YESHIVAT HAR
ETZION
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Introduction to the Study of
Talmud (5768)
by Rav Ezra Bick and Rav Michael
Siev
Masechet
Kiddushin
01:
Introduction
This year we
will be studying the end of the third chapter of Masechet Kiddushin in the Introduction
to Talmud course. "Kiddushin" means "betrothal," and most of the tractate does
in fact deal with the betrothal of women. However, the last mishna of the first
chapter begins by listing the obligations of parents to children and vise versa,
which is followed in the gemara with entensive discussions of the status of
various mitzvot. This is the section we will be learning this
year.
This is a
text-based course. We will be mostly concentrating on learning how to read and
understand the Talmudic text. The optimal way to do this is to have the
traditional page of printed Talmud, what is called "tzurat hadaf," in front of
you as we go over the text. This is important for a number of reasons. Firstly,
if you continue to advance n your learning skills, that is the form of Talmud
that you will be using. Secondly, the printed "daf" contains a great deal of
additional material that we will be using, and learning how to use these aids is
an important part of learning Talmud.
In any
event, the shiur I will be sending will contain the English translation of the
Talmudic text under discussion, as well as a version of the original
Hebrew/Aramaic text. Nonetheless, it is highly preferable that you obtain an
edition of this Masechet in printed form, or at least photocopies of the
relevant pages. Each week, I will provide a link for a copy of the printed page,
courtesy of E-daf.com.
The best
edition of the Talmud with English translation is the Artscroll edition, which
also includes a running explanations and commentary. It provides, in my opinion,
important tools for helping one learn on ones own, which is the goal of this
course. Individual volumes can be purchased (the entire Talmud is tens of
volumes).
So, in order
of preference, here are your possibilities:
1.
Obtain a copy of the Artscroll edition of Masechet
Kiddushin
2.
Obtain a standard Hebrew/Aramaic edition of the
masechet.
3.
Download each week the copy of the "daf" which we will be
learning.
4.
Rely on the text of the lesson that you receive by email (not
recommended).
Each week, we will read and explain a short section of
the Talmud. The lesson will begin with the text, and you should try to read the
text and understand it on your own. In the course of my explanation, I will
insert "pauses" to allow you to answer questions or fulfill other assignments.
Obviously, there is no way for me to actually ensure that this is being done.
But again, if you want to get the most out of this course, you will not merely
read it. Unlike all the other courses in the VBM, this one is really based on
our working together, so it is very important that you follow the suggestions
and instructions in the text. The true goal is not to acquire the content of a
few lines of Talmud, but to begin to learn "how to learn."
The
shiur this year will be sent in html format (similar to last year's shiur). It
will come as an attachment to the mail message, which, when opened, can be read
in a web browser.
The
following is basically the same introduction that was sent to the Introduction
to Talmud course two years ago. Many of you have either already read it, or are
familiar with the basic concepts and ideas from other sources. Still, in order
to get started, we have to get past this point for all the
students.
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Having an introductory lesson to a course entitled
"Introduction to the Study of Talmud" might seem redundant. The answer, however, is embedded in the
title of the course. This is not an
introduction to the Talmud, but an introduction to the STUDY of Talmud. If I were writing an introduction to the
Talmud, we could easily reach an entire year's worth of introductory lectures,
which I think would in fact be interesting and informative, without ever
reaching the actual learning of the text.
However, most of the important information included in those lectures
would not really be appreciated until we got down into the workings of text
itself. In fact, for nearly all of
the history of Talmud study, the only way one learned "how to learn" was by
jumping into the text, a text which for thousands of years has been called the
"
For this
course, I am assuming no background at all, a clean slate, so to speak. Some of these points may be known to
many of you, and for that I beg your forbearance.
1. A word or
two on text.
Talmud
consists of two distinct primary texts, the Mishna and the Gemara. Surrounding these two, there exists a
huge literature, spanning 1800 years and thousands of books, of commentaries,
summations, and extended discussions, which continues to this day. When we study Talmud, we are in fact
addressing that entire literature, though obviously much of it must wait for
advanced levels of learning. But
even on the beginning level of this course we are not studying a BOOK, but
rather a literature, which in fact precedes the actual Talmud, and of course
extends beyond it. From a literary
point of view, the Talmud is the basis and core text, most importantly because
it is authoritative, and hence is the starting-point for any subsequent
discussion.
The Mishna
is printed as a distinct work, and often studied separately. In editions of the Talmud, the Mishna is
printed together with the Gemara as a unit, and that is the way we shall be
studying.
The Mishna
is a halakhic code. It presents a
set of rulings on all halakhic matters, in all areas of life. True to the nature of the Oral Law, it
is not generally written in a monolithic manner, but rather preserves
controversies and disagreements, hundreds of them, from the authorities of the
Mishnaic period, roughly the first century and a half of the Common Era. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, the head of
Palestinian Jewry, compiled the present form of the Mishna and thereby
summarized and codified the halakhic rulings of the previous centuries. This was the first code of Jewish
law.
The Gemara
is the record of two centuries of discussion, argument, elucidation, and
controversy surrounding the text of the Mishna, first in the land of Israel, and
subsequently in the great Torah centers of Babylonia. Unlike the Mishna, the Gemara is not a
code. It is more like the protocol
of a debate, spanning several hundred years and more, where the basic literary
form is question and answer, and the most common conveyor of meaning is
disagreement. It is impossible to
READ Gemara; you have to join the discussion in order to grasp the meaning of
what is going on. In order to
understand an answer, you have to understand the question, and that
understanding is far more important than summarizing the conclusion. It would be quite accurate to say that
Gemara is more about halakhic reasoning than about halakha itself, though
obviously the goal is halakha. In
fact, in most cases, the halakhic conclusion is not explicit in the Talmudic
text itself, but will be found only in later rabbinic works. It is quite common to find an extensive
rabbinic discussion of the "hava amina," the opening and ultimately rejected
understanding, for the fact that this position did not survive the scrutiny of
the Talmudic discussion does not make it unimportant. It is often correct to state that only
by understanding the "hava amina" can we understand the conclusion, the
"maskana."
The previous
paragraph has illustrated, inter alia, an important technical aspect of our
study. The Mishna is written in
Hebrew (in a dialect that is called by the linguists, not surprisingly, Mishnaic
Hebrew). The Talmud is written in a
mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. Both
are filled with hundreds of technical terms, both legal and logical, which are
often difficult to translate. I
shall of course translate or explain them as they come up, but we shall prefer
the use of the original terms even in an English-language lecture. Our goal, again, is to study text, and
to enter into the world of Talmudic study.
Every Talmudic discussion consists of a "hava amina," literally, "I would
have said," and a "maskana," a conclusion.
A standard question when reading a position that is rejected by the
Gemara is to ask, "what was the hava amina?"; i.e., what was the (ultimately
rejected) understanding of the subject that underlay the opening position
expressed in the gemara. Once you
answer that question, the teacher asks the opposite question - "now tell me what
is the maskana," meaning not the conclusion itself, but the change in logic that
caused the change in position.
I assume
that Aramaic, and perhaps Mishnaic Hebrew is not a language in which most of you
are fluent. All editions of the
Talmud are accompanied by running explanatory commentaries, the most important
of which is that of Rashi (R. Shlomo Yitzchaki, 11th century France). But, I must admit, Rashi himself wrote
in a mix of Hebrew and Aramaic. I
therefore recommend that you acquire an English translation. While the text of each lesson will
include a link to both the original and translated text, it will be far more
efficient if you have a full text of the entire page in front of you. There are several translations of the
Talmud, but, for our purposes, the best is the Schottenstein edition of the
Talmud printed by ArtScroll Publishing.
Our sections are found in volume Kiddushin v.I. I recommend that you buy it, if you are
serious about the course, especially if you hope to continue in the study of
Talmud.
(The Talmud
as a whole is usually printed in 20 very large volumes. The Schottenstein translation is much
larger, with each normal volume of the Hebrew original divided into three
translated volumes with commentary.
Buying the whole set will make a significant dent in your bank account,
but will enrich you immensely. For
the purpose of this course, buying ONE volume will suffice. In any event, each page of Talmudic text
will be posted on the web, so you can manage to get by without spending a
penny.)
While I
recommend a translation, and we will translate everything as we continue and
provide a glossary, the text we are studying will be the original. The ability to read the Hebrew words is
assumed. I shall be constantly
referring to the Hebrew and Aramaic text (with explanation and translation), for
again, the purpose is to introduce you to the study of Talmud as all students of
Talmud study it, which is the original, with the traditional commentaries (all
of which are not available in translation in any
event).
We shall
begin our learning with a mishna in the first chapter of Kiddushin. "Kiddushin" means "betrothal," and most
of the tractate does in fact deal with the betrothal of women. However, the last
mishna of the first chapter begins by listing the obligations of parents to
children and vise versa, which is followed in the gemara with entensive
discussions of the status of various mitzvot. This is the section we will be
learning this year.
2. The "daf"
- a page of Talmud
The Hebrew
word "daf" means page. In the
tradition of Talmudic learning, it means a leaf; i.e., a physical page, which of
course has two sides. To
distinguish the two, we use a postscript, so that the page we are beginning on
is daf 114a.
A scan of
this daf can be seen at
http://www.e-daf.com/dafprint.asp?ID=2684
Take a look
at this daf. You will see up on the
left-hand corner the letters kuf-tet, which means 29. In all standard editions of the Talmud
(but not the Schottenstein), the first side (29a) always is on the left side of
the open volume. The reverse side
(29b) does not have any Hebrew page number at all, but for several centuries has
had an Arabic numeral, in this case "58" (Notice that the Arabic numerals refer
to sides, while the Hebrew ones to full pages. Why? That's just the way it
is!).
Running down
the middle of the page, in block Hebrew letters, is the text of the Talmud. On the page we are examining, there is a
mishna, beginning on the line 12, which is marked with the enlarged letters
מתני ,
spelling "Matni," which is an abbreviating for "matnitin," which is the
Aramaic for "Mishna." Ten lines down, where the mishna ends, we find the letters
גמ, "gimel-mem," which is the abbreviation for "gemara." This is
where the gemara discussion of this mishna begins. This discussion can sometimes be only a
few lines, but often, as in our case, it will continue for several
pages.
On either
side of the main text are two commentaries. On the right side is the running
commentary of Rashi, R. Shlomo Yitzchaki, who lived in Champagne in the 11th
century. Rashi is the primary
commentary on both the Talmud and the Bible, and every talmudic discussion will
begin with his interpretation of the talmudic text. The lettering in the standard editions
of the Talmud is in a different script than that of the central Talmud
text. This script is popularly
called "Rashi-script," although it was not used by Rashi himself. It is a printer's version of the cursive
script used by scribes in the Middle Ages.
If you are not familiar with it, it may be difficult to read, but I hope
you will quickly get used to it.
On the left
side is a commentary consisting of several extended comments, each beginning
with the Talmudic text to which it refers marked in bold letters. This is the "Tosafot," which simply
means addenda. In true talmudic
tradition, the Tosafot do not have one particular author, but record the
discussion in the French (and German) schools of Rashi's disciples for the next
four or five generations. Very
often, the starting point for these discussions was the commentary of Rashi, and
most often they will begin with a question which will give rise to an alternate
explanation.
Gemara with
Rashi and Tosafot is the bread-and-butter of Talmudic study. We are aiming at reaching that
level.
The page
contains an additional outer ring of various glosses of later authorities,
citations to halakhic codes, and cross-references to other Talmudic
passages. Aside from this, there
are thousands of books that continue the discussion. In our study, we shall examine,
occasionally, some of the more important of these additional
commentaries.
An extensive
and detailed account of these and other features of the talmudic daf can be
found at:
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/TalmudPage.html
which probably has even more than you might want to know
at this stage. If you take a look
at the daf presented on Professor Segal's webpage, you will see that it looks
exactly like the one we are studying, even though it is from a completely
different section of the Talmud.
The page layout has been standard for nearly five hundred years, with
some additions.
Next week,
we shall begin the last mishna of the first chapter, which is the SECOND mishna
on this page (the one all the way at the bottom). Try reading the mishna now, with Rashi
and the Rashbam, and using the translation, if you have one. We shall go over this mishna in next
week's shiur.