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.  “