Some of the most interesting and creative work in all of Jewish studies today is happening neither in universities nor as part of a yeshiva curriculum.
Instead, there is a growing space for scholars who don’t quite follow the strict rules of either type of institution.
In ḥaredi (sometimes called “ultra-Orthodox”) boys’ education, one subject of study alone is paramount: Talmud. This is especially true in “yeshivish”—that is, ḥaredi but not ḥasidic—male educational environments, where Talmud study is the central religious pursuit around which nearly all service of God revolves. Boys first begin Talmud study at age nine or ten. Once they reach high school, and for many years thereafter, yeshivish men spend nearly all of their time studying Talmud in a central hall called a beit midrash. The daily schedule is organized around three central s’darim (periods), in which everyone studies the same tractate page by page, from early in the morning until late in the evening.
Strictly speaking, the Babylonian Talmud is the massive collection of laws, teachings, and stories that forms the backbone of rabbinic Judaism. But for ḥaredi Jews, “Talmud” extends far beyond the text itself, to encompass numerous other works that are studied alongside it: backwards to earlier compilations such as the Mishnah and Tosefta, as well as the Hebrew Bible itself; forward through the dense forest of medieval and modern commentaries that elucidate and expand upon the Talmud; and outwards to legal codes and responsa, ethical works, and even philosophy. “Talmud” also sometimes extends sideways to roughly contemporary works, such as the Jerusalem Talmud (an earlier version compiled in the Land of Israel) and midrash (collections of rabbinic stories, interpretations, and teachings).
Rather than take distinct classes on particular subjects, a yeshiva’s entire student body ploughs its way together through whichever talmudic tractate is assigned in a given semester, drawing liberally from the entire apparatus of related literature in the process. More advanced students will study in greater depth, usually with more commentaries, while the less advanced focus on getting a basic understanding of the Talmud’s arguments.
The intellectual breadth of this course of study is mindboggling. So is its depth. Complex, multilayered arguments pile upon one another, as subtle nuances in textual wording merge with abstract conceptual categories, and concrete physical realities butt up against scriptural prooftexts. And all of this is accomplished using untranslated Hebrew and Aramaic texts.
Yet for all its intellectual fireworks, in some respects yeshiva study is very rigid. After all, religious study is a sacred act. You don’t need to be particularly drawn to the topic you’re studying because, as students first learn in the Talmud’s Tractate Peah: “Talmud Torah k’neged kulam”—the study of Torah is equivalent to all other commandments. This principle is fundamental to yeshivish life, and yeshiva students devote countless hours to the Talmud because they believe God commanded them to do so. Whatever social and cultural forces underpin this religious belief, as expressed by those who engage with it, it is Torah study purely for the sake of serving God, Torah li-shmah.
Three s’darim a day, every day the same, every day in sync, studying the current tractate, all the while maintaining a proper reverence for the holy text, the holy study hall, and the holy work of Torah (really Talmud) study.
I kind of hated this system.
In my ḥasidic elementary school, religious studies were conducted entirely in Yiddish, while my yeshivish high school taught in English. But the structure was rooted in the same principle: study as a holy endeavor.
My mind bounced around too much to appreciate the systematic rigor of the linear curriculum. My fourth-grade rebbe (religious teacher) wrote on my report card, “a gemara kop [literally, a head for Talmud], but Moishy has to do better keeping his finger on plats [on the place].” In other words, while I might be good at talmudic reasoning, I needed to learn to follow along in the text with the rest of the class.
But while I loved getting into detailed arguments about the meaning of a talmudic passage, or trying to figure out the intricate logic of the Tosafot (a medieval French commentary), I was also—though I didn’t realize it at the time—often uninterested in the content. I had no reason to be interested, since it was simply whatever the yeshiva said we should learn next, whether this was torts and property law, punishments for false witnesses, the details of marriage contracts, or the order of sacrifices in the Temple. And regardless of the content, the mode of study remained the same: the same foundational assumptions, the same sorts of questions and problems, and the same commentaries, approached in roughly the same order.
As an adult
I have chosen a different path of Talmud study, and have found kindred spirits in unexpected places.
The periodical Ḥakirah bills itself as the “Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought.” Flatbush is an Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn that is—perhaps uncharitably—known more for its materialism than its intellectualism. But despite my initial skepticism, in Ḥakirah one finds Torah that is—in some respects—quite different from that found in the beit midrash, but no less vibrant.
Ḥakirah is physically arranged like an academic product—a humanities journal, complete with footnotes and citations. Yet its underlying worldview is not that of the academy; it’s a religious journal covering religious topics and questions.
But that’s what makes this journal’s content so different from yeshiva study: it covers questions, not Talmud pages. Do you want to know what the rabbinic perspective on aliens is? Volume 27 will fill you in with “A Study on the Rabbinic Perspective on Life and Living beyond Earth.” What about complete body-hair removal for men? Volume 29 discusses “Male Body-Hair Depilation in Jewish Law.” Of course, the journal covers more serious and traditional topics too, such as the Jewish laws of mourning, or the proper liturgy during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But often these are not written by rabbis, yeshiva students, or academics, but by lay enthusiasts. For example:
- “BRCA Testing for All Ashkenazi Women: A Halakhic Inquiry”
Bio: Sharon Galper Grossman, MD, MPh, is a radiation oncologist and former faculty member of Harvard Medical School, where she also obtained a master’s in public health. - “Between the Stōïkos and the Beth Midrash: A Philosophic and Ethical Comparative Analysis of Stoicism and Judaism”
Bio: Stewart Rubin, a real-estate professional, enjoys studying the intersection of anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, sociology, and religion. - “Hoshanos: Changing a Community Custom”
Bio: Dr. Steven Oppenheimer is an endodontist and has published articles on various halakhic issues.
Nearly every volume of Ḥakirah features articles by both academics and rabbis, but also by people like Dr. William Gewirtz, a former CTO of AT&T Business, or the trio of authors (writing on the monetary value of tall stature!) who work at the MIT Auto-ID and Field Intelligence Laboratories. In all these cases ordinary people found something interesting, exciting, or otherwise compelling in the vast sea of Jewish literature, put pen to paper, and shared their Torah with others.
The type of Torah study that produces articles in Ḥakirah is not usually the three-period-a-day Torah of the yeshiva, but that of the guy in his pajamas who can’t quite put away his books at two in the morning. It’s not driven solely by a drive to serve God, but also (perhaps even primarily) by the engagement and excitement of finding something new and interesting. One can’t quite say it’s purely li-shmah—for the sake of heaven—because the people who write these articles are getting too much personal pleasure out of it.
Torah study in the beit midrash can sometimes be too holy—cordoned off from everyday life in ritualistic formal dignity. But those who take their Torah outside of the confines of the yeshiva are anything but formal; they are found leaning against bookshelves absentmindedly thinking for hours, missing their subway stops immersed in an idea, or finding themselves ordering way too many books because they simply must know what the latest volume has to say on a topic.
These are also
the sorts of people who find their way to Nachi Weinstein’s popular SeforimChatter podcast. Weinstein, a law student and resident of Lakewood, New Jersey—a yeshivish enclave centered around America’s largest yeshiva, Beth Medrash Govoha—is a long-serving librarian of seforim (religious books) in his grandfather’s synagogue. Somehow, the job slipped its way into his soul, and these books became his passion. He started examining critical editions, became interested in Jewish history, and started a twitter feed that announced the release of both new seforim and academic works in Jewish studies.
To understand the podcast’s appeal, you have to understand Weinstein’s tremendous breadth of knowledge, along with the unusual mix of people who come on his show.
These guests tend to have more standard scholarly credentials, whether academic or religious, than those who publish in Ḥakirah. Well-known and lesser-known academics come on to discuss their work: recent guests include Robert Brody speaking about the rabbis of medieval Iraq, Magda Teter on the history of the blood libel, Lawrence Schiffman on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Elisheva Carlebach on Jewish communal registers in early modern Europe, and Marcin Wodzinski on Ḥasidism. Weinstein also invites rabbis who have spent their lives within the ḥaredi world. He’s interviewed Rabbi Aaron Lopiansky, head of a major yeshiva in Washington, DC; Rabbi Yehoshua Hartman, who edited the most recent editions of the writings of the 16th-century scholar and mystic Judah Loew ben Bezalel of Prague (a/k/a the Maharal); Rabbi Nechemya Sheinfeld, who edited and wrote a super-commentary on the biblical commentary of the 12th-century Spanish sage Abraham Ibn Ezra; and Rabbi Moshe Kravetz, who has edited many of the works of the Renaissance Italian rabbi Obadiah Sforno.
Weinstein is also remarkably ecumenical. Playing against the stereotype of a cloistered, sexist, and intolerant ḥaredi world, he interviews almost as many women as men, non-Jews as well as Jews, and academics and rabbis whose perspectives are far from normative within ḥaredi society. The very existence of his podcast, as well as its popularity, unsettles some basic assumptions about ḥaredi culture.
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