The Goal of Gemara Learning

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Walk into any Yeshiva anywhere in the world and you will notice one thing in common. Everyone is leaning over a big book, the Gemara (Talmud), arguing with his fellow learning partner. Why is it such a focal focus of any Yeshiva to learn this particular text from thousands of others found in a Jewish library? Why is it the most emphasized text taught by all rabbis? Tell us what the final halacha is and end of story.

 

Misconception #1

Many people are mistaken and think the reason is to get a general overall knowledge of the Torah. If that would be so, one can accomplish this pretty easily and efficiently by learning the Rambam’s Mishna Torah which encompasses all the final rulings of the Gemara (without the back and forth arguing found in the Gemara). Alternatively one can just go through all the Mishnayot and accomplish the same thing.

Thus if you approach at the Gemara as a means of giving over information to you, then you are missing out on what the Talmud has to offer you. And if attaining information and final rulings is your goal, then in reality Gemara learning is holding you back.

 

Misconception #2

Others may claim it is a commentary to the Oral Torah, the Chumash. That is certainly true, however, to accomplish that all one can do is just easily learn the Chumash with the commentaries and see a more clear connection.

So what are we trying to achieve by learning Gemara? The Torah is very vast. Why are we spending all our quality time in learning Gemara?

Rabbi Peretz Segal¹  explains that the actual answer actually is found in the Talmud itself. When the Gemara wants to refer to the Talmud it refers to it as Shimush Talmidei Chachamim- an apprenticeship. The Talmud is written in a format where every step of the argument and how to reach to the final conclusion is recorded. This is much like a court reporter (court stenographer) who captures the live testimony in proceedings, courtroom hearings and trials, depositions and discoveries, sworn statements, and more.

The Gemara in Berachot 47b says even one who learned all of the books of the Torah and Mishnah, but he lacks Shimush Chachamim (apprenticing the sages), he is an Am ha'Aretz (an ignoramus).

Thus, learning Gemara is in fact training oneself. Much like if one wants to learn how to be a tailor, barber, or jeweler one doesn’t sit through lectures, but rather go to the shop and watch the master in action. One observes what he does, what he says, how he does it, etc. Through being present and working together with him, that is how an up and coming tailor, barber, or jewler learns the trade.

After graduating medical school in order to obtain an unrestricted license to practice medicine must be under the direct supervision of a medical clinician. So too when we are learning Gemara we are being welcomed to the learning halls of the Amoraim (sages that lived in the times of the Talmud) in Babylonia and they are telling us ‘come and see how we learn Torah’. Come in and see how we are able to analyze, summarize, deduce, and theorize about what is going on in Oral Torah given to Moshe Rabeinu on Sinai.

So when we enter the Bet Midrash of the Amoraim the goal is that we should walk out with knowing how to learn Torah, how to ‘simulate’ what is being taught to us, whether it be explicitly, or between the lines.

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato (known as the Ramchal) says one should not be despondent in learning and teaching oneself how to learn and the intellectual process. The basic hardware has been implanted in our head. So learning how to learn is not an injection from outside to our system rather it is a revelation of logic that is wired within us anyway. Often it’s hidden by means of bad character traits or emotional thinking which prevents us from seeing what is true.

Gemara learning is a preparatory stage for other areas of Torah learning, that's why it is the most emphasized learning in all of Jewish communities worldwide. That is why all kids in the 6^th or 5^th grade take their first steps into a journey of lifetime understanding how to properly analyze, summarize, deduce, and theorize. All of this is  accomplished by jumping into the sea of gemara.

Are you up for the challenge?

 

¹ Author of “Vagueness Vanquished” and Rebbi in Yeshiva Ohr Somayach, Jerusalem. See his website www.mindmovers.org.