Just a minute or two left until minchah. I’m really pushing the envelope here. You can tell because I’m speaking in cliches instead of describing what’s actually going on. Benjmain just appeared at his makom kavuah. He’s standing. There’s Rabbi Romm. Now it’s really gonna happen. He’s just lifted his …. and we’re ready for minchah.
Talmud. What am I gaining from the class? Gaining experience with the multi-step process of Talmud study. First step: Be able to translate all words/phrases into English. Some content words I already know from studying Hebrew. Other content words I don’t know either because they are Aramaic or because my knowledge of Hebrew is holey (as opposed to holy). I look up both Aramaic and Hebrew content words that I don’t know in the Jastrow Dictionary. Sometimes that dictionary work can be tricky if I’m looking up a verb and I’m not certain what the root of the verb is, but I can usually figure that out. When I can’t figure it out, the beit midrash (library-synagogue-classroom space) is full of experienced Talmud readers who can help me. Then there’s the technical terms. These terms as specific to rabbinic ways of thinking and need to be looked up in the Frank dictionary. Sometimes I’m not sure whether a word is technical or content. In that case I have to look it up in both the Jastrow dictionary and the Frank. The bottom line: with a Frank and a Jastrow dictionary, I’m sittin pretty, ready to crack open the Talmud’s meaning.
But not as pretty as you might think. Even after I know what all of the content and technical words mean, it’s sometimes still difficult (or impossible) for me to understand the rhetorical maneuvers being. My Talmud teacher (Reb Mordecai Silverstein) says that the Talmuid is not interested in resolving
arguments’ it’s really only interested in “thrashing around.” Hmmm… I guess Talmud is like a shark with its prey? I confess that I don’t really know what “thrashing around” means. I want to understand the process by which the Gemara (as we call the Talmud’s authors) decides which arguments and examples to record and which to leave out.
Demonstrate the difficulty. Okay. First some basics. The Oral Torah is a spoken collection of instructions concerning how to live a pious Jewish life. The Mishnah is a record of the Oral Torah. The Talmud is a compendium of arguments concerning the meaning of the Mishnah. In order to understand what the Talmud is up to, we have to first confront the Mishnah.
Mishnah Tractate Sukka, Chapter 3: ‘The Stolen Lulav’ “The stolen lulav and the dry lulav are unacceptable. The lulav taken from a tree that people pray to as a deity is unacceptable, and so is the lulav taken from a tree in a sinful city that is destined for destruction. Also unacceptable are the lulav with its head nipped off and the lulav with cut leaves. The lulav with its leaves spread out is acceptable, though. Rabi Yehudah says: Tie it from the top. This certain species of lulav (tsinei har habarzel) is acceptable. The lulav that has in it three fist-measurements so that you can shake it is acceptable.” The preceding has been my very amateur translation of the Mishnah.
And now the Gemara. Another amateur translation pending. Here it comes. “The Mishnah states categorically that there is no difference between the first day of Sukkot and the second day. Certainly (here we see a word that is usually used to introduce a difficulty. In addition to “certainly,” it might also be translated as “it is appropriate,” or as “it is reasonable,” depending on the context. What difficulty is this word introducing?) in the case of the dry lulav, beauty (which is commanded in the Torah: “And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a tree of beauty…” [Leviticus]) is necessary, and it isn’t there. On the other hand, though, in the case of the stolen lulav, it is appropriate on the first day of Sukkot–it’s written [in Leviticus] “for yourselves”–from something that belongs to you, so why shouldn’t the stolen lulav be permitted on the second day of Sukkot? Rabi Yonatan says in the name of Rabi Simeon ben Yohai: because the stolen lulav consitutes a mitzvah attempted through a sin. As it is written, “And you will bring stolen and lame and diseased sacrifices,” [Malakhi 1.13] (and from this verse we can make the following argument by proximity); therefore, stolen objects resemble lame ones. Furthermore, just as lame things cannot be repaired, so too stolen things cannot be repaired. Whether it’s before or after the original owner despairs of ever recovering his property just doesn’t matter. “
whining about time management
Hello to you. I’ve given myself ten minutes to blog before Chumash with Rashi class. What is important enough to be mentioned during this ten minute slot? Well, there’s a ton of stuff that I’d like to write–stuff that I mostly definitely would write if this were a private journal and not a public blog–but I’m not gonna write that stuff so you can just forget it. Today is Tuesday and the Ein Gedi Shabbaton was last Friday and Saturday. My first Shabbaton.
Definitely noteworthy: I’ve been having a lot of trouble regulating my sleep in the during the past two weeks. I keep telling myself that I’m going to have to prioritize sleep, but then I just stay up again. My reasons for staying up: davening maariv, doing laundry, late night study, watching TV (yes, that’s still an issue), being out with friends. I tell myself that I should be in bed by 8 or 9 at the latest, read for an hour, and then sleep so that I can wake up at 6am with 8 hours of sleep under my drawstring. But it’s really hard to get into bed by 8:00 when your last class ends at 6:15. On days when I run (I’ve been running twice a week in the evening), I’m usually not done with my shower until 8:20 and then I need to cook and eat. Maybe I should try running in the morning. I used to do that, you know. I’d have to get up at 5:45, asleep by 9:45pm. Hmmm…
I’m not giving up on exercise.
But there are other things I really really want to do: review the day’s studying, study the siddur, read Mesillat Yasharim, write blogs, read books for the JTS Rabbinical School interview, see movies, hear concerts, see family, hang out with friends.
This yeshiva lifestyle is a toughy. I’ve got to make some tough choices in order to maximize the time I have. Sleep and exercise have to be top priorities because they’re what give me the fuel to make everything else count. Then there’s also my ambition to learn to love better. That’s the reason I’m here in the first place.
I like my hevrutot. Alana, Shulie, Gella, Anita: here’s to you!
Talmud Journal #1
Ok. Didn’t actually study Talmud yet, or rather we studied Mishnah but not Gemara. Whatever. It doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that I studied excerpts from Leviticus, Nehemiah, and Mishnah Tractate Succoth with my hevruta and good friend Marisa. Naturally, it was outstanding. Marisa and I know approximately the same amount of Hebrew and she’s hard-working, serious, thoughtful, and also silly. A great person to study with. This kind of study is one of the main things for which I came to the Yeshiva.
What did I learn? Leviticus 23 tells us to take (U’Lakachtem) or perhaps take AND bind on the first day of Succoth a fruit from a goodly tree (read:etrog), a date palm branch, the bough of a leafy tree (read:myrtle), and stream-willow (read:lulav) and to rejoice in front of God.
Questions Marisa and I asked about the text from Leviticus. None of these questions were answered in the assigned excerpt.
1) What is meant by “goodly tree”?
2) What are “leafy” trees?
3) How do we distinguish branches (“capot”) from a bough (“[g]anaf”)
4) What is meant by U’lekahtem?
5) What is meant by “rejoice”? In other words: How shall I party, O Lord?
6) How do we observe the festival?
7) What do we do with this stuff once we’ve taken it, after the first day and on it?
What’s a sukkah? How do we make one?
9) How do we define “citizen” (“ezrakh”)? Are women, children and slaves included in that category?
10) What constitutes “dwelling”?
11) Why is it so important for the generations to know that God made us live in tents when He took us out of Egypt?
12) Why doesn’t this tent business just happen on Passover? Why are we remembering living in tents NOW and not at some other moment in the calendar?
Yeshiva Journal #1
Today is the first day of the Yeshiva’s Year Program. I woke up this morning at 6:30 and convinced myself to click on “Snooze” instead of “Disarm.” I think I thought that 5 more minutes would make a difference in the dream I was having. Unfortunately, I don’t remember that dream. When the second alarm rang, at 6:35, I convinced myself again that “Snooze” the better option. I don’t remember how or why. But by 6:40, at the third alarm, I was ready to get up. I got myself ready, ate some yogurt with granola and raisins, and trundled off to the Yeshiva listening to Bud Powell’s “Strictly Confidential” and the beginning of Brahms’ second symphony along the way.
Shaharit. And now writing.
My course schedule today will look like this:
8:45-12:30 Talmud II with Reb Mordecai Silverstein
12:30-1:40 Lunch
1:40-2:00 Mincha/Announcements
2:00-3:15 Biblical Grammar with Reb Shlomo Zacharow
3:20-6:15 Chumash w/Rashi with Shaiya Rothberg
6:15 Maariv
6:30 Run
8:00 Dinner
10:30 sleep
I’ll also be taking Ulpan, Midrash, Hasidut, and Halacha, but those classes don’t meet on Yom Rishon (Sunday).
Yesterday, during Seduat Shlishit (the third meal on Shabbat) at Moreshet Yisrael, Reb Shlomo introduced us to Reb Hayyim Luzzatto’s “Path of the Upright,” a book of medieval Jewish ethics written in the mid-18th century. It purports to lay out instructions for how to love God, how to walk in His ways, and more articulations of the same that I can’t remember right now. I’m very excited to read this book as learning to love God more completely is the central aim of my presence at the Yeshiva.
I hear a bustle downstairs that tells me Talmud class is about to begin. Better go. And now I will study Talmud for the first time in my life. Wish me luck. I’m so excited!
Tefillah Journal Entry #7
I increased my Jewish observance and came to study in Israel because I recognized my ineluctablility of my Jewishness and decided that I needed to embrace it and endeavor to understand it if I wanted to understand myself. So for 3 months now I’ve been praying three times nearly everyday. I’ve been saying birkat hamazon after meals and saying blessings before eating whenever I could remember to. I’ve been saying a prayer of thanks for the proper functioning of my body after every visit to the toilet. I’ve been studying Torah intermittently, and midrash and hasidut. In two days, I’ll start my year program of study which will include Talmud, Chumash with Rashi, Halacha, Hasidut, .
What have I come to understand about my Jewishness during these three months? Judaism is still something that I largely do not understand. Malakhel says that the Torah is about separating Jews from idolatry. That’s a very Maimonidean perspective, isn’t it? Perhaps Judaism is more about preventing the worship of false gods, and less about the proper worship of the true God.
Today I missed maariv because I stayed up late watching a TV show about vampires and was too tired to daven before I went to sleep. This morning I slept until 10 and davened shacharit on my own. Tonight I’ll daven at Yakar.
Earlier this week, on Monday, I walked through Hezekiah’s Tunnel by means of which Jews in Jerusalem were able to access their major water supply without leaving the city walls during the Assyrian siege of 722 bce. The guide spoke about three seals found by archaeologists. These seals belonged to three men whose names are mentioned in the book of Jeremiah (I think it must be in Jeremiah, though I’m not completely certain). These three men knew the prophet. Two of them conspired to imprison and torture him for his prophecies and the third was his friend. I didn’t know anything about either Assyria’s role in Jewish history or Jeremiah’s situation with respect to the destruction of the First Temple.
I’ve hiked in the Negev with my father’s 82-year-old cousin and his 21-year-old grandson. I’ve stayed with other cousins and friends in Pardesiyya and Carmiel.
