Tackling Talmud

FROM THE EDITOR: Fall 2023

Fascinating. Infuriating. Uplifting. Complex. Boring. Inconsistent. Logical. Brilliant. Eclectic. Irrelevant. Compelling. Frustrating. Inspiring. Ancient. Contemporary.

The Talmud evokes all the above, and more. I vividly remember my first encounter with Gemara. I must have been ten years old, and my family was in a bungalow colony in the Catskills. Rabbi Cohen taught Gemara to the older boys, of which I was not, but I asked permission to sit in and listen. I loved following the discussions and debates, even though I couldn’t read any of it and retained none of the content.

The enjoyment of following the discussion intensified as I entered my high school years and beyond, as I was treated to intensely complex analyses with seemingly impossible logical twists, yet I was plagued by a small voice that told me that something wasn’t right. I could follow but I had no sense of how to do it on my own. Later, when I began charting my own path in learning and then teaching Gemara, I found that there were lines of reasoning that I just couldn’t explain to my students without feeling that I was faking, even as I accepted and embraced the core tenets—that learning Gemara provided a foundation for understanding the halakhic process, that it was the source of Jewish thought, the DNA of Judaism, the repository of Jewish wisdom, the foundation of Jewish life as we know it, and the secret to Jewish genius.

It is hard to imagine any work of literature that has been as loved and reviled, embraced and rejected, respected and rebuffed, and that has received so much scholarly and religious attention as the Talmud. Once reserved for study by elite scholars it has been translated, simplified, annotated, and popularized to make it accessible to the masses. It is the centerpiece of life for both the Yeshiva and Hasidic worlds. In Israel, it functions as the core of the haredi lifestyle even as it remains the most hated subject studied in schools for five decades. Around the world, thousands of Jewish educators try to teach it to their students despite multiple challenges it poses: it is in a foreign language, written in idiosyncratic shorthand and without punctuation, its flow frequently interrupted with tangents, it bounces back and forth almost without warning over a literature spanning a thousand years or more, it is filled with inconsistencies and internal contradictions, and all that is before we enter the ever-expanding world of commentary.

This raises multiple critical questions. Was it intended to be studied by the masses? Can it be taught to schoolchildren? To all schoolchildren? Should it be included in day school curricula, and if yes, then why? Is the investment of precious time justified, especially given that many will simply not get it? What do we want our students to get out of the encounter and how do we ensure that they do?

Some of these are uncomfortable questions. Throughout the years I have shared with others—in informal discussions, in staff meetings, as a mentor—the questions with which I struggle myself; I’ve heard the range of their answers and seen some getting uncomfortable as I pushed back. And that is why we chose to dedicate this issue of the journal to discuss those questions—because we can't possibly accomplish our goals if we haven't articulated them clearly to ourselves, not to mention to our students.

Some of the articles here describe the joy of studying Talmud, others break down the complex processes to make it more accessible to students or to enable the students to engage with it meaningfully. And just to make sure that we covered the bases of both the how and the why, we asked our authors to weigh in separately on the question: “Why do you think that day school students should be learning Gemara/Rabbinics?” Their responses—representing a very wide range of ideas—appear as an independent discussion starter. We invite you to join that discussion, to read and learn from what others are saying and doing, and to offer your contribution. Let us all decide to do this better.

 

BIVRAKHA,

RABBI ZVI GRUMET, ED.D.

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FROM THE EDITOR: Fall 2023

FROM THE EDITOR: Fall 2023

Fascinating. Infuriating. Uplifting. Complex. Boring. Inconsistent. Logical. Brilliant. Eclectic. Irrelevant. Compelling. Frustrating. Inspiring. Ancient. Contemporary. The Talmud evokes all the above, and more. I vividly remember my first encounter with Gemara. I must have been ten years old, and my family was in a bungalow colony in the Catskills. Rabbi Cohen taught Gemara to the older boys, of which I was not, but I asked permission to sit in and listen. I loved following the discussions and debates, even though I couldn’t read any of it and retained none of the content.

The Block Method for Teaching Gemara

The Block Method for Teaching Gemara

By its very nature, teaching Gemara seems to defy everything we know about education. When we teach math, or language, or anything else, we start with the simple and easy-to-grasp aspects of the study area and gradually increase the level of challenge and difficulty. For example, we begin with addition and slowly move on to subtraction, multiplication, and division. We certainly don’t touch algebra until these are firmly in place. One couldn’t imagine a math class that requires knowledge of Pythagoras’ theorem presented to a class that has not yet mastered multiplication.

The Puzzling Talmud

The Puzzling Talmud

A sixteen-year-old American Jewish day school student named Brandon (a self-chosen pseudonym) reports that he likes studying Talmud. What does he like about it? “I like the process,” he says. “It is kinda like a puzzle, that you have to get each word, and fill it in so it creates the whole text.” Brandon approaches his study of Talmud knowing that it’s going to be hard. Every word might take some effort to decode. Eventually, however, he can put it all together.

A Multidimensional Approach to Teaching Rabbinics

A Multidimensional Approach to Teaching Rabbinics

Pressman Academy is an early childhood through 8th grade school in Los Angeles serving a religiously diverse group of students. The school’s Judaics program, which includes Hebrew language, Jewish history, Tanakh, and daily prayer, affords a maximum of two weekly periods to teaching Rabbinics (in grades 5-8), presenting a significant challenge of what to include and how to approach it.

The Sanhedrin is in Session: Experiencing Rabbinic Literature

The Sanhedrin is in Session: Experiencing Rabbinic Literature

On Tuesday morning Rabban Gamliel called the gathered people to order. A letter had arrived from a northern district court in the Galilee which required the attention of the Sanhedrin. Rabban Gamliel took his seat at the head of the semi-circle of esteemed Rabbinic colleagues. R. Yehoshua sat on one side of him and R. Eliezer sat on the other.

Replacing Relevance with Relationship

Replacing Relevance with Relationship

A relationship to Talmud study is highly valuable to those who possess it. Few other activities manage to combine elements of intellectual inquiry, spiritual questing, and moral development in the almost alchemical way that the study of Talmud does. And yet, there are a number of hurdles students must overcome in order to develop an independent relationship with the Talmud. First and foremost, studying Talmud in the original Hebrew and Aramaic can feel scary to the uninitiated. Second, the logic of the Talmud is foreign to students at first. Finally, students may wonder what a text from 1500 years ago might have to say to them.

Teaching Talmud in Secondary Schools: Masorah and Modernity

Teaching Talmud in Secondary Schools: Masorah and Modernity

Teaching of Talmud in traditional secondary schools has been a conundrum from the day it was decided to teach Talmud as part of the standard Jewish studies curriculum. Programs for yeshiva high school graduates in Israel and around the world are consistently populated by an overwhelming percentage of students who, even after six years of multiple weekly hours of Talmud instruction in secondary schools, are helpless in the independent study of Talmud. These students are successful independent learners of advanced mathematics, natural sciences, complex technology, and even humanities, but in Talmud, they require an embarrassing degree of spoon-feeding.

Pre-Mishnah: The Missing Link

Pre-Mishnah: The Missing Link

I teach 5th grade Judaics at Fuchs Mizrachi School, a Modern Orthodox Zionist school (Cleveland). Upon entering the world of Torah SheBe’al Peh, a student is first greeted by the Mishnah—a complex and sophisticatedly interwoven compendium of Jewish law and wisdom. Students struggle to understand its relevance, how and why it was created, and its importance to the scope of their Torah learning. They ask, “Why are we learning Oral Torah?” and “Why should I care?” but underlying those questions is the more fundamental, “What is the Oral Torah?” While some choose to address this piecemeal over the span of many years, I believe that it is important to address it up front, in an organized manner.

Anatomy of a Gemara Lesson

Anatomy of a Gemara Lesson

You have been there, too, right? You thoroughly prepared a Gemara lesson by formalizing how you will explain the shakla vetarya, you concocted attention-grabbing examples and cases, charts to organize the conflicting opinions, and provided a translation and question practice worksheet. You slowly read the Gemara aloud while students annotated the text or completed linear translation sheets. You patiently and clearly explained the concepts and reasoning on a first, second, and even third pass of the reading.

Making the Case for Agada

Making the Case for Agada

The rabbis of the Talmud were intentional and thoughtful educators; an example of their consummate pedagogic skill is the way they interspersed narratives into their halakhic writings and teachings. Their use of agadot is an effective teaching tool because, simply put, people love stories. We evolved to tell stories, to become compelled by stories, to connect to the characters, drama, and tension in stories. Stories draw in our students and they have the power to make them care.

Tokhehah Leshem Shamayim

Tokhehah Leshem Shamayim

One day, in a 7th grade lesson during our unit on tokhehah (the mitzvah of rebuke), a student shouted out from across the classroom: “This is tokhehah leshem shamayim!” In this moment, with one eloquent and original phrase, this 7thgrader had connected the learning in our current unit of tokhehah with the concept of leshem shamayim (for the sake of heaven) from our previous unit of mahloket (disagreement). This delighted us because it showed that the concepts of mahloket we had been teaching were not just retained for the duration of our unit, or for a test, but were concepts students internalized, held on to, and could apply to new settings and used in unique ways.

Extending the Reach of Rabbinics

Extending the Reach of Rabbinics

Morah M.’s 5th-grade class is curating a museum exhibit showcasing artifacts that represent family legacy and tradition. The items are described on a placard that explains: These candlesticks were my Bubby’s and now my mother and I use them for Shabbat. When I chose them, I thought of the story about R. Yehuda HaNasi that we learned (Ketubot 103a). Before he died, he told his family that they should continue to set the table the same way, keeping the lamp in its usual place. We’re sort of doing the same thing when we use Bubby’s candlesticks.

Talmud Education for Diverse Learners:  Taking the “Long but Short” Road

Talmud Education for Diverse Learners: Taking the “Long but Short” Road

Teaching Talmud to weaker students can present many challenges not typically found in traditional Gemara classes. Navigating a text in a foreign language, especially one with the unique structure and rules of the Talmud, can be daunting for those grappling with language-based difficulties. Educators must realistically decide which teaching method—skill-based or discussion-based—will best set diverse learners up for success, and how demanding a Talmud course should be for students not likely to pursue this type of Torah learning in the future.

Teaching Talmud Guided by Essential Questions

Teaching Talmud Guided by Essential Questions

Standing at the edge of the sea can be an awe-filled experience—the incomprehensibly vast expanse of water with no end in sight is both inspiring and intimidating. We would not consider entering it, whether to swim, sail, surf, cruise, or dive without proper preparation. Similarly, the Sea of Talmud is rich with information, personalities, debates, and much more. It, too, can inspire and intimidate with its vastness and complexity, and we should not expect our students to be able to jump in and navigate it without context and a roadmap. To prepare our students as they embark on their journey into the Oral Torah, we need to define our goals and our strategies for achieving them.

An Alternative Approach for Teaching Talmud

An Alternative Approach for Teaching Talmud

In my first year of teaching, I taught a student whom we will call Yossi. From the time he started 1st grade reading groups, Yossi was placed in the lowest track. This pattern persisted through my 11th grade Gemara class. A few weeks into the first semester of 11th grade, Yossi approached me after class to ask me a burning question which he was embarrassed to ask in front of his peers. He asked, “Who is Rabbi Baraita?” I said, “What do you mean?” He responded, “My past teachers kept explaining ‘the Baraita says…’ Who is Rabbi Baraita and why is he referred to as the Baraita?”

“Wait, What?!” Teaching Jewish Law in a Reform Jewish School

“Wait, What?!” Teaching Jewish Law in a Reform Jewish School

As a teacher at Rodeph Sholom School (RSS), I have for some time considered what it means to teach Torah SheBe’al Peh in a Reform Jewish independent school. What I offer here is a taste of how my colleagues and I have strived to shape our 7th grade Rabbinics unit so that it is aligned with our school’s mission and meets the needs of our specific community of learners. And while every school is unique, I am hopeful that the insights I’ve gained from teaching one unit on the development of Jewish law are instructive for any Jewish day school grappling with teaching Torah SheBe’al Peh.

A Learner-Centered Approach to Teaching Gemara

A Learner-Centered Approach to Teaching Gemara

Traditional methods of teaching Gemara, such as hevruta learning followed by an interactive shiur, have stood the test of time. When teaching beginner students, however, this approach is less common, given their lack of prior knowledge or skills. As a result, many teachers prefer a frontal approach, perhaps projecting the daf on the SMART board and presenting the text phrase-by-phrase while students take notes between the lines of the traditional Vilna text. If hevruta time is used, it is often for the students to review material rather than for them to try to decipher the text. In this article, we are going to propose a method for using a modified version of the traditional approach which can be used for learners starting out on their Gemara learning careers.

Why Learn Talmud?

Why Learn Talmud?

Some of the articles in this issue describe the joy of studying Talmud, others break down the complex processes to make it more accessible to students or to enable the students to engage with it meaningfully. And just to make sure that we covered the bases of both the how and the why of Talmud study, we asked our authors to weigh in separately on the question: “Why do you think that day school students should be learning Gemara/Rabbinics?” We invite you to join that discussion.

Fall 2023 Journal Credits

JEWISHEDUCATIONALEADERSHIP
Jewish Educational Leadership is a publication of The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education of Bar Ilan University.
Chana German, Executive Director

JOURNAL STAFF
Hyim Brandes | Editor
Zvi Grumet | Editor-in-Chief
Chevi Rubin | Editor
Shani Sicherman | Copyeditor

Please send correspondence regarding journal content to zvi@lookstein.org.

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