I think today I should concentrate on how to learn the Shulchan Aruch.
The fact of the matter is I have assumed that everyone in the world understands this intuitively. But recently I have noticed that this assumption is unwarranted.
So without further ado let me explain it.
The actual way to understand any single halacha in the Shulchan Aruch is by starting from the Talmud.
Sometimes this is very simple. A very good example is we all know that one is not allowed to eat milk and meat together. But what about a cow's milk producer--the gland that makes milk? This is an argument in the Gemara and is contained in a few short, simple paragraphs. So once you have read those simple paragraphs, you can trace the halacha down through the Tur, Beit Yoseph, Bach, and the Shulchan Aruch with the Shach and Taz. [You could do the Rambam and Rif and Rosh also but nothing would change substantially in your understanding.] This is an unusually simple example.
Later I got involved in learning with Naphtali Yegear. That already involved very deep analysis of the Gemara and Tosphot with the Rabbi Akiva Eiger and Shav Shemtta. That was a level of depth I simply was unprepared for. So on my own, as I was doing Ketobot I continued doing the path of Halacha type of learning that starts from the Gemara and weaves down until the Shulchan Aruch with all its commentaries like the Shach and the Taz. But Halacha type of learning is not the same as in depth learning of Gemara.
This Halacha type of learning is not really how to learn Gemara. Learning Gemara proper, means to stay on one Tosphot for weeks and maybe months until its depths start to reveal themselves to you. Yet I want to emphasize here that this Halacha type of learning the Gemara is the only legitimate way to learn Halacha. The only reason we do things like reading the Shulchan Aruch straight is to get a general idea. But we must not fool ourselves to think that since we have read a halacha in the Shulchan Aruch that now we understand that Halacha -even with all the commentaries. This is simply not the case. There is no halacha anywhere that one can understand unless he has made that progression from the actual Talmud until the text of the Shulchan Aruch through the poskim in-between.
[But if you do not have a good learning partner I admit it might be best to do the Halacha type of approach to the Talmud. The in depth approach might simply be too hard for people to do on their own and most people are not even aware of its existence. they think learning the Talmud in depth actually means doing it with poskim [Rif, Rambam, Rosh, Tur, Shulchan Aruch]. This is obviously false But it still might be the only thing available to most people. And I might as well admit it the in depth approach was something I could never really get a good handle on. Though I sat through the classes of Reb Shmuel Berenbaum .
The fact of the matter is I have assumed that everyone in the world understands this intuitively. But recently I have noticed that this assumption is unwarranted.
So without further ado let me explain it.
The actual way to understand any single halacha in the Shulchan Aruch is by starting from the Talmud.
Sometimes this is very simple. A very good example is we all know that one is not allowed to eat milk and meat together. But what about a cow's milk producer--the gland that makes milk? This is an argument in the Gemara and is contained in a few short, simple paragraphs. So once you have read those simple paragraphs, you can trace the halacha down through the Tur, Beit Yoseph, Bach, and the Shulchan Aruch with the Shach and Taz. [You could do the Rambam and Rif and Rosh also but nothing would change substantially in your understanding.] This is an unusually simple example.
Later I got involved in learning with Naphtali Yegear. That already involved very deep analysis of the Gemara and Tosphot with the Rabbi Akiva Eiger and Shav Shemtta. That was a level of depth I simply was unprepared for. So on my own, as I was doing Ketobot I continued doing the path of Halacha type of learning that starts from the Gemara and weaves down until the Shulchan Aruch with all its commentaries like the Shach and the Taz. But Halacha type of learning is not the same as in depth learning of Gemara.
This Halacha type of learning is not really how to learn Gemara. Learning Gemara proper, means to stay on one Tosphot for weeks and maybe months until its depths start to reveal themselves to you. Yet I want to emphasize here that this Halacha type of learning the Gemara is the only legitimate way to learn Halacha. The only reason we do things like reading the Shulchan Aruch straight is to get a general idea. But we must not fool ourselves to think that since we have read a halacha in the Shulchan Aruch that now we understand that Halacha -even with all the commentaries. This is simply not the case. There is no halacha anywhere that one can understand unless he has made that progression from the actual Talmud until the text of the Shulchan Aruch through the poskim in-between.
[But if you do not have a good learning partner I admit it might be best to do the Halacha type of approach to the Talmud. The in depth approach might simply be too hard for people to do on their own and most people are not even aware of its existence. they think learning the Talmud in depth actually means doing it with poskim [Rif, Rambam, Rosh, Tur, Shulchan Aruch]. This is obviously false But it still might be the only thing available to most people. And I might as well admit it the in depth approach was something I could never really get a good handle on. Though I sat through the classes of Reb Shmuel Berenbaum .
