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Yoel Finkelman bemoans the poor Gemara reading skills of Yeshiva High
School graduates, and offers a suggestion for a skills-based program.
While I have no quibble with his overall assessment of the skill-level he
readily encounters, I strongly disagree with the value judgment he passes
and his proposed alternate program of study.
1. The skills required for proper parsing and translating a passage of
Gemara are incredibly complex, and are rarely mastered even by those who
spend many hours in the Bet Midrash, as Yoel himself noted regarding his
students' progress after a year of full time study. The process through
which those skills are acquired is time-intensive, and given that most
yeshiva high school do not even have a minimum of 4-6 hours per day to
devote to this task, it is unreasonable to expect that they will be able
to teach those skills to the satisfaction of the Rashei Yeshiva who must
teach them afterward.
2. Yoel's comments were raised (if I recall correctly) in the context of a
discussion on the goals of teaching Gemara. I do not want to rehash the
discussion that already found expression on this list, but suffice it to
say that the primary responsibility of the high school Gemara class is to
create a learning experience that will inspire the students to want to
continue post-high school. Learning is a lifelong process - if schools can
bring their students one step closer to that level of commitment then the
necessary skills will be acquired along the way.
3. On Yoel's comments regarding Sevara and its value, one need look no
further than Rambam's description of Gemara in Hilkhot Talmud Torah 1:11
to distinguish between central and peripheral in learning. Vedai lahakima
be-remizah.
Zvi
Rabbi Zvi Grumet
6 Rechov Hamagid
Jerusalem, Israel 93114
Phone/Fax:02-561-0751
Cell:053-757-195</HTML>
