from Orach Chayim and Yoreh De’ah. In kollel or later in life. Incredible as it may sound, there is life after yeshiva.
Discussion on Answer
Rabbi, your humor is tremendous.
Right. As it says in the prayer book in the Tachanun section: “And we do not know” in yeshiva, “what to do” when standing.
That is, at middle age.