[Avodah] Does Daf Yomi Exemplify Talmud Torah?

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 03:28:15PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote:
: From the article with this title at
: http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%202%20Zelcer.pdf
: 
:> Does Daf Yomi meet the above definition of the ideal type of
:> Talmud Torah? That depends. If a person spends the proper amount
:> of time on each daf so that he can analyze it, understand it, and have
:> it sink into his memory so that he will not forget it, then obviously it
:> does...

As I would put it, daf yomi's true value is in the number of magidei
shiur it requires, rather than the number of attendees. Prep alone means
that more gemara is really being learned than ever before.

In prior iterations, I noted what the AhS (YD 246:17) said about
the phenomena of shuls' chevrah shas -- same pace but without global
synchronization.

R' Hai Gaon advises R' Shmuel haNagid (according to the Rivash) to have
everyone immerse themselves in Mishnah and Talmud, and then even the amei
ha'aretz will be immersed in them and positively influenced -- and there
is no other way to aquire yir'as Shamayim, yir'as cheit, zerizus, anavah,
taharah or qedushah.

Which the AhS believes is even more necessary in his day, with the
rampant flight to heresy.

The Shakh and the Taz (s"q 1) quote the Derishah that in his day (and
ours), with our lesser time allocated for learning, better to learn
halakhah pesuqah -- OC and the publicly relevent dinim of YD, CM, and EhE.

The SAhR (basing myself as much on OC 155:1 as the AhS's quote, since
the quote left me confused) says that a person should learn TSBK, TSBP,
halakhos pesuqos, talmud. But talmud can't be the tachlis of his learning,
because he first needs to know all that halakhah without deep sevaros,
just to do applied halakhah.

But, the AhS concludes, we have seen that if we tell the masses this --
presumably to focus on applied halakhah -- they won't learn at all. People
just want to learn a daf gemara every day. So we shouldn't stop them,
and halevai they keep to it.

"Vekhol divrei Torah meshivas nafesh meivi'ah leyir'as Hashem tehorah!"

...
: Keep in mind that R. Moshe Feinstein, who enthusiastically
: supported Daf Yomi because it covers the entire Gemara, deduced the
: obligation to study the entire Torah from the imperative, "to
: remember all that one has learned."

when it comes to miqra and mishnah, the iqar is to learn the conclusions
-- information, attitudes, values.. But when it comes to gemara, the
iqar is to learn how to think. The essence is the dialectic getting to
the conclusion; the conclusions are Rif / halakhah pesuqah, ie mishnah,
not gemara. I do not understand why RMF demands retention of conclusions,
rather than retention of the skills (and art) of the process. I think
that covering the daf in an hour via spoon feeding (shiur, reading
Schottenstein footnotes before even trying for oneself, etc...) subverts
either goal; but I hadn't seen gemara in terms of that goal.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is our choices...that show what we truly are,
micha at aishdas.org        far more than our abilities.
http://www.aishdas.org                           - J. K. Rowling
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