[Avodah] Aruch Hashulchan Yomi

[Micha Berger]

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
: AHS. Two are in Yoreh Deah (Hilkhos Aku"m and Hilchos Nedarim) and
: one in Even Haezer (Hilchos Kesubos). We know with certainty that the
: author wrote them all, but none of them were ever published until R.
: Simcha Fishbane published Hilchos Nedarim in 1992...

: Not surprisingly, the current study program skips the missing parts.
...
: 2. A daily study program should be of reasonable daily quantity.
: 
: Some daily Torah-study programs are meant to be very short: The Mishnah
: Yomis is two mishnayos per day, the Halachah Yomis is three seifim a day...

: Other daily Torah-study programs require a very serious investment in
: time, Daf Yomi being the primary example...

: It seems to me that an AHS Yomi program would be a middle-ground one.
...
: 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
program tied to a given edition. So many people's commitment to a Yomi
programs fall apart when they lose track of the special calendar, or
don't have ready access to the right pagination. I wanted something
someone could follow without access to www.aishdas.org/luach , or to the
new edition of the AhS.

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..

What would this "middle-ground" length be? 15 min?

: 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.

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.

...
: Thus, Orach Chaim is completed in a two-year cycle, where each year
: one learns the relevant moadim at the appropriate times, plus *either*
: Seder ha-Yom *or* Shabbos. The moadim are somewhat heavier in terms of
: daily quantity (closer to two dapim-per-day) but are also reviewed more
: frequently. Plus, they are already fully available in digital form,
: edited and formatted for easier study:
: * <http://he.wikisource.org/wiki/AHS:OH>

: A similar schedule could be worked out to complete Yoreh Deah (403
: simanim) in about two years along with the moadim. The combined Even
: ha-Ezer and Choshen Mishpat could be completed in perhaps three years
: (178+427=605 simanim), maybe four.

Or, the relevent portions of EhE, CM and YD in a single cycle for a
"lemaaseh" version?

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.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Like a bird, man can reach undreamed-of
micha at aishdas.org        heights as long as he works his wings.
http://www.aishdas.org   But if he relaxes them for but one minute,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      he plummets downward.   - Rav Yisrael Salanter