What I would like to do would be to begin a new era of learning Torah that would concentrate on Tosphot. [Tosphot is the commentary on the side of the Gemara on the outside of the page.]
This is not to belittle the value of the contribution of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik and his whole school of thought. [That is: Chidushei HaRambam by Reb Chaim, Baruch Ber, Shimon Skop, Elazar Menachem Shach.]
But it seems to me that this whole track of thought is really more relevant to halacaha than to learning the Gemara.
And in fact, I do think that one should go through the Rambam--[every last word that he ever wrote including his son Reb Avraham] with the commentaries on the page and then do the whole Reb Chaim straight and then the Avi Ezri which I think is the most important book to be printed in the last hundred years.
But there is something about Tosphot I think people are missing. And I have noted this for many years.
It all began in my first yeshiva where my teacher was Naphtali Yegear. He had a really intense and deep way of looking at Tosphot. [That was in a Baal Teshuva Yeshiva in Far Rockaway.] And I thought that that is what everyone else was doing. But then I got to the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn and even though it is an Ivy League school, still there was something I was missing about the way Naphtali Yeager was learning.
I can't make up for lost time. But at least I would like to share with people this idea of how great and significant Tosphot is.
But as I wrote elsewhere, I have no secret formula for getting into Tosphot. You can keep reviewing it by yourself for a month or so until you start to see the depths. Or you can get a smart learning partner. For reference it is good to have on hand the R. Akiva Eiger. And the first thing I always do is to look at the Mahrasha and Maharam.
It has always surprised me and in fact shocked me to see people that thought they understood the Gemara or Halacha without knowing or understanding Tosphot.
This is not to belittle the value of the contribution of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik and his whole school of thought. [That is: Chidushei HaRambam by Reb Chaim, Baruch Ber, Shimon Skop, Elazar Menachem Shach.]
But it seems to me that this whole track of thought is really more relevant to halacaha than to learning the Gemara.
And in fact, I do think that one should go through the Rambam--[every last word that he ever wrote including his son Reb Avraham] with the commentaries on the page and then do the whole Reb Chaim straight and then the Avi Ezri which I think is the most important book to be printed in the last hundred years.
But there is something about Tosphot I think people are missing. And I have noted this for many years.
It all began in my first yeshiva where my teacher was Naphtali Yegear. He had a really intense and deep way of looking at Tosphot. [That was in a Baal Teshuva Yeshiva in Far Rockaway.] And I thought that that is what everyone else was doing. But then I got to the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn and even though it is an Ivy League school, still there was something I was missing about the way Naphtali Yeager was learning.
I can't make up for lost time. But at least I would like to share with people this idea of how great and significant Tosphot is.
But as I wrote elsewhere, I have no secret formula for getting into Tosphot. You can keep reviewing it by yourself for a month or so until you start to see the depths. Or you can get a smart learning partner. For reference it is good to have on hand the R. Akiva Eiger. And the first thing I always do is to look at the Mahrasha and Maharam.
It has always surprised me and in fact shocked me to see people that thought they understood the Gemara or Halacha without knowing or understanding Tosphot.
