Class of Reform Jews Grapples with the Steinsaltz Talmud

STERN, KEITH

A Class of Reform Jews Grapples with the Steinsaltz Talmud Ididn't learn Talmud in rabbinical school. I learned about Talmud, with no more than a semester of Aramaic and four semesters of actual...

...I wish I had had more time and talent to become proficient at Talmud, but the world of the non-traditional rabbi does not exactly revolve on the axis of Saba Kama...
...The nuances of various rabbinic interpretations and subsequent commentaries are unfathomable without the give and take of lively study partners...
...Keith Stern...
...My fellow students know that this relationship to the Talmud is a life long commitment...
...Like a ramp for someone confined to a wheelchair, the Steinsaltz edition at long last provided a point of entry to the Talmud...
...It has thus far been a profoundly satisfying, moving experience for me, and, I trust, for many of my fellow students...
...Although Adin Steinsaltz's modern Hebrew commentary/ translation of Talmud was available when I took my four semesters of Talmud, ft was too difficult for me to penetrate even though I was adept in modern Hebrew...
...A couple of students had studied some Mishnah in Orthodox day schools...
...And it could be that all of these students are gathering to Study Talmud together because it is exciting to embark on a new voyage of discovery as an adult...
...Some understand that Steinsaltz's edition of the Talmud is a bridge to new knowledge once unobtainable...
...The essence of Talmud study, regardless of whose version one uses, is the interaction among students over the text...
...The thrill of discovery and understanding is a potent force, and I hope it continues to hold this class together and to draw more students...
...At our rate of study, we should be concluding Baba Metzia at about the same time Random House publishes the next volume in the Steinsaltz series...
...We are currently a class of 32 adults from a congregation of 185 families...
...My other textual aid—the Soncino English translation of the Talmud—was more frustrating than Steinsaltz's modern Hebrew...
...We talk about the text and we discuss the world from which it grew...
...I learned about Talmud, with no more than a semester of Aramaic and four semesters of actual text study...
...Hebrew literature, Jewish history, practical rabbinics, Midrash, homiletics—these areas are crucial to serve the Jewish people...
...But the vast majority of my students had grown up in Reform and Conservative homes, and had not the slightest idea what the Talmud is and from whence it has evolved...
...It was important to me that I not study Talmud alone...
...I'd occasionally leaf through the volume of Tractate Shabbat that I'd bought in Mea Shearim...
...they are curious...
...Yet I was regularly haunted by the centrality of the Talmud and my inability to decode it...
...able to pick out words, even sentences of mishnaic Hebrew...
...Why do they come, these secular Jews in a Reform synagogue...
...There are times when I can answer questions and times I cannot...
...So when Random House announced the publication of Adin Steinsaltz's translation of the Talmud into English, I immediately sensed the revolutionary implications of such a unique work...
...we meet two Sunday afternoons a month...
...The Englishman", as my professor called the Soncino edition, was the literal translation— and the literal translation of anything in Talmud was most unhelpful without a path, a guide, a way...
...I therefore sent a note to my congregation, inviting them to experience something wonderful and revolutionary— Talmud study...
...We argue about the power of taking vows, the legitimate owners of disputed property, and other topics trivial and vital...
...No one is complaining...
...Or perhaps they are looking for something—a sense of God's presence, or continuity of Jewish history...
...But I didn't get it...
...twenty-one adults showed up for the class...
...I expected maybe five or ten people to show interest...
...Others may be responding to that particular Jewish joy found in torafo I'sfima—study for its own sake...
...Some have an enormous hunger for Jewish knowledge, and recognize that Talmud is the sine Qua non of Jewish knowledge...
...We are lawyers, doctors, realtors, housewives, computer engineers, managers, a professor, a masseuse and a rabbi...

Vol. 15 • June 1990 • No. 3


 
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