Sometimes the best remedy for a Torah controversy is simply a good old-fashioned, down to earth, nothing buttery, look-it-up-to-see-if-it’s-so, Torah study. No fancy footwork necessary. Just cut right to the chase, let the Torah speak for itself, then be loyal to it. That’s all. Of course, because of ambiguities in the text, not every challenging, contentious  dispute can be settled this easily.
That is why the Talmud exists--to clarify ambiguous issues.
Frequently, though, a careful, close, honest look at the Torah [Five Books of Moses] is all that’s required to resolve what might seem at first to be a difficult dispute.

 I take it to respond to one of the most severe challenges to Torah today. The question: What does God really think about homosexuality? Could it be that the Torah has simply gotten it all wrong? A dedicated group of homosexuals and “gay-friendly” Jews think so, and they are campaigning relentlessly to change your mind. They have certified scholars on their team, they’re tactically clever, and they’re aggressively training their own ambassadors to send out to reform the Torah. When—not “if,” but “when”—you encounter this teaching, you’ll need tried and true Torah answers.

If in doubt go to the Torah. If that is ambiguous, then go to the Oral Law. What is the Oral Law? According to many Christians, it is a conspiracy to undermine the Torah. So it can't help Christians. But for people that are not hostile to it, it can be helpful. It contains the way the Torah was understood traditionally. In other words, we, the Jews, had the Old Testament during the Second Temple period. The entire corpus of the Old Testament had been completed from the time of Moses until the end of the First Temple. But we also had a traditional understanding of how to keep the laws of the Torah. No one thought it is up to every individual to decide how to keep the Sabbath. For if there had been, then a person brought in front of the court to be tried for breaking the Sabbath could say that in his sincere opinion what he was doing was not breaking the Sabbath. That goes for all the laws of the Old Testament.

So simply put: there is a hierarchy in understanding the Old Testament of the Bible. The first step is the literal meaning. If that is clear, then full stop. If that is not clear then we go to the Mishna and Gemara (Talmud). If that is clear, then stop. If it is not clear then we go to the Rambam and other medieval people to gain understanding about the specific issue.
What is common for Christian to complain about is that often this order is reversed. For some reason people will use minor writers in order to confuse major issues. And that is a true critique.

q5  q5 in midi format This piece was not developed as thoroughly as I would have liked as you can tell. But there is little I can do about it. It has to be formed naturally, and I can go back and change things even if I would like to. There have been times when I did the best I could and then a few years later I looked back at the same piece and it occurred to me what was missing. This happened for example in b98.
I knew something was missing at the end, but for several years I did not know what it was until I got to Uman and looked it over again. I hope God grants to me the same with this piece.

In praise of Talmud.

I have limited objective here. It is to point out the advantage of learning Talmud for its own sake and not to be paid for doing so. And I also want to point out a kind of time limit for it. That is I don't want learning Talmud to become away of making a living, because then it loses the effect.

The main effect of Talmud is that it carries with it the different promises that you find the sages said about learning Torah. [And it is the actual oral tradition first hand. As the Rambam says "Just like one must can not add or subtract from the Written Torah, so he can't add or subtract from the Oral Torah." But, of course, people add and subtract from the Written and Oral Law all the time. The point however of the Rambam is that none of that stuff counts as Torah.]

This I am sure all sounds very vague. So let me try to make myself clear.
First to defend my position in front of Christians I should say that I am not saying Talmud is Divine in the same sense that the Torah and prophets are Divine. Rather, I am saying that learning Talmud connects one to the same divine source as when one learns the Torah and prophets. And it has the advantage that it goes into detail how to keep the laws of the Torah and prophets with rigorous analysis, and it does not leave it to individual opinions which vary as the winds.

Second, I wanted to point out there are kinds of services that people promise, "If you do such and such, this will be the result." A good example is Yoga. In spite of extensive studies, no one has found any evidence that yoga does anything for anyone,- and yet it is a multi million dollar industry. People pay good money to do what there is no the slightest evidence that it does anything but waste your time.

But I have good reason to believe from what I have seen in others and in myself, that learning Talmud has enormous benefit --but only on condition it is not done  for pay. If one is paid for learning the learning turns to poison and corrupts the character. So this is a delicate matter.

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Ideas in Bava Metzia  Here is a link to a small booklet of ideas.
Ideas in Shas  This is another link a small booklet on Shas.

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Now as far as Halacah [learning Law] is concerned I think that just learning Shulchan Aruch without knowing the sources in the Talmud is a bad thing thing. The power of delusion is always going about searching for a person to inhabit and when it finds  a person that is "שונה הלכות" it enters him or her. [The word here is שונה which does not means to learn in depth. It means to learn the basic meaning and to go on. And I have seen enough examples of this.


So my suggestion about learning Torah is to have a fast session for about an hour or more per day in which one goes through מקרא משנה גמרא קבלה. That is to start at the beginning of the Old Testament and put in a place marker and just say the words and read a whole page. Then when you turn the page put in the place marker [and then the next day come back to that same place where you left off and continue.] Then put aside the Old Testament and pick up the Mishna. And do the same. Read through one page and put in a place marker and then the next day pick up where you left off. Same with Talmud and the same with the writings of Isaac Luria  and the Remak (Moshe Kordovaro).

Then have a in depth session in Talmud with a  learning partner. If you can't find a partner then take one page and work on it daily with Tosphot and the Maharsha until it becomes clear

All together that is two hours of learning. If you can add to that I recommend Math and Physics based on an idea from Maimonides. The way to do Math and Physics is the same as above. Take one basic text and plow through saying word after word until you get to the end and then review.The reason for this you have to take on faith in the Rambam.



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