I wanted to explain in a simple way how to learn Talmud. This I how will be more simple than the other essay I wrote on this a long time ago.
1) Bekiut. בקיאות. That is to learn fast. What I suggest is not a Daf [a whole leaf.] Rather what is called in the USA "a page." That in Hebrew would be an עמוד a column. You start at the top of the page and just say the words in order until you get to the bottom. Then you do every Rashi and every Tosphot Maharsha and Maharam on the page. The next day to go to the next page. And you keep on going until you have finished the two Talmuds and the Sifra Sifri and Tosephta.
That is the fast session. It should not take any more than 40 min. and if you don't want to do the maharasha and maharam the first time around then it should be about 25 minutes.
2) The next session is the in depth one. עיון. For this I found the best thing is to stay on one page of Gemara for a long time. That is to do every single commentary I can get my hands on on that page and do as much as I can in one day. Then the next day I do the same. This should go on for about 40 days at least. It is what people dislike about Lithuanian yeshivas.But the Litvak yeshivas are right about this. People that think they can get the depths of the Gemara without this are usually mistaken.
[The basic commentaries are the regular rishonim and if you can get them the best achronim are the ones coming from the school of thought of Reb Chaim Soloveitick and Rav Shach.]
Also if you are in NY then you ought to make every possible effort to get to one of the authentic Litvak yeshivas. That is if you are going to learn Torah from anyone you have to make sure it is from people that in fact know how to learn. And those kind of people are very rare. The authentic places in NY are the Mir in Brooklyn, Chaim Berlin, and Torah VeDaat, and Shar Yashuv.
[In Israel there are a few more. Ponovitch seems to be the best but Brisk is a close second.]
Why to go to a yeshiva? Maybe you think it is better to spend $30,000 to get a degree in gender studies? The Talmud will still be around when gender studies have been consigned to the garbage bin of history.
Appendix: I used this method for Mathematics and Physics also. But I cant talk about this since I have not made the kind of progress I had hoped. Part of the problem is that my time was limited in how much effort I could spend on these two subjects. Starting at a time when physically I was weak and there were enormous demands on my time and also the terrible problems I was going through I think limited how effective my learning method could have been. Learning Physics 20 minutes in the morning is not means I could not expect teh same results as when I spent 11 hours a day on Talmud.And learning when one is young is not the same as learning as one gets older.
What I recommend today to anyone that will listen is to divide ones time half and half between Talmud and natural science.
1) Bekiut. בקיאות. That is to learn fast. What I suggest is not a Daf [a whole leaf.] Rather what is called in the USA "a page." That in Hebrew would be an עמוד a column. You start at the top of the page and just say the words in order until you get to the bottom. Then you do every Rashi and every Tosphot Maharsha and Maharam on the page. The next day to go to the next page. And you keep on going until you have finished the two Talmuds and the Sifra Sifri and Tosephta.
That is the fast session. It should not take any more than 40 min. and if you don't want to do the maharasha and maharam the first time around then it should be about 25 minutes.
2) The next session is the in depth one. עיון. For this I found the best thing is to stay on one page of Gemara for a long time. That is to do every single commentary I can get my hands on on that page and do as much as I can in one day. Then the next day I do the same. This should go on for about 40 days at least. It is what people dislike about Lithuanian yeshivas.But the Litvak yeshivas are right about this. People that think they can get the depths of the Gemara without this are usually mistaken.
[The basic commentaries are the regular rishonim and if you can get them the best achronim are the ones coming from the school of thought of Reb Chaim Soloveitick and Rav Shach.]
Also if you are in NY then you ought to make every possible effort to get to one of the authentic Litvak yeshivas. That is if you are going to learn Torah from anyone you have to make sure it is from people that in fact know how to learn. And those kind of people are very rare. The authentic places in NY are the Mir in Brooklyn, Chaim Berlin, and Torah VeDaat, and Shar Yashuv.
[In Israel there are a few more. Ponovitch seems to be the best but Brisk is a close second.]
Why to go to a yeshiva? Maybe you think it is better to spend $30,000 to get a degree in gender studies? The Talmud will still be around when gender studies have been consigned to the garbage bin of history.
Appendix: I used this method for Mathematics and Physics also. But I cant talk about this since I have not made the kind of progress I had hoped. Part of the problem is that my time was limited in how much effort I could spend on these two subjects. Starting at a time when physically I was weak and there were enormous demands on my time and also the terrible problems I was going through I think limited how effective my learning method could have been. Learning Physics 20 minutes in the morning is not means I could not expect teh same results as when I spent 11 hours a day on Talmud.And learning when one is young is not the same as learning as one gets older.
What I recommend today to anyone that will listen is to divide ones time half and half between Talmud and natural science.
