Studying Torah 2

All the different approaches to study center around a debate in the Talmud; which is better, "Sinai" or an "uprooter of mountains"? That is, are we to prefer someone with a comprehensive knowledge of sources (like Mt. Sinai, from where all Torah is revealed), or one who comes to a source, analyses and reanalyses it, until all of its implications and nuances have been considered and weighed, sometimes coming to a conclusion, and sometimes remaining with a mystery?)The ruling in Talmud is that Sinai is better, as "all need those who sell wheat" (but few need the sellers of delicacies). The Sages urge "let a man first gain wide knowledge, and only later analyze". Added to this is the idea "the words of Torah are poor in one place, but rich in another". Meaning that facts necessary to fully understand a topic at hand, may only be found in a different tractate, in the context of a discussion on a totally different topic. One who studies in-depth, may be left in the dark, as the needed information is to be found elsewhere, where he has not yet reached, and may never get to. One who studies for breadth rather than depth, will likely have seen the missing information, or will come to it shortly in the course of his studies. At that time, all will become clear. This approach remains the practice of Sepharadi Yeshivot, and many, if not most, Hasidic Yeshivot. The standard Ashkenazi approach, however, is different. Ashkenazi rabbis argue that the Talmud is speaking of the time when written sources were generally unavailable. Today, when everything has been written down, and even printed, in editions that are readily available and fairly inexpensive, with commentaries that make cross-referencing easy, the "uprooter of mountains" is to be preferred. Thus, already while in High School, a Yeshivah student will be taught to analyze text, study and compare commentaries, attempting to understand not only how they differ, but what brought them to their respective conclusions. I once taught in such a Yeshivah. In the course of a semester, the students had only covered four or five pages of Talmud. They graduated knowing a great deal about very little. One of my teachers, who used to cover an incredible twenty eight pages of Talmud every day (!!!!), was very disappointed when he sent his eldest son to a famous Yeshivah in Baltimore. The son came home for intersession, and informed his father that he had covered eight pages. "Eight pages?!?! Is that what I am paying tuition for?!?!". Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, when he first met his prospective son in law, Rabbi Bar Shalom (from whom I was later to learn the intricacies of marriage contracts), he asked the young man what section of Talmud he was studying. Rabbi Bar Shalom was learning in an Ashkenazi Yeshivah. When he told the Rav, the latter began to test him on the topic. After a few minutes, Rav Ovadia told him "You know all the commentaries, but you do not know the Talmudic passage (sugya)!". In my opinion, this is the main reason why few rabbis are qualified to speak on a variety of topics. Few have studied (or even read) the entire Tanach, or know more than selected portions of Talmud. Fortunately, at least in Israel, this is changing. There is now a school system called "Barkai", in which the students come out from eighth grade, knowing the Tanach almost by heart. Rabbi Shabtai Sabato, has established a High School and post High School program, in which the students go through a third of Talmud by the end of twelfth grade, and complete the rest in an additional two years of study. My two eldest sons studied there. It is my considered opinion, that Judaism pays dearly for the lack of comprehensive study on the part of its rabbis. We wind up with pseudo-intellectuals, who remain fairly ignorant of the scope of Torah. I would compare this to a doctor who has only studied certain organs. Torah is an organic whole.