[Avodah] More on Mitzvos and Iyun

[Shoshana L. Boublil]

> Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 02:35:47 EDT
> From: T613K at aol.com
> Subject: Re: [Avodah] More on Mitzvos and Iyun
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> One can hardly learn a few pages of Gemara without  coming across lessons 
> in
> character, integrity, chessed, truth and so on.   If you can understand 
> what
> you are reading -- and you are reading this stuff for  hours every day --  
> how
> can you not be affected by it?

There are two issues here, from my experience.

While during my childhood I didn't learn G'mara (very few women did back 
then) but I did learn as many books as I could that contained the Midrishai 
chazal - copied from the G'mara and presented as folk tales usually.

Over the years, I've come across the fact that many men do not even 
recognize many of these tales when I quote them.  When I investigated this I 
discovered that many g'mara teachers had the tendence to skip these pages or 
at least to just read them lightly, without any in depth analysis saying 
"these are JUST stories".

As many here know, they are NOT just stories, the stories contain immense 
treasures of Torah that can only be reached by in depth study of them.

So, we have many young men who despite having studied for years, haven't 
refined their midot -- b/c their teachers didn't show them that this was 
part of the package of learning g'mara.

The 2nd issue is based on the saying: "Just b/c I teach geometry, doesn't 
mean I'm a triangle..."

There are shitot of learning that invest in the training of the mind of the 
student, in his ability to use logic and learn the meaning of the G'marot --  
but completely ignore any kind of spiritual/emotional content.  It is these 
shitot that bring about the existence of people who can be brilliant when it 
comes to understand a G'mara -- and lousy as human beings.  For them, there 
is no connection whatsoever between what they are learning and what they 
must do, how they should act.

In another post on Avodah, someone quoted the tale of Rabbi Shimon Ben 
Shetach's donkey (IIRC). How many times have we heard this Rav's response 
and guidance on how to act quoted by lomdei G'mara?  In fact, many people 
act like his talmidim and not like the rav at all!

It is interesting that davka many places that teach according to the method 
mentioned in the 2nd issue above -- brought in Mussar.

Shoshana L. Boublil