avakesh

Daf Yomi Pitfalls and How to Fix Them

Daf Yomi has become a very popular limmud in our world. The reasons for this are many. Daf Yomi demands and connotes discipline. It is something of which a learner can be proud in his own mind and in front of his family and community. There is an mistique to learning and completing Shas; it defines a person.

At the same time, it is widely acknowledged that it is difficult to gain much from Daf Yomi as if is usually learned. How many times does one see the Magid Shiur droning in front of a table of seriously distracted and tired students, who barely manage to stay engaged. This one just looked in Rashi hoping to understand what is being said and he lost his place. He frantically attempts to locate where he was as the lines run away from him. Another one had a hard day at work and his mind keeps drifting away. Yet another learner has already given up and is learning on his own without following the maggid shiur. Still another one is looking at the clock wondering when the torture, at least for this unsuccessful evening, will end.

Mark Twain once said: " It is easy to stop smoking; I did it many times". Well, I started Daf Yomi many times! The unfortunate truth is that most of those who begin Daf Yomi with high expectations, soon drop out. R. Meir Shapiro used to explain that the famous saying, "Bo Shabbos Bo Menucha", refers to those who start Daf Yomi with Brochos and are gone by Shabbos. Why does this happen? Because it is very difficult to succeed with Daf Yomi as it is usually learned these days. Why? Because the learning is unfocused and has no goals.

I think we can all agree that the amount of material in every daf is too great to retain for an investment of one hour a day. When people can't remember, where each page becomes like another page, when a page from three weeks ago looks as if one had never seen it, frustration sets in. If this too much to expect people to keep on giving time and effort, to tear away time from family and other interests, daily, nightly, without experiencing success.

To succeed, to retain, to carry something out of every daf, one must set a goal and employ methodology. That great Talmudist, Yogi Berra once said: " if you don't know where you going, you sure to get there". Therefore, I would suggest that one of  the following goals be maintained:

1. Focus on the structure of the sugya. What is the question, what are the three or four Aromaic opinions, what is the conclusion? Understand these, focus on them, and review them. Whatever you retain from the rest is icing on the cake.

2. Focus on the background material and on what the sugya brings to expand it. Pay special attention to Rashis that explain the background and supplement it with a brief review of other related sygyas. Know where these sugyas are, which means- pay attention to Mesores Hashas. Aim to understand definitions and terms so well that you can explain them to others and learn where parallel sugyos and concepts are located in Shas. The focus is broadening your understanding and gaining clarity and bekiyos in Torah in general.

3.Focus on the major views of the Rishonim - what Rashi, Tosafos and Rambam sugya and how the Poskim decide. Your goal is to have a broad and general overview of the halachic discourse without getting bogged down in the specifics of it. This makes a virtue out of the difficulty of encompassing the subject and enables you to carry something that is useful out of it.

There are, of course, many other possible ways to focus, to put aside the extraneous, and to ensure that you end up with a finite but the real body of knowledge. In the setting of a lecture, this can only happen if the teacher is also focused on the specific approach to so get an specific goals to accomplish. If the teacehr is unfocused, the student has no hope. The way we hope to learn Daf Yomi is to project the ArtScroll application (see the top of the page) and utilize its ability to highlight and separate to improve retention. However you study, a focused approache to the sygya and a set of well defined goals around which the teaching is organized is the key and will remain central to success.

 

Decent Nazis?

Were there decent Nazis? German film makers would like to think so. Here are two short films on Nazi solders who were unable to be Nazis.

 

For a similar treatment of the same theme see the last short film here

Porcelain Unicorn

Finding Hashem "Bein Hameitsarim"

An interesting call came in this week. The caller asked me a question that he found very important but which others whom he had approached dismissed or did not efectively address.

It troubled him that in the story of the Akeida, Hashem called Avraham to sacrifice his son with the name Elokim but when He reversed Himself, it was through "the Angel of YKVK". This, in itself, is not the new complaint. Rashi attributes it to Bilaam. When Bilaam raised his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord he said that such is the way of Hashem. He commands people Himself and then reverses His orders through the use of an angel.

Bamidbar 22:31

34. Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, "I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing on the road before me. Now, if it displeases you, I will return."		לד. וַיֹּאמֶר בִּלְעָם אֶל מַלְאַךְ יְ־הֹוָ־ה חָטָאתִי כִּי לֹא יָדַעְתִּי כִּי אַתָּה נִצָּב לִקְרָאתִי בַּדָּרֶךְ וְעַתָּה אִם רַע בְּעֵינֶיךָ אָשׁוּבָה לִּי:
		כי לא ידעתי: גם זה גנותו, ועל כרחו הודה, שהוא היה משתבח שיודע דעת עליון, ופיו העיד לא ידעתי:
Rashi: if it displeases you, I will return: This reply was a challenge against the Omnipresent. He [Balaam] said to him, “He [God] Himself commanded me to go, yet you, an angel, annul His words. This is His custom: He says one thing and angel retracts it. He said to Abraham, ”Take now your son“ (Gen. 22:2), and through an angel He annulled His words. I, too; if it displeases you, I will have to return.”- [Mid. Tanchuma Balak 10, Num. Rabbah 20:15]		אם רע בעיניך אשובה לי: להתריס נגד המקום היא תשובה זו. אמר לו הוא בעצמו צוני ללכת, ואתה מלאך מבטל את דבריו, למוד הוא בכך, שאומר דבר ומלאך מחזירו, אמר לאברהם (בראשית כב, ב) קח נא את בנך וגו', וע"י מלאך בטל את דברו, אף אני אם רע בעיניך צריך אני

 

So I asked him for what he thought about it himself and during the discussion other possibilities came up.

The first one was that the Angel of YKVK is actually a higher level than the name Elokim because Elokim is the more distant Quality of Justice and YKVK is a closer Quality of Mercy.

The second one was that it is proper for one to take personal responsibility for delivering bad news. One does not fire people through an e-mail or a letter but is responsible to do so in person. It may be more uncomfortable to to bring good news than bad news and the natural inclination of people is to to bring good news in person and deliver bad news at a distance. However, this is not how God works (delivering the bad news directly as Elokim) and we need to learn Derech Eretz from that.

What I really think is, however is different.

We start with the Ramban ad loc who points out that Avraham was tested and a test(Nisayon) is for the benefit of the individual tested. In other words, it is not that God needs to learn that Avraham will do but that the act of testing benefits Avraham and brings out what is potential in him to become what is actual. Of course, this is an oversimplification. If you look at Netsiv and the midrash that he quotes you will find that there is more than one kind of Nisayon and that not all tests are beneficial and solely for the benefit of the tested individual.

However, assuming that in this case the benefit was for Avraham, the deeper truth of the Akeida is that the Encounter with the Divine is much more likely at the times of stress and suffering than when everything runs smoothly or at the time of blessing. Unfortunately, when Hashem subjects us to suffering we are put to the true test and have to choose between love and anger. Nisayon is what takes place within us. It is such times that force us to say with Iyov 13:15, "even He slays me, I trust in Him", or abandon Hashem. This is when our sense of the Divine is at its deepest and its truest.

Accordingly, it is when we perceive Hashem as Elokim, through tear clouded eyes and in pain and frustration that we encounter Him directly. On the other hand, when we receive a salvation or a blessing we only feel an "angel of the Lord", signifying a more distant connection, because at such a time a choice to remain connected and or to become distanced, is not required.

A similar thought was expressed by the Kotzker. On the verse, "All her pursuers reached her between the borders (Lam. 1:3)", he comments that "her pursuers" refers to those who passionately seek Hashem. Where will they find HIm? Between the borders! He can only be found at the time of trouble and pain referred to as "bein hameitsarim".

Avos 3:1,The other Hillel

Now that we finished the first two chapters of Fathers. we can pause and briefly review. We saw how the initial several mishnas of the first chapters reflected the ongoing search for how to re-establish religious life after the destruction of the First Temple and the Return, proceeding from the utopian theocratic vision of Shimon Hatsadik through its dissolution under the venal and unprincipled rule of later Hasmonaim and Herod. It was not until Hillel enshrined the developing understanding that Judaism will survive not as a religion of the nation and not even as a religion of isolated fellowships and groups but as a religion of the individuals banding together, that its survival became assured. From Hillel on, this was the inspiration that motivated religious teachers.

From Hillel, the course of  knowledge flowed in two parallel but distinct traditions. The first one was through HIllel's descendants, the chain of Nesiim (Princes) and the other through his students to R. Yochanan ben Zakkai and his 5 pupils. The second chapter completed these chains of transmission, except that it also incorporated R. Tarfon , who was a part of an independent and unrelated school but whose recorded teaching modified and argued with R. Eliezer, a student of Hillel. Now, in the third chapter, we continue the record of individuals who perpetuated other strands of Masora.

"Akavia ben (son of) Mehalalel said, consider three things and you will not come to sin. Know from where you have come, to where you are heading, and before Whom you will give justification and accounting. From where have you come: from a putrid drop (of semen); to where are you heading: to a place of dirt, worms and maggots; and before Whom will you give justification and accounting: before the King of kings, the Holy One blessed be He."

Akaviah ben Mehalel is an interesting Tanna. There are many echoes and parallels to Hillel. Not only does he appear to have been a student of Shamaya and Avtalyon like Hillel (Seder Tannaim v'AMoraim based on Brochos 19a), but even his name, Mehalel, recalls HIllel's name. At the same time, his name suggests his outsider status- literally, it means "He who was at the side". He appears to have somewhat discounted Shamaya and Avtalion and had been their school's rival, for which he may have been excommunicated.

We don'tknow much about him, but what we do know, suggests that he was independently minded and did not commit to any particular school.While discussing whether a female convert drinks Sotah water, Akaviah dismissed the testimony that Shamaya and Avtalyon gave such waters to a convert to drink by saying , "Dugma hishkuha(To one like themselves they gave to drink). This ascription of partiality to the revered Shamaya and Avtalyon led to the sentence of nidduy(excommunication). Before his death, Akaviah admonished his son to submit to the views of the majority, even in the cases where he himself had shown persistent opposition. His son expressing surprise at so apparent an inconsistency, the dying sage replied: "I have received my tradition from a majority of scholars, and so I was bound to conform to the tradition I had received; and so are they bound by their tradition. But you heard the traditions both from myself and from my opponents; from a minority and from a majority, and it is proper for you to reject the opinions of the individual and adopt the views of the majority". Here we see that his chain of transmission was not the same as that of the majority of the rabbis of his later years.

Another characteristic trait of  Akavia was the great stress he laid on personal merit. When, on his deathbed, he was requested by his son to recommend him to the sages, he declined to do so. His son inquired whether his father had discovered in him any trait which rendered him unworthy of such recommendation; and 'Akabia's reply was, "No! but your own deeds will make thee welcome, or thine own deeds will make thee be distanced".(Edyuos 5:6-7)

It is not surprising then that Akaviah's version of the three things that protect from sin is quite different from that of Rebbi. Rebbi said in the beginning of chapter 2 of Avos: "Consider three tings and you will not come to sin: The Eye that sees, the Ear that hears and all your actions are written in the book".

We will, please Hashem, take this in the next post on Avos.

The Dybbuk Box

More of bastardized Jewish ideas adopted by pop culture. This horror move to come in 2012 includes chassidic performed exorcism. Oy vAvoy!

This is a Judeo-Christian civilization, even in its lowest manifestations.

The Possession is an upcoming horror film featuring Matisyahu as Tzadok. It is scheduled to be released on August 31, 2012. The story is based on the Dybbuk box.

 

 

A Unique Daf Yomi Shiur in Monsey

A Unique Daf Yomi Shiur

 

☛Use the new ArtScroll digital app that takes Limud haTorah to the next level.

☛Experience a multimedia, multimodal Shiur

☛See, Hear and Touch the Daf, so it can touch you in a ways that enhance  

    retention and understanding.

 

Meets Daily at Cong. TTZ, 2 Langeries Dr., T 8 PM, starting on August 2, 2012

 

For more information, contact:

Rabbi Yeruchem Cohen - 845 216-4554

Rabbi Meir Levin - 845 406-2783

 

 

 

A person's eyes, ears and heart must [always] be directed to [absorb] Divrei Torah" (Rashi, Devorim 32:46),

So that he see with his eyes and listen with his ears and with his heart understand...(Ishaya 6:10)

Der Kish

Warning: There is one scene that some may find insufficiently tsniusdige at about 2:30 min.

Avos 22:19: There is always Torah

R. Tarfon said that, unlike what R. Eliezer so optimistically portrays, we are not automatically guaranteed to accomplish even if we try very hard to do Hashem's will. In the areas of communal service, kindness to others, and performance off Commandments sometimes an individual does not succeed, not because he or she does not try, but because, by necessity, one must rely on others and "the workers are lazy". R. Tarfon continues to explain . I intentionally translate in a way that will highlight parallelism and contrast in this mishna and show how R.Tarfon sees a different, a darker reality than R. Eliezer.

He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say,

it is not upon you to complete the task,
BUT
you are not free to idle from it.
 
If you have learned much Torah, you will be given much reward.
                                                                                                                                                                         And And faithful is your Employer that He will reward you for your labor
BUT
know that the reward of the righteous will be in the World to Come."
First, it is possible that you will not accomplish much because your colleagues are lazy, the time in which you leave Is not propitious, the times are not conducive to spreading Torah and mitzvos.
Second, of course you will be rewarded for your efforts but not in this world. You may have worked hard but you will not be appreciated in this world, through no fault of your own. You will be rewarded but not here.

There is one exception. There is one type of a Divine service for which you will always be rewarded. It is the study of Torah.
R. Tarfon sets up as a sort of a chiastic structure where the first and the last statements contain contrasts and, at the same time parallel each other. I

middle and in between them is the statement, which is the focus of the Mishna (that is how chiastic structures work). Yes, there are times when no matter what you do the generation is galloping away from Torah and no matter how you try you cannot stop them. Yes, you may wear out your days, nay, your entire life in what appears to be a futile, idealistic effort to bring people close to the Torah, which they do not want. There were many periods in our history when such was the case, for exmaple, in Europe the Enlightenment and, in America, until recently, the last 200 years. Unique individuals, toiled in obscurity and privation, lonely voices in the wilderness, not supported by their communities or, even by many like-minded friends. Their reward came much in the future.

Yes, but there is always a refuge. One can escape into the study of the Torah. Torah study will always serve as its own reward.

 If you have learned much Torah, you will be given much reward.

Tosefta Brochos (6:30)

Hillel the Elder says, “At the time when they gather in you should spread, and at the time when they spread you should gather in.”

 At the time that you see that the Torah is beloved to all of the Jewish people and everyone rejoices in it, you should spread it (i.e. teach it) as it is said, “The one that spreads gathers in more …” (Mishlei 11:24) And at the time that you see that the Torah is being forgotten from the Jewish people and no one is paying attention to it, gather it in (i.e. learn it privately to yourself and do not teach), as it is said, “It is time to do for Hashem, they have forsaken your Torah.”(Tehillim 119:126)

It may be that this approach was later rejected. The Tosefta itself initimates this by prefacing Hillel's words with: "Originally, when the Torah would get forgotten from the Jewish people the elders would swallow it (i.e. the Torah) between themselves, [and not publicly teach it to the masses in great detail(ibid 29). So this approach. See here for an argument that R. Meir changed the policy of the early Tannaim and said that, on the contrary, when there is no interest in Torah, is when you should teach it:  "Rebbi Meir says, “[If] they have forsaken your Torah, [then] it is time to do for Hashem [and teach the Torah to the masses even with more force than before].”

Pinchas