Well, no one ever really likes describing themselves, at least not honestly.
A couple of years ago my class was observed and recorded by a scholar doing research on education. While I never saw the final results, the researcher was kind enough to send me a copy of his transcription of my class. I have left it as he wrote it. Keep in mind, of course that this is just one class on one day.......................and oh yes, the class was presented in Ivrit; the shiur is on Masechet Makkot chapter 1.
As subjects are never identified by their real names in a survey, I am referred to as "Rabbi N." (and I won't tell you who Rabbi Z. is.)
Portrait 2: Rabbi N.
Rabbi N. is a teacher in mid-career. His dress and appearance mark him out more obviously as a Rabbi than is the case with Rabbi Z. He is a product of Yeshiva University and had received both rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva as well as completing a doctorate in Talmud in Yeshiva’s graduate school. He has therefore enjoyed an exposure to traditional yeshiva style learning as well as the critical methods of academic Talmud research. He characterised the traditional approach as more conceptual, a way of understanding the concepts underlying the Talmudic discussion and the traditional commentaries. He characterises Talmud research as concerned “with the organic development of the text, identifying its strata to separate the Tannaitic and Amoraic elements…The traditional approach is grounded on an understanding that the text as we have it is the correct and only text. The critical approach tries to separate the layers of a composite text and to give greater authenticity to some parts over others.”
There is potential conflict between the two methods with respect to practical Halakhic conclusions. “The Halakha is only interested in the text as it is now whereas research hypothesises about how the text came together. The traditional approach is to probe a text and stretch a concept but to maintain a connection with the reality of living. It is a dialectic to clarify concepts but it also comes to Halakha. I enjoy both but in YU it was clear where each belongs…I am now less involved in the scientific approach. Talmud is a difficult text to master and I more concerned now to achieve a general mastery than when I did my research.”
Rabbi N. copes with the tension he perceives between the two approaches by compartmentalising them rather than integrating them. When it comes to teaching Talmud Rabbi N. sees little role for the critical approach, which he identifies with separating the literary strata of the Talmud. This would only confuse students who lack even basic knowledge of Talmud. His experience of critical scholarship is given almost no expression in the classroom. While there may be good pedagogical reasons for this choice it was also clear that there is an ideological dimension to it. His emphasis on the way in which the critical method endorses the greater authenticity of parts of the text has the implication that exposure to it might risk the text as an integrated whole being diminished in the eyes of students.
Rabbi N. emphasizes the way in which this forces student to think in new ways:
“Getting students to think, that is what makes Talmud successful here. …The Talmud’s pedagogy is completely inverted from modern pedagogy, which says first here’s the rule and then you give some examples. In Talmud it’s the reverse. You start with the examples and by probing you get to the rule. That’s why the Talmud is always stretching it. What would happen in this or that case? It uses unusual wild cases. By probing the case you learn what the rule really implies…So in terms of modern thinking its inverted one hundred and eighty degrees from what we are used to.”
“For these students the hook is the way I get them to probe with their own minds. This favours the student who wants to be intellectually challenged. If I just said, ‘Here is what the Gemara says. Go home study it and memorise it,’ they’d be bored out of their brains. They’d do it because they’re nice respectful students but they would not be enthralled with what they are doing.”
There are concepts that are not immediately relevant to the students such as matters of ritual observance when most of the students are not strictly observant. He finds tractates that deal with ritual matters are less successful than for example Makot that deals with false witnesses. Questions of duplicity and deceit are subjects that interest students. When controversial matters arise Rabbi N. is prepared to deal with them. He described a discussion he had recently held with students about Jewish divorce law. The discussion focused on the right of a husband to divorce his wife even against her will. He described how he showed students the sensitivity of the Sages on this issue and its development in later Jewish law. There remain, however, certain scriptural requirements that “leave little wiggle room.” “It became a lesson in trying to create the same sensitivity that the Sages had. The issue becomes what happens when the law does not have the wiggle room to give another interpretation? There were obviously students who would like the law changed but seeing that it is Divine law and seeing that it is a verse, I can’t change it.”
When dealing with controversial subject matter arising in the course of Talmud study Rabbi N. adopts a dual strategy. On the one hand he emphasises the flexibility of the rabbis as interpreters in order to overcome problems and, on the other hand recognising the limitations of interpretation when it meets absolutes that allow no “wiggle room.” Rabbi N. recalled how he drew attention to similar anomalies in secular legal systems.
Like Rabbi Z., Rabbi N. occasionally feels the need to take time out to devote a lesson to discussing some value or idea unrelated to the text. This need is felt partly because these students do not encounter the direct values curriculum of Rabbinics. He nevertheless prefers the text-based approach of Special Talmud to the anthological thematic approach of Rabbinics. He also looks for other opportunities to influence the students and each year invites his class to spend a Friday evening meal with his family. Rabbi N. includes in his repertoire something of the approach of informal education, which is expressed in this invitation home and also in the style of his interaction with students. This is expressed more than anything is by the colloquial quality of the language he uses. This is in clear contrast to Rabbi Z. who maintained a greater distance and formality even when showing warmth to individual students. There were also moments in class where the religious dimension of Torah was recalled in a symbolic way. One instance was a lesson that began with a student reading out a brief talk on the parshat hashavua. The way it was read suggested little understanding. It was more of a ritual than a learning experience. At another point a student came in to the room collecting money for some charitable purpose. When it was time to get back to work Rabbi N. jokingly remarked that with the merit of their charity God should help them understand the sugya clearly.
While Rabbi N. comes across as someone teaching outside his natural milieu which would be a more expressly Orthodox setting, he enjoys the experience of working in a more pluralistic setting.
“What I enjoy here is that there is a good dialectic discussion. Students are very respectful. People here are generally respectful of different opinions. As opposed to a place where you have to walk with blinders…The fact that we can have these discussions is intellectually stimulating for myself. The students obviously realise that I am a traditional person – they know my values – that’s why I ‘m teaching what I’m teaching.”
Rabbi N. teaches in a very dynamic style and is a strong presence in the classroom. The lessons I observed were strongly controlled from the front of the class. This was no different in principle from the other Talmud teachers I observed. This is a reflection of a general learning culture in the school in which teachers are expected to teach, students to take note and time is not to be wasted. It also seemed to be a consequence of a sense of the Talmud as difficult material with students needing to be led carefully if they are to find their way at all. The forcefulness of the teaching also created a sense of occasion and communicated a sense that the questions and answers of the Talmud are important and worth caring about. Rabbi N. nevertheless allowed a good deal of time for students’ questions, which were more than only requests for clarification. Questions were predominantly argumentative, in a positive sense, and consisted of objections to what had been said by the text or by Rabbi N. and were based upon either logical problems or previously learnt material. There was, therefore, an element of spontaneity within the overall planned structure of the lesson.
The following short extract from a lesson gives a flavour of this classroom atmosphere and Rabbi N’s approach to the text. The lesson dealt was on a sugya in tractate Makot (3a) and was concerned with a statement in the name of Rav: “A conspiring witness pays according to his part.” The cryptic Amoraic statement is examined in order to discover its possible context and meaning. Rabbi N. took the class through the text step by step as the Talmud suggests various interpretations, which are each rejected in turn. As he moved through the text he also made clear the structure of the sugya by use of diagrams on the blackboard.
“You remember we said that this is not a Tannaitic source, it’s not a Mishnah or a Baratia. How shall we define the word of Rabbi Yehuda in the name of Rav? Memrat Amora – and this is important for our discussion….
Here we see Rabbi N. drawing attention to technical features of the text. It is necessary to know what kind of status is to be ascribed to the statement in question.
[Rabbi N. isolated the words in question by writing them on the board.]
So now the Gemara is going to present interpretations. Until we get to the final explanation what’s going to happen? (Student – its going to be rejected) this is the way of the Gemara.
The Talmud proposes one interpretation according to which the statement refers to a situation in which one witness is discredited but not the other. This possibility gives rise to a very lively discussion which deals with both the anomalies of the factual possibility of only one witness being discredited and also with problems in light of texts the class has already studied. Rabbi N. helps students clarify their own questions. In one case he seems genuinely surprised by one student’s insight and ponders it while praising the question as a good one. These students in their third year of Special Talmud seem to be well socialised into the give and take of Talmudic discussion. After a while he cuts the discussion short by saying that while the students’ objections are good, the Talmud has an even more effective objection.
And does he pay?
Does A1 have to pay at all? Before you jump out of your seats and tell me something’s not fair here, lets see what the Gemara says.
“And does he pay” Is this really the case that happened? We said that this is what Rav Yehuda in the name of Rav said. Is this really the Halakha that if B1 and B2 finger A1 alone that A1 pays, only a half, but he does pay.
And does he pay? Vehatanya We have learned. A conspiring witness does not pay until the two of them have been proved to be conspiring.
The rule about conspiring witnesses – one of the anomalous rules – is that they are culpable only if you find both of them guilty.
OK I know that shaking of heads. An eid zomem is only guilty – and this is the halakha – the only time A1 and A2 will pay is if and only if B1 and B2 say you were with us and you both are wrong, you both are false - but when it comes to financial loss if I only catch one Mr. X is off the hook but neither A1 or A2 pay anything.
Student: That’s the law?
Rabbi N.: That’s the law. It is the Halakha. Now you are going to say, Why? A1 is obviously false.’ It’s a good question. I think it probably goes back to the original source from which we know about conspiring witnesses altogether, from the verse. We pointed out that it’s all in the singular form. “You shall do to him as he conspired to do.” So we are treating two witnesses as one unit. That is why we do not talk of two witnesses but of a “set” of witnesses. So it’s either all or nothing. So A1, even though he may be fingered if you don’t get them altogether, Mr. X is fine but Mr. A1 doesn’t get to pay anything.
You’ll all say ‘It’s unjust, it’s illogical. Why would that be?’ What’s the answer? What did we learn at the beginning of the semester?
The whole matter of conspiring witnesses has a lot of illogic to it. We said, “As he conspired not as he did.” How did Ramban explain this? God has all kinds of ways of making sure things line up…
Student: The Gemara says he doesn’t pay at all?
Rabbi N.: That is the assumption of the Gemara. It’s not just an assumption. It is the Halakha – a single witness does not pay.
Student: Is this some form of question?
Rabbi N. If so, it cannot be that this is what Rav Yehuda in the name of Rav means. It is a rejection of another interpretation of the words “A conspiring witness pays according to his share.”
Student: All this, no rabbi is saying it?
Rabbi N. Correct. It is all the editor of the sugya. This is an anonymous sugya. There are no names of amoraim here.
The approach of the lesson as a whole was largely concerned with the logic and concepts of the Talmud in line with the priorities he expressed in interview. There are, however, traces of a critical literary approach. One such element, which did find an expression in class, was his response to a question that was asked more than once by students: Who is saying this? The students were responding to a common difficulty for readers of the Talmud namely the way statements or arguments, which are attributed to a particular sage, are embedded in a flowing text containing arguments and statements of its own. The two elements are sometimes hard to detach from one another. The function and source of this anonymous editorial stratum is a central focus of modern literary analysis of the Talmud. Rabbi N answered the question by saying that it is anonymous and the words of the “editor of the sugya.” The point was not developed in classes that I observed but this terminology, which draws attention to the crucial role of a later hand in shaping the Talmud, has its roots in a critical approach.
The extract shows how Rabbi N. uses a colloquial speaking style to enliven the exposition of the material. Also of significance in this extract is the use of a theological theory to rationalise an anomaly of the law. This discussion clearly belongs to a traditional rather than a critical approach. It is possible, however, that the need to allude to Ramban’s theory arises out of the nature of the student body which is not necessarily committed to the framework of the Halakha. The teacher anticipates points at which the students’ credulity is stretched and supplies an idea that may resolve the anomaly for them