![]() I don't think quoting maskilim will get you brownie points, but, for your own private pleasure, I think you will enjoy reading them. (By the way, Rabbi Slifkin, I think you would like some of the works of the maskilim - many of whom were quite frum despite the popular perception. I have always liked people like Ibn Ezra, Abarbanel, Hirsch(?) and others who apparently liked Tanach and Jewish thought in general far more than gemara. Someone told me that one of the baalei mussar (perhaps Novardik?) also downplayed gemara's importance. Rav Kook is one example Rambam is another. Over the last few years I have started discovering people who downplay gemara's importantce. I have no problem with the "tapping into the Divine" argument, but I also have always felt an affinity for the "anti-frum" argument that it's silly to spend hours upon hours - and tremendous energy - studying the details of how much one pays when one's ox gores another ox (especially when one can learn much more interesting and relevant topics like Tanach and Jewish philosophy). Thank you so much for bringing up this topic! I very much need sources on this topic. GEMARA ISPEAK FREEOver the next few days, I will post various sources from the Rishonim which speak about the goal of Torah study - and please feel free to contribute more sources. Isadore Twersky, “Joseph ibn Kaspi: Portrait of a Medieval Jewish Intellectual,” pp. Hayyim of Volozhin, Nefesh Ha-Hayyim, sha’ar IV chaps. In the history of ideas, this may be seen as setting the stage for R. GEMARA ISPEAK PROFESSIONALThis, of course, is the absolute antithesis of Kaspi's restrictive attitude which would make Talmudic knowledge a purely professional concern nurtured by pragmatic or utilitarian criteria.Ĭhapter 11 of Tiferet Yisrael goes one step further in the reaction against the Kaspi-type position and the vindication of pure Talmud study. All Talmud study is self-validating and its universality should be the ideal for all. Study per se is practical and need not seek to anchor itself in an external, self-transcending relevance. All Talmud study is useful and perennially relevant expending time and energy in order to understand even the discarded opinion in a debate or the wrong view in a controversy is unquestionably meritorious, for it is study of the word of God, it is thinking God's thoughts. Shneur Zalman of Ladi, the two great ideologues of pure Talmud study which is, in the final analysis, to be perceived as study of God's essence. If we were to look ahead, we could see the Maharal's position as a historical fulcrum: on one hand reacting against the position established by Kaspi and on the other setting the stage for that position usually attributed to the two great contemporaries and antagonists of the beginning of the nineteenth century: R. “.This confrontation continues when we find the Maharal of Prague vehemently denouncing those who ridicule the study of Nezikin while revering the study of physics he repeatedly exposes the fallacy of such argumentation. Yitzchak Twersky, in describing the other extreme - Ibn Kaspi's "putting down" of learning Gemara vis-a-vis studying philosophy and metaphysics - refers to this pattern: In this case, the full-fledged treatment given to this idea by Rav Chaim of Volozhin was especially influential popular belief is that he was simply describing what everyone always thought rather than originating anything. In fact, in yeshivah, I was taught that this goal should primarily be specifically accomplished via learning Gemara more specifically, via the Bavli more specifically, via certain sections of Nashim and Nezikin more specifically, by learning b'iyun rather than bekiyus and more specifically, via a specific derech halimmud.īut, as my studies have increased, it now appears to me that this is similar to so many other topics - it is an approach which began around the time of Maharal, gradually became more and more popular, and eventually became so entrenched in people's minds that they began to read it back into earlier sources and believe that nobody ever thought differently. This was consistent with everything that I was taught in yeshivah. He quoted Maharal about how Torah is the energy source of existence, and compared it to how science describes the universe itself as being fundamentally made of energy. Instead, he explained, the main purpose of Torah study is to metaphysically sustain the universe and for our minds to tap into the Divine. He spoke about how it is a given in Jewish thought that the main purpose of Torah study is not so that we should know halachah - in fact, he said, knowing halachah is so much not the main purpose of Torah study that it's almost as though this is not a purpose at all. I recently heard a shiur, from an outstanding, brilliant and widely-learned Rav in the Charedi world whom I greatly respect, about the importance of Torah study. ![]()
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