Mechon Hadar David Gershkoff

Like everything, there are good Talmud days, and bad Talmud days.  There are days when a section is entirely unintelligible, no matter how many attempts to look up each and every word and piece it together.  Then, there are days when Talmud becomes actually readable - when vocalization is nearly effortless, a majority of the words recognizable, and the content reminiscent of a previously learned piece of halacha.  On the best days, all of these combine to allow me to make the necessary logical leaps (and the correct ones) to understand the text.

This morning was one of those days.  May there be many more.

This morning, my hevruta and decided that it was time for a meta-Talmud conversation based on what we had covered so far.  (We called it an Elie conversation - "Okay people, here we go!  Stay with me!")  So far, we had covered why we pray 3 times a day (morning, afternoon, and night), and what to do if on a day you miss praying a particular time.  It was now time to think a bit more about what all of this means and how it affects our daily ritual life.

As someone who spent 13 years in Quaker education (though where 60% of my peers were Jewish), I have personally experienced what I consider the two extremes of prayer.  On the one hand is my Jewish prayer on any given weekday morning, where, alone, I say exactly the same prayers I said the previous week, as quickly as I can, so I can get my day going and not be late to work.  On the other is the Quaker model, where we would sit in silence once a week, as a community, and anyone could speak extemporaneously to the group.

This tension came out in our conversation today, where we wrestled with questions like why do we pray?  Why do we pray these prayers?  What if we have other things to say?  What if we want to pray but have already prayed for that time period and it is not time for the next time period?  How does praying alone differ from praying with a community?

We did not have any simple answers to these questions.  However, we were both aware that one thing that we have taken out of Yeshivat Hadar is the ability, and really the mandate, to periodically step back from our texts and ask and wrestle with larger questions about how this affects our lives, and how our practice can evolve as a result of it.

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In a follow up to my last post, I wanted to list two other excellent internet Talmud resources:

1) E-Daf - The entire Bavli Talmud online.  And, it works on Blackberrys (and probably also iPhones).  This is especially useful if you are listening to a Yeshivat Hadar shiur while traveling, and want to follow along without having to carry or copy your gerama with you.  (To link or bookmark individual pages, go to the page, and then click the "Next Amud" and then "Previous Amud" buttons, which will give you an actual address.)  (Hat tip: R. Elie Kaunfer)

2) Yitzhak Frank online - The amazing dictionary of technical Talmud terms is also online.  Frank not only defines a term and translates it into Hebrew and English, but gives you examples of how it is used.  Click on the "Search inside this book" on the left.  The only catch is that you can't search the Hebrew, only the transliteration and translations. (Hat tip: Jason Rubenstein)

My wonderful hevrutah (learning parnter) from this past summer and I have finally had our first Talmud seder over the phone.  We're learning the fourth chapter of tractate Brachot, which covers the appropriate times for davening.

I've discovered five (mostly) high-tech resources that facilitated and enhanced our learning:

1) Skype - Perhaps the single greatest aid to Talmud study since Rashi, Skype finally makes it affordable for hevrutot on opposite sides of the world to talk for hours on end at practically no cost, (beyond that of internet access).  Ten years ago, spending on hour and a half on the phone between Tokyo and Montreal would have cost a fortune.  Yesterday, it was almost free.

2) Online Jastrow - Marcus Jastrow, PhD., D. Litt D.'s 100 year old dictionary of Talmudic Aramaic and Hebrew is still one of the best out there.  It is available online, for free, here.  This online version has the benefit of being much lighter than the book version, and actually faster to navigate (despite simply being scanned in pages).

3) MH archive of lectures - Mechon Hadar has decided to record every one of its shiurim (lectures), and put them online.  (The Talmud ones are available here.)  Since the first two summers of the yeshiva studied the chapter I'm learning, there are two sets of R. Elie Kaunfer's lectures on it (not to mention more advanced ones as well).  This is exceptionally helpful, especially for a broader context.

4) Highlighters - This past summer, (Almost R.) Jason Rubenstein taught me about highlighting my gemara.  It helps visual learners like me see the different strands of text.  Blue is used for Tanaitic material (i.e. Mishna, Baraitot), green is for early Amoraim (e.g. Rabbi Yochanan), yellow for later Amoraim (e.g. Rav Ashi), and pink for psukim for Tanakh.  The stam (Talmudic editor/redactor) is left unhighlighted. See below for a picture of last night's sugyah.  (You may recognize the first pink quotation.)

5) YH community

This morning, I received the following email over the Summer '09 Yeshivat Hadar list from one of the fellows I adore:

I am also so happy to still be learning with Hannah K (thank gd for skype) and we are pushing through Perek 4 of Brachot slowly but surely. Although it is wonderful to have a consistent chavruta, I thought it might be nice to also make some sort of "sub-list-serve chabura" of those of use learning this same perek. Hannah and I often find ourselves stuck or just with questions that it would be interesting to throw out to a larger group of fellow learners....So, is anyone else who's learning Brachot Perek 4 interested? Let me know and we can get some sort of list together.

Wonderful.

Anyway, happy Talmud learning everyone.

David

Hi everyone.  I just wanted to say welcome to my post-Yeshivat Hadar blog.  I had an amazing time learning this past summer, and so have started this blog to keep my friends and family updated about my learning.

My learning for this year will hopefully have three components:

1) Learning the 4th chapter of masekhet (tractate) brachot (blessings) with my hevrutah from this summer

2) Learning the 8th chapter of brachot on my own

3) Learning sections of the 10th chapter of masekhet pesachim (about the Passover seder) with my parents.

I look forward to updating you as my learning continues!

David