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Responding to Yitz Jacobs responding to me
>>2) the ability to distinguish between midrashic arguments and logical
>>arguments and recall knowledge of several specific examples of each;
On point #2 about midrashic and logical arguments, I'm not saying that ther=
e
isn't "a logic" to different hermeneutical rules, but arguments based on a
gezerah shavah or a k'lal u'frat are different than kal vahomer, etc.
>>4) a clear understanding of the difference between gemara and halakhah
>>which the student can illustrate with numerous examples;
Yitz responded:
>While it is important to understand the difference, I think that it is
>even more important to understand how one flows from the other, something
>that is aided on the page itself by the Ein Mishpat/Ner Mitzvah.
I disagree. I was talking about the enterprise of halakhah and gemara, and
not the specifics of the texts that we have. Halakhah existed in the time
of the gemara, but while the gemara is both "of" and "about" halakhah, the
nature of puzzling and searching and conversing that is the essence of the
gemara, is not the same as the nature of halakhah.
What I want my students to understand is that the discussions and
conversations of Torah she'b'al Peh did lead to developments in the
codification of practice, but that the codification of practice also
resulted in more discussion. I want them to value each kind of discourse
for its own sake. When I don't teach it explicitly in this way (that the
different genres respond to different religious needs), I end up with
students who only want to know the nafka minah.
I find the desire to know the halakhah to be so powerful among the more
concrete thinkers that I have posted on my wall the following comment from
Derekh Eretz Zuta:
Hevay Ohev et haShemma u'S'na et haHakhi Ma
which I creatively "translate" as:
One should learn to love asking "Perhaps...?" "Why?" and
"What meaning can I find?"
and learn to hate settling for "So what?" "Can I use this?"
and "Will it be on the test?"
In my work this year in the Rabbinics Lab, my students are gaining a much
greater sense of the connections between the various bodies of literature,
and I've developed some interesting ways of relating their new access to th=
e
computer databases of Rabbinic lit. to the Ein Mishpat/Ner Mitzvah and the
Be'er haGolah and the other "hypertext" features of Rabbinic texts.
>>6) a deep understanding of the technical terminology of the Talmud.
>>This last one needs a little explanation. I want my students to know not
>>only what "M'nalan?" means but to think about why the Bavli is so
>>concerned about grounding Torah she'b'al Peh in Torah she'bi'khtav. Not
>>only to translate "Mai ika beynaihu?", but to recognize that this questio=
n
>>assumes that differences of "opinion" should be based on rational
>>differences of approach.
Yitz wrote:
>Of all of Jeffrey's excellent suggestions, this I found of greatest
>significance. Could someone direct me to works that discuss these issues?
>Most of the terminology books deal with the text as punctuation, and do
>little to suggest answers to the questions raised. (By the way, I always
>thought that the question that asked for an underlying sevara was "B'mai
>Kamipalgi", and that "Mai Beinaihu" asked for a practical difference
>between the two opinions.)
There are no works that I know of that work this way, but I think that
working through a list of tech terms and discussing what we think each
assumes about Rabbinic thought might be a nice summer project for LookJed.
About Mai Ika Beynaihu: Of course you are right, and you demonstrated the
validity of source criticism, because the original was longer (I had four
examples, including b'mai kamipalgei) and I cut it wrong when I shortened
it. My point about Mai Ika Beynaihu is that reasonable people can disagree,
even about practice. The point that I made was about B'mai Kamipalgei.
B'vrakhah,
Jeffrey A. Spitzer
Director of the Rabbinics Lab (http://www.uscj.org/ssds/boston/main.htm )
Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston
Jeffrey@Spitzer.net</HTML>
