[Avodah] Aruch Hashulchan Yomi

[Jonathan Baker]

From: Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org>
> Subject: Re: [Avodah] Aruch Hashulchan Yomi

Everything old is new again.

> On Thu, Jan 08, 2009 at 03:01:56AM -0800, Dovi Jacobs wrote:
> : 1. A daily study program should cover the entire Shulchan Aruch.
 
> : There are three major sections missing in the printed versions of the
 
> : Not surprisingly, the current study program skips the missing parts.

Maybe use a different book for the missing parts?  Say, the Tur, or
Tur/BY?  An awful lot of what the AhS does is explaining the Gemaras
and Rishonim behind any given halacha.

> : 2. A daily study program should be of reasonable daily quantity.

MMGH was about 1:10 for me, which I managed to keep up for about
a year.  20 min. each for AhS, Amud Yomi, and Half-Perek, and 10 
for the machshava sefer.  The lack of a shiur, group reinforcement,
etc., led to most of it dripping away, until only the Amud Yomi was
left after about 1.5 years. (135 days Brochos, 314 days Shabbos, 44
days Eruvin by time I gave up).  I will say that the 7 paragraphs
of AhS greatly improved my Hebrew reading - gemara isn't reading,
and the mikra and machshava were generally in English.
 
> : The current AHS study cycle is based on the simple idea of one
> : siman-per-day...
 
> This is leshitasi, along with the skipping you mention above, as well as
> why I did not choose something like an amud yomi. I didn't want a

That 7 paragraphs in 20 min. means no more than 20 paragraphs an hour, and
a lot of perakim are way longer than that.

I didn't do it because it just seemed way way too much.  My eyes glaze 
over long before the end of a siman, and trying to keep all the variables
in my head is too much.

> Yes, it would be more complete to imitate the Daf Yomi's choice of
> including Y-mi Sheqalim by picking a similar seifer. But that creates
> greater depency, and thus greater chance of failure..

Well, you could send out Word files, based on Bar-Ilan.
 
> What would this "middle-ground" length be? 15 min?

That's pretty short, to me.  Daf Yomi shiurim around here tend to be
30-50 min, depending how hard/long the page is.  I suppose, to do 
Daf Yomi in a way that it has any chance of sinking in, one ought to
review yesterday's page, learn today's page, and then go to the shiur
to reinforce it.  Which would take more like 2 hours.  Do many people
do that?
 
> : 3. Flexible topics.
 
> I do not see how this matches with #1. The nice things about a program
> that covers all of halakhah is that left to my own devices, I'm quite
> likely going to skip or gloss over those very dinim I personally need
> the most work on. Whatever avoidance mechanism one has for shemirah
> would be invoked for limud as well.

Oh, I dunno, I tried once to do the Plain Shulchan Aruch Yomi (cover
the whole thing in a year).  But I started somewhere in Choshen Mishpat,
and it was a bunch of dry stuff about contracts, and like what, is this
Torah?  Or is this just some bunch of stuff about general contracts as
they were in Medieval Europe?
 
> Therefore only flexibility I could see as appropriate is as follows:
> : On the other hand, the bulk of material in Even ha-Ezer and Choshen
> : Mishpat is truly meant for dayyanim (except for the first part of EE that
> : is relevant to mesadrei kiddushin). There are obviously some halachos
> : in EE and CHM that are highly relevant to all, but not the vast majority
> : of topics.
 
> Two programs: one that skips those inyanim that aren't nogei'ah to the
> "balebas". Kind of like those topics that wouldn't be touched in the QSA
> if it were being compiled today. (Melichah is in the QSA, which made sense
> even a century later [1949] but I don't really see the lemaaseh for most
> people any more.) And one that allows a review of kol haTorah kulah.

My mother says her grandmother did melicha, but by the time she was growing
up (1940s), her mother got pre-salted meat.  So she doesn't actually remember
seeing it done.  I asked her a few weeks ago if she could show me how 
melicha is done, but this was what she answered.
 
> Or, the relevent portions of EhE, CM and YD in a single cycle for a
> "lemaaseh" version?

What's relevant?  Milve/loveh, nezek, eidus, dayanim
 
> I wanted to research how many se'ifim this means, but I decided RDJ
> was probably giving up on getting a reply altogether, and I shouldn't
> keep him waiting.

Hmm, don't see it happening directly with Bar-Ilan, but maybe you could
write to them and see if they have a database or something they could 
report from?
 
From: rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com
 
> I woyld love to see a program for R. A Danzig's big 3 namely chayei
> adam, chochmas adam, and zichru toras moshe. (Ztm)

There's a thought.  Isn't that more or less what R' Danzig meant them for,
the workingman who couldn't spend more than 3 hours a day on Torah?
 
> Chayei adam is aisi about half way between SA and AhS.

Closer to SA, but you do have the teshuvos which expand on stuff.
 
> Chochmas Adam has new edition for niddah and issur v'heter that is
> highly user freindlly.  Anyway chochmas adam is great summarizer bichlal.

Yep.  Wayne (mutual friend with RRW; RMB knows him) & I were learning BBH
in AhS for a while, and at the end of a perek, we'd review with Chochmas
Odom.
 
--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker at panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com