Talmud and the Quest for Personal Transformation

by
Meesh Hammer-Kossoy

Project Mentor:

Rabbi Shmuel Klitsner

ATID Fellows
2000-01

Talmud and the Quest for Personal Transformation
By Meesh Hammer-Kossoy

Meesh Hammer-Kossoy teaches Mishnah and Talmud at Machon Pardes.  She has an MA from NYU where she is also writing her doctoral thesis on the subject of rabbinic criminal punishments in the talmudic period.

Project Description

This paper assumes that while Talmud study should impact the religious personality of the student spiritually, ethically, or halakhicly, this “transformative” aspect of learning is often not focused on by teachers or is lost on students.   The primary goal of this paper is to propose and demonstrate three models for affecting this transformation.  The author has taken three teachers as case studies: one teacher who emphasizes the content of the sugya and its relevance to the life of the student as the central vehicle for impacting the student, a second who emphasizes the genre of the Talmud, and a third who without emphasizing any particular method explicitly attempts to affect transformation by immersion in the tradition and an overall environment of holy service.  The theoretical basis for these methods are investigated and the impact of these methods is traced (to the extent possible) by student interviews.  It should be emphasized that these methods need not be applied in exclusion of each other, but are intended to serve as methods for integration into the classroom. 

Abstract
 Talmud study has been at the center of our tradition even longer than the Talmud has existed as a closed book.   Students describe learning Gemara as the “bread and butter” of our tradition and as the “center of the wheel around which spokes are attached.”   In addition to its centrality in our heritage, the unique intellectual challenge it poses also attracts students.  However, students who are investing more than twenty hours a week struggling to grasp a difficult sugya are asking, and correctly so, “why?” What caused Talmud study to merit this central place within our tradition?  What is Talmud study all about beyond the intellectual experience? Is Talmud study an isolated experience of engagement with Divine wisdom alone, or is the experience meant to impact on the religious personality of the student even after a sugya has been mastered?  
“Great is learning because it leads to action” [bKid. 40b].   The central place of learning in our tradition is explicitly based on the assumption that learning transforms the individual in a way no other mitzvah can.  Ostensibly, this impact on the religious personality could take the form of moral and ethical excellence, a strengthened spiritual connection to Hashem, heightened adherence and sensitivity to halakhah, or a combination of all three. However, pinpointing the personal transformation in Talmud study precisely and how it is affected is not a simple task.
Fortunately, students, even those who find Talmud study intellectually challenging and rewarding, frequently ask questions regarding the purpose and goal of their labors.  These questions emerge from an authentic desire to learn well and serve God, and not from a cynical or rebellious approach to authority.  Even if students were not asking the big question,  “What is the point?,” we as educators should be.  How should we approach Talmud education in order to maximize the extent to which it transforms the student, making her either more observant, more moral, more spiritually connected to God, or all three?
	In this paper, the author presents three case studies of outstanding teachers who are all concerned with this question, but address it from very different angles.  The first teacher, Rabbi Aryeh Ben David of Machon Pardes, focuses on the content of the Talmudic discussion itself.   He assumes that the questions and answers of the particular debate in the sugya are of personal significance to the student.  Because the significance is not always readily apparent in every sugya, discovering this message involves a comprehensive literary analysis of the passage as a whole and a constant return to “the big picture” in order to explain how the questions asked in the sugya reflect larger personal concerns.  Furthermore, it often demands the addition of outside material to the text at hand. 
A second approach focuses on the genre and its impact on the human psyche.  The Talmud is varied in content but is tied together by the discursive style in which it is written. Rav Yehudah Brandes emphasizes the way the “medium is the message” and the way the genre of the text causes the individual to see the world somewhat differently.  The democratic, non-hierarchical, open, discursive method of the talmudic bet midrash should extend into the contemporary bet midrash and then into one’s worldview.
A third, more traditional approach, that of Rav Yair Kahn, argues that the very environment of being immersed in talmudic discourse creates is a religious and spiritual experience.  Based on Rav Soloveitchik’s philosophy of religious humanism, the human is called upon to at once submit to God’s will unconditionally, and boldly join God as a partner in perfecting His creation.  By studying and interpreting God’s word, a Jew both demonstrates his acceptance of the yoke of Heaven and boldly becomes His partner by interpreting and expanding His Torah. 
Each of these models assumes that being in dialogue with Abaye and Rava and continuing their enterprise will inherently create a new allegiance and appreciation for the tradition.  Talmud study mediated by an inspirational rebbe nurtures an awe of the Sages and the halakhic system which translates into fear of Heaven and scrupulousness observance of halakhah. 
The author does not argue that any one approach should be exclusively preferred.  The categorization of the above teachers and their methods is an artificial construct of the author in order to simplify and highlight.  Indeed, none of the teachers pursued a single methodology to the exclusion of others.  Ideally all three models will be appropriate at different points in every classroom.  The authors presents a number of models available to teachers, as well as an evaluation of the benefits and potential barriers involved in each case. 
While extending Talmud beyond the narrow intellectual experience can be achieved in a range of methods, it only happens when the teacher makes this a conscious goal.  Although the student’s desire to grow is the most important factor in the growth equation, the teacher must create an environment in which this is encouraged.  First of all, she must demonstrate herself to be striving to grow personally.  Secondly, because the process is by definition a very gradual one, the explicit statement of this goal and the methods for its achievement greatly increase the students ability to understand the process and move forward.  Thirdly, while the teacher’s genuine conviction about the efficaciousness of the method is very contagious, the absence of this conviction may render the whole enterprise fruitless.
While teachers had different emphasis’s and notions of the value of content, process and religious experience, all of the teachers utilized all of the models to some extent.  This is especially true in the case of content.   Teachers who are concerned with their students’ religious growth are reluctant to sacrifice the simple tool of relevant content.  They all chose masekhtot and perakim with this goal in mind, and wherever possible asked the question, “what does this mean to me?”  Although what will inspire change in an individual is very personal, even idiosyncratic, the careful use of these methods go a long way towards facilitating personal growth or at the very least impressing on students that learning which remains entirely intellectual is lacking.

Introduction: The Issues and Some Traditional Answers
 Talmud study has been at the center of our tradition even longer than the Talmud has existed as a canonized book, and students understand this.   Students describe learning Gemara as the “bread and butter” of our tradition and as the “center of the wheel around which spokes are attached.”   In addition to its centrality in our heritage, the unique intellectual challenge it poses also attracts students.  However, students who are investing long hours struggling to grasp a difficult sugya are asking, and correctly so, “why?” What caused Talmud study to merit this central place within our tradition?  What is Talmud study all about, beyond the intellectual experience? Is Talmud study an isolated experience of engagement with Divine wisdom, or is the experience meant to impact on the religious personality of the student even after a sugya has been mastered?  
“Great is learning because it leads to action” [bKid. 40b].   The central place of learning in our tradition is explicitly based on the assumption that learning transforms the individual in a way no other mitzvah can.  Ostensibly, this impact on the religious personality could take the form of moral and ethical excellence, a strengthened spiritual connection to Hashem, heightened adherence and sensitivity to halakhah, or a combination of all three. However, pinpointing the personal transformation in Talmud study precisely and how it is affected is not a simple task.  
A number of traditional answers provide partial responses.  Since the genre is primarily halakhic, one might expect Talmud to greatly effect a students’ relationship to halakhic observance.  Discussions with students indeed confirmed that laboring long hours to clarify debates over details of halakhic minutia will gradually impress upon them the importance of details in the eyes of Hazal.  But halakhic conclusions are seldom clear from the sugya itself, and the subject matter in the most commonly studied masekhtot (Nezikin, Nashim) has very little practical application to the student.  Careful adherence to practical halakhah is best achieved by studying conclusion oriented material. While if the goal is appreciation for the halakhic system in general, one might still argue that masekhtot such as Berakhot, Shabbat or Pesahim are more relevant and appropriate.  This would enable students not just to appreciate the system, but also to know what to do.
Others emphasize the inherent value of the process of Talmud Torah lishma rather than the impact of the learning beyond itself.  This includes the intellectual experience of learning, similar to “art for art’s sake,” but also includes the religious experience that which Talmud Torah ideally entails.  Many say that learning Talmud is a way of making contact with the Shechina or obtaining God’s true will on a particular issue.  These are truly laudable goals, but are quite difficult to facilitate for students, even if the teacher successfully experiences it in this way.  Given that the spiritually transcendent moments of Talmud study may be rare, and many argue that self-conscious searching for this transcendence can easily destroy its organic attainment, this goal can easily remain in the realm of sloganism.  Furthermore, even though students are often able to articulate this as a goal, few have experienced it and so it often does not ring true to them.
Perhaps the most tangible and accessible religious experience identified by students and teacher alike is the power of studying something that has been studied for generations, joining in the dialogue between Abaye and Rava, the Ritva and Rav Hayim. This sense of continuity often inspires many students to dedicate themselves to Talmud study. Proficiency in Talmud gives students ownership of their own tradition and enables them to connect with the Jewish People and its history.  This process is itself edifying and impacts the individual even beyond the bet midrash by connecting her to her people and its history.  However, on a deeper level, studying something merely because “that is what has always been done” is in and of itself insufficient.  If the questions the sages asked are not important then why continue to carry on the conversation?  Eternal questions should be meaningful to Jews in every generation.  
Each of these approaches  partially answer our question and will be returned to in the body of the paper, but for many contemporary students they are lacking in some serious ways.  Furthermore, even if we articulate these as the primary goals of Talmud study, an educator must give serious thought as to how  best to achieve them.
Three Educational Paradigms:
Fortunately, students, even those who find Talmud study intellectually challenging and rewarding, frequently ask questions regarding the purpose and goal of their labors.  These questions emerge from an authentic desire to learn well and serve God, and not from a cynical or rebellious approach to authority.  Even if students were not asking the big question,  “What is the point?,” we as educators should be.  How should we approach Talmud education in order to maximize the extent to which it transforms the student, making her either more observant, more moral, more spiritually connected to God, or all three?
	In this paper, I will present three case studies of teachers who are all concerned with this question, but address it from very different angles.  The first teacher, Rav Aryeh Ben David,  focuses on the content of the talmudic discussion itself.   He assumes that the questions and answers of the particular debate in the sugya are of personal significance to the student.  Because the significance is not always readily apparent in every sugya, the teacher must selectively present sugyot.  Alternatively, he must dig below the surface to identify the relevant question. Finding personal significance often demands the addition of outside material to the text at hand.  In the case of our model teacher, Rav Aryeh Ben David of Machon Pardes, this method also includes a constant return to “the big picture” in order to explain how the questions asked in the sugya reflect larger personal concerns.
A second approach, that of Rav Yehudah Brandes of Himmelfarb High School and Bet Morasha, focuses on the genre and its impact on the human psyche.  The Talmud is varied in content but is tied together by the discursive style in which it is written.  It is this discursive style which creates the intellectual challenge that so many students identify as exciting about Talmud.  Rav Yehudah Brandes emphasizes that the “medium is the message” and the way in which the genre of the text causes the individual to see the world somewhat differently.
A third approach, that of Rav Yair Kahn of Yeshivat Har Etzion and Midreshet Lindenbaum, offers a philosophical framework that justifies traditional study.  He argues that the very environment of being immersed in talmudic discourse existentially alters the individual.  The student simultaneously demonstrates his subjection to God by dedicating himself to understanding God’s word and also becomes a partner to creation by interpreting that word in new ways.  Being in dialogue with Abaye and Rava and continuing their enterprise will inherently create a new allegiance and appreciation for the tradition.  Talmud study with an inspirational rebbe nurtures an awe of the Sages and the halakhic system which translates into fear of Heaven and scrupulous observance of halakhah. 
My goal is not to argue that any one single approach should be exclusively preferred.  My categorization of the above teachers and their methods is somewhat artificial and is part of an attempt to simplify and highlight.  Indeed, none of the teachers pursued a single methodology to the exclusion of others.  All of the teachers I observed were outstanding, thoughtful teachers from a wide variety of perspectives. Ideally all three models will be appropriate at different points in every classroom.  My goal is to present a number of models that teachers might adapt, as well as an evaluation of the benefits and potential barriers involved in each method. 
The focus of this paper is the influence of a transformative goal, in its different definitions, on the teachers, students, and curriculum choices.  I am therefore less concerned with the particular ways these teachers choose to empower students with basic skills.  Furthermore, the goal of transformative impact on the student does not entail a complete revamping of the Talmud curriculum.  Every teacher who presents a Talmudic passage must spend the bulk of class-time on basic skills—language, terminology, and decoding the complex sugya. Some teachers saw these skills as merely a means to an end, while others perceived them as important in and of themselves.  However, in all cases where teachers see learning Talmud as more than just these basic skills, they want the text to impact the student beyond the classroom as well.
Transformative Content: Rav Aryeh Ben David
		An emphasis on content entails a constant awareness that the goal of the study is not merely to decode the Gemara’s give and take but to understand the message of the text and to think about its implications for the student.  To that end, Aryeh identifies three central elements in his teaching methodology: emphasis on the big picture, the Mishnah, and personal relevance.
The “big picture:”  Although the Gemara focuses on small details, Aryeh assumes that these details are not the central message of the sugya.  The sugya is also leading up to some underlying message.  The goal of the student is to get at that larger message. If a student understands the minutia of how to perform kiddushin al tanai but does not really know what a relationship is all about, that student has missed the point. 
		The search for this central message rests first of all on a solid understanding of the peshat of the sugya. It is best obtained by breaking the sugya up into units and charting its progression.  Usually one can understand the agenda of the sugya from its conclusion, since the redactors tendentiously arrange the sources in order to  get there.  Digressions should also be carefully examined, because these digressions often point to the message of the sugya.  Finally, because one must really internalize the sugya in order to understand its depths, constant review is essential.
Mishnah:  Study of Mishnah is an important step in the search for the big picture discussed above. One of the most important tools in understanding the whole is grounding one’s Talmud learning on a firm understanding of the earlier sources from which it is constructed.  Thus, learning should begin with the relevant passages from the Bible, and continue with the Mishnah and whenever possible the Tosefta. To this end, Aryeh especially emphasizes learning of the Mishnah, ideally the entire tractate, but minimally the chapter, before embarking on the study of the Gemara.  By definition, because of its broader scope and more general nature, the Mishnah gives the student a sense of context.  The Mishnah is also a carefully redacted literary text which itself is subtly attempting to convey a thesis. The redactors of the Talmud are very sensitive to these themes, and they often develop them further in the Gemara.   Thus the study of the Mishnah is a prerequisite to Talmud both because it creates a larger context and because it helps point to deeper themes which are in the Gemara as well.
Oral Torah=Living Torah: To Aryeh, the essence of Oral Torah is that it has a living, dynamic quality which says something specific and relevant to every generation.  Looking for this relevance at every turn is at the core of Aryeh’s efforts to make Talmud study a transformative experience and is inherent in the definition of what it means to study Talmud.  This comes as an answer to the question posed earlier as to the importance of joining the dialogue with Abaye and Rava.  The discussion must be deeply relevant to our generation and it is therefore exciting to engage in the debate.  One aspect of the search for  relevance is the simple step of being sure to teach the practical halakhic conclusion of every question that arises.  Just making a point to do this emphasizes that learning is not just an isolated intellectual exercise—it also effects our actions.  However,  Living Torah also goes beyond this.
		Usually the relevance is somewhat less technical. Often this relevance is not explicit.  The above steps are essential in pointing the learner towards the themes and messages.  But once these pieces are uncovered, the learner needs to ask “What does this sugya say to us?” by considering how they impact on her personal religious life.  Theoretically, this process will be edifying with any page of gemara.  If the teacher does not find something important on the page, he cannot teach it, but the fault will be with the teacher and not the text.  Just the same, in order to maximize the transformative impact Aryeh chooses a text for study which speaks to the “raw nerve” or needs of the students.  For example, Kiddushin speak to the nature of interpersonal relationships, Rosh HaShannah to the role of community leadership.  However, because of the importance of skills development, Aryeh seldom skips sugyot unless they are too hard or too technical.
	In sum, Aryeh describes a three-step process in learning Talmud.  First, a basic reading of the text, including charting or outlining the sugya.  Second, a search for the big picture, underlying themes and messages of the sugya and/or larger units.  Third, a personal consideration of the immediate importance of this Torah to the learner.  Each step is a prerequisite to the next, but the ultimate goal is personal transformation.  The third step is completely indispensable because it lends meaning to the previous stages.
A Sample Class:
	Aryeh teaches beginners’ Gemara at Machon Pardes.  His students are men and women, college graduates primarily in their twenties from liberal Jewish backgrounds.  They are a highly motivated and intelligent group with a varied attitude and commitment to traditional Judaism.  I visited his class near the beginning of the winter semester.
In many ways Aryeh’s class functions very much like that of any good Talmud teacher.  The sugya [Kiddushin 5a-b] is hard, and he acknowledges up front that it will be difficult to decode and that there will be a missing piece or two even for him.  Not presenting himself as omniscient, but rather as a struggling, growing, learning individual is a deliberate part of Aryeh’s teaching methodology.  This models the behavior of humility and “teaching your tongue to say I don’t know” for students as well as stressing that Torah learning is a constantly continuing process.
He begins the day with review, and prepares the class for the basic structure of tsad ha-shaveh.  He lets the students know that class will be in two stages: 1. what does the gemara say and 2. why it matters.   The students are also equipped for hevruta with a basic word list and a preliminary outline (appendix I) of the sugya which breaks the text into sentences, providing rudimentary punctuation and leaving space for students to translate or write notes and transform the list into an outline.  
Technical assistance such as word lists and outlines are important tools for both skills development and emphasizing content.  The language and unpunctuated nature of the text are such hurdles for beginning students that if sent alone to tackle a sugya, they are completely exhausted before they have a chance to really struggle with the content.  At the same time, students desire the challenge of being able to learn Talmud independently.  The word lists take much of the dry dictionary work out of hevruta time.  The chart format encourages students to visualize the sugya and to create a proper outline, but provides less interpretative punctuation and assistance than the Steinsaltz edition of the Gemara.   These tools help strike a balance between struggling with the technical decoding of an arcane text and exploring the deeper meaning of that text.
		After an hour and a half of hevruta learning, students come together for class.    Aryeh again begins with a review of the general structure.  He uses the board extensively, and elicits a good deal of student participation.  Aryeh deliberately keeps his own remarks as brief as possible, for he believes that students will only listen for three minutes at a time.  The students explain each logical stage in the Gemara, and Aryeh then sharpens or rearticulates the argument, enabling students to hear the difficult give and take repeated.  He constantly takes the pulse of the class.  The bulk of the class time is spent on obtaining an understanding of the structure without ever referring to Rashi.  
		In the course of the give and take, he has clearly charted out on the board the “two step process” of marriage, which is made up of kiddushin and nissuin.   Rav Huna’s suggestion that hupah could serve as a fourth method of kiddushin is presented as a way of shortening the two step process.  Aryeh now moves on to answer the question “what difference does it make?.” He distributes and reads through the derash of Rav Kook about the meaning of the period of erusin (appendix II).  Erusin creates a stage in which the relationship between husband and wife is entirely spiritual rather than physical.  While the physical aspect of the relationship is something which is ultimately essential, it is important that the spiritual level of erusin root itself in the relationship where it will maintain an important role even after the couple enters the stage of nissuin.
		In the context of an hour and a half of hevruta and an hour and a quarter of class, the presentation of the Rav Kook passage takes up only a quarter of an hour.  The vast majority of energy is dedicated to understanding the peshat of the Gemara and attaining the basic skills.  Still, the shift of focus at the end brings the entire class to a new level.  Even if one does not accept Aryeh’s reading of Rav Huna, its significance, the question “why?,” and the assumption that the significance is interpersonal rather than technical-halakhic, changes the way students relate to the Talmud.  Students are attempting to read the Gemara on more than one level and are seeing the Talmud as a text which is important to their lives and their own interpersonal relationships.  
		This particular lesson is easily acceptable to most students—students are either nodding their heads or sitting comfortably.  But Aryeh also challenges his students by applying the theory in a different direction.  Aryeh goes on to relate this derash to the situation of the levirate marriage which has also been mentioned in the text.  He then suggests that this relates to the levirate, who lacks a period of erusin, in that the spiritual aspect of the relationship is in fact the remainder of the relationship with the former husband.  Aryeh is clearly excited and moved by this interpretation, despite the fact that most students may not even find it palatable.  Some students articulate their discomfort in the form of questions.  Aryeh entertains some discussion, but much of the work remains for students to do “over lunch.” Aryeh deliberately plants seeds so that the classroom discussion and the personal struggle with the text will extend beyond the morning hours.   The students have food for thought about how this gemara sugya may play into a bigger picture of Judaism and even relate to their personal relationships.  Nothing is said which in the least bit preaches or is personal, but the questions are asked in such a way that the assumption that the text does matter is clear.
		The emphasis of the class is very much on the content.  Despite the fact that the tsad ha-shaveh is a very unique, characteristic and complex mode of gemara argument, very little is made of it, at least on this particular day.  Genre and the student’s  relationship to the composer is discussed explicitly when one student raises a  critique of the “misleading” language of the Mishnah.  Aryeh hesitates at the characterization of the Mishnah as “misleading”—“it seems misleading,” he corrects delicately and notes that one might expect more discussion of this language and its implications in another place.  The class all leads up, however, to the climax provided by Rav Kook and  though technical skills and other information are gained along the way, it is this which ultimately gives it all meaning.
Student Reactions:
Nearly all the students are effusive about their appreciation for the Talmud and Aryeh’s teaching.  Even while taking into consideration the positive motivation of most Pardes students, the response was truly remarkable.  Perhaps what is most important is what wasn’t said—not one student asked the question “why all the effort?” or was troubled by the apparent lack of personal meaning in Talmud study.  Every student was impressed with the value of Talmud study, and for a number of reasons.  Students also felt themselves being challenged to grow Jewishly, without feeling pressured or coerced to do so.  How does all this work according to the assessment of the student?
“Wow” moments:  One hevruta coined this term to describe the inspirational “Rav Kook type” messages which serve as the climax of Aryeh’s learning units.  The term speaks for itself.  Students had the experience that the picture was all coming together to something bigger and weightier, and this made a great impression on them.  Several students said that without these moments, they thought they would have lost their excitement for Gemara.  “’Wow moments’ are just what we need at this stage in our learning, otherwise we might get frustrated and give up.”
At the same time, this was also the focus of objections from students.  Everyone agreed that Aryeh Ben David constantly saw Rav Kook in the Talmud.  However, not everyone enjoyed Rav Kook or found the connections persuasive.   Some students found the messages forcibly imposed on the text or  found that the messages did not speak to them.  For these people, this part of the class was frustrating. 
Genre:  Interestingly, a large portion of the inspiration students drew from their studies was more closely related to the genre of the Talmud and the first two stages of the learning.  Many students enjoyed the intellectual challenge of  deciphering the text, and one hevruta suggested that they found dealing with the frustration and challenge was in and of itself a character building exercise (so too Rambam, Hilkhot Talmud Torah 3:6).  
What students focused on most was the appreciation they gained for the brilliance of the rabbis through the study in general but especially through looking at the big picture.  By investing time analyzing the sugya as a whole they came to appreciate the way the rabbis ask some questions and not others, their sensitivity as readers,  the subtlety of the rabbis' argument, and their depth of thought.
This sensitivity translates into an appreciation for the halakhic system as a whole and a real sense of humility about oneself.  For example, one student shared that in the past she would have desired to invent new rituals and innovations based on creative interpretations of tradition, she now appreciated the depth of the tradition and hesitated to change things.
All the students mentioned Aryeh’s commitment to the study of Mishnah and felt that this was one of the most important things they gained from the class.  Interestingly, however, several had the sense that Aryeh was more excited about Mishnah than about Gemara.  To me this raises a concern that his methodology is better suited to Mishnah than it is to  Talmud study, so that it does not entirely answer our question: “How is Talmud study uniquely transformative?”
 The Rebbe Charisma: My research confirmed the truism that a good deal of the push to transform oneself religiously flows from the inspirational personality of the teacher.  In Aryeh’s case, several students point out Aryeh’s willingness to expose his own religious struggle before the class.  Rather than explicitly challenging students to consider how this text demands change in their lives, he lets students be party to the personal inspiration which he is drawing from the text.  In addition to sharing idiosyncratic, sometimes silly anecdotes about  himself and his own personal growth, students witness first hand how involved he is in his learning and how convinced he is that Torah represents a path to truth.  Students are thus clearly inspired to change without ever feeling that Aryeh has been preaching.
Analysis:
Aryeh Ben David articulates a clear method for teaching Talmud and executes it skillfully.  Students have a clear understanding of Aryeh’s goals in learning and feel them being actualized.  Talmud learning clearly offers opportunities for personal growth.  The traditional objection to the search for personal relevance is that the varied nature of the text’s contents make that search difficult at times, and every page of Talmud is important and eternal.  Aryeh’s method addresses this objection effectively.  Everything is relevant but some things are more pressingly so.  Every individual and generation has particular issues which demand special focus for it.
 However, I have two primary reservations about this method.  The first concern is the relationship of the personal relevance to the talmudic text. The fact that the message is often found articulated outside the sugya itself and related back to it raises a number of concerns.  To what degree are the messages found in Rav Kook really part of the natural flow from the talmudic text, and to what extent are they imposed upon it? These messages thus risk reducing Talmud learning to the level of homily.  One must ask, “What have I gained from learning the sugya that I would not have gained by turning to Rav Kook or some other thinker directly?.” Has the endeavor of deciphering the hava amina, rejected position and textual digression paid off?  Furthermore, even if one is willing to concede that the messages are in the text itself, the extent to which students or some other teacher will be able to discover this meaning on their own is unclear.
To a certain degree this problem may be primarily a problem in the execution.  Finding a message which is imminent and grounded in the text rather than imposed upon it is not only a somewhat subjective enterprise—it is a lot of hard work.  While the articles of Rav Avie Walfish may do so beautifully, it requires both keen reading skills and a huge amount of time and energy.  Keeping up with a task like this well is decidedly not easy.  It would not be surprising if from time to time the conclusions emerge from beyond rather than within the text.
The second concern is more observation than criticism.  Ultimately, student responses reveal that much of what is being gained is really quite similar to the gains from the genre based and traditional approaches.  An appreciation for Hazal and the halakhic system as a whole are the thrust of the goal of the traditional method and they are being achieved here in much the same manner.  
The challenge then is to work to keep a very close connection between the first two and the third stages of the learning process so that the personal relevance which flows from the content flows from the entirety of the passage and is not homiletic.  In this way the labor of deciphering the difficult gemara will be rewarding and meaningful.
An alternative content centered approach:
Rav David Derovan in the Lookjed email discussion articulated another content based approach familiar to many educators, but perhaps not utilized frequently enough.  If Aryeh’s approach could be characterized as a holistic approach, than this approach may best be characterized as atomistic.  That is to say, that the teacher identifies a point which emerges from some specific detail in the sugya and emphasizes or fully develops its transformative core.  He offers an example:
The Gemara [Pesahim 101a], discusses the issue of making Kiddush only where you eat.  As part of the discussion, the Gemara determines that on Friday night or on a Yom Tov night, there must be a candle lit (i.e. light) in the room where you are going to say Kiddush and then eat.  This leads to the following quote: “And even R. Huna thinks that Kiddush is only where you eat, for R. Huna made Kiddush and the candle blew out.  So he went to his son Rabbah’s wedding house where there was light and he made Kiddush and ate a little.”

Just imagine.  Rabbah, son of Rav Huna, is finally alone with his new bride on their first Shabbat night together.  All of a sudden there is a knock on the door and there is Dad and Mom and whole brood of brothers and sisters.  “Our lights blew out, can we join you?” asks Rav Huna.  You see the look of disappointment and frustration on Rabbah’s face all the way over here. However, the Gemara very subtly hints at an ethical message hidden in this story.  It says that Rav Huna made Kiddush and then “ate a little.”  Why does the Gemara add the fact that he ate just a little? To teach us that Rav Huna did not want to barge in on his son and destroy his peaceful first Shabbat night with his bride.  Rather, he said, “We’ll just made Kiddush quickly, then eat a bite or two to fulfill the obligation of making Kiddush where you eat.  Then we are out of here!”

This approach offers an important advantage in that it is easy to identify and integrate into teaching without fully transforming the basic approach to Talmud study.  As he correctly suggested, there is something on nearly every page of Talmud which is relevant to the individual. 
However, this does not utilize the tremendous effort being expended on deciphering the give and take in the sugya, nor is it the result of a close reading of the sugya as a whole.  Most of these points could be equally well made by studying a compendium of great talmudic quotations.  Thus, while a teacher should never miss an opportunity to illuminate an important and useful detail, this approach does not answer the larger question at hand.
Transformative Genre: Rav Yehudah Brandes
The Goal:
Tradition places Talmud as the central text of study.  In addition to always having been the core of the curriculum, it has also served as the very foundation of Jewish and rabbinic culture and modes of thinking.  In a lecture given at the Orthodox Forum in 5760, Rav Yehudah Brandes seeks to go beyond tradition and focus on genre as a justification for Talmud study’s place in the modern curriculum. He systematically outlines his defense and translates it into a teaching methodology.
According to Rav Brandes, the transformative power of Talmud study is in its literary form.  The medium is the message.   More than the specific content of any particular page of the Gemara, the literary genre of Talmud and the method of its study penetrates the Jewish psyche and impacts our world view.  In its modes of expression, the Talmud implicitly conveys a set of values.  These values may be explicitly articulated, but only the day-to-day confrontation with these values imbedded in a text results in their real internalization.  By engaging in Talmud study in the true sense of the word, these values seep into the Jewish soul and a set of skills critical to a Jewish reading of the world are developed.    
Disagreement and debate—the talmudic give and take, more than anything else, makes Talmud unique.  While the personal relevance of the content varies tremendously from tractate to tractate, the argumentative character, the posing of several positions and debating the merits of each one, is found consistently in all thirty-six tractates. Rav Adin Steinsaltz, who like Rav Brandes sees genre as the critical transformative aspect of Talmud,  identifies this argumentative nature as at the very core of Jewish identity and the source of vitality and creativity of the Jewish people.  Throughout history, countries in which Jews chose not to or were prevented from studying Talmud were unable to make a significant contribution to Jewish tradition.  Talmud serves as a model for a Jewish community in which Jews are in dialogue with one another rather than authoritatively stating their own opinions in isolation.
God desires a range of opinions.  Rav Brandes believes that the Oral Torah was deliberately given at Sinai in the form of disagreements.  Further proof that truth should never be viewed as black and white is to be found in the fact that a defendant unanimously convicted by the court of a capital crime is automatically acquitted. If there is not a disagreeing opinion, they could not possibly have investigated every argument.  The fact that a Jew always “answers a question with a question” is evidence of the extent to which this mentality has already penetrated the Jewish psyche.
This emphasis on debate and give and take gives students a unique sensitivity enabling them to weigh all sides of a problem and to view it from a number of perspectives.  Real life is seldom as simple as choosing between right and wrong.  The ability to understand the complexity of a situation and to arbitrate between conflicting values prepares a student for the genuine challenges of the real world.  It enables students to make tough choices and to appreciate the difficulties faced by others.
Another important lesson the literary form of the Talmud teaches is the value of democracy.  While other Jewish texts are authoritative in their presentation, Talmud encourages democratic thinking in the deepest way.  It is also a meritocracy.  Everyone, even the simple weavers who sit at the Gate of Trash [mEd. 1:3] are invited to contribute to the debate.  Majority rules and no single individual can impose his views authoritatively.  On the contrary, he must bow to the majority. 
Furthermore, the Talmud endorses free thinking.  There are almost no taboos on free speech.  Anything and everything is open to criticism—the Talmud even takes issue with the behavior of God Himself.  At the same time, this criticism, self-criticism, and free thinking is always done in a respectful and appropriate manner.  It serves as a model for responsible behavior and loyalty to tradition and obligations even while allowing  and even demanding for constant reevaluation. 
Finally, the cultural contribution of the Talmud is also very important.  In a post-modernist manner, the Talmud wanders associatively from topic to topic, thus reflecting the organic nature of the whole.  It represents an important cultural treasure chest on every topic under the sun.  One might also add that this holistic approach to the world, the sense that everything is connected, interdependent, and interdisciplinary is also an important statement about the talmudic world outlook.   One cannot be a “Jew in the home, and a man on the streets;” one’s Jewishness impacts the way one walks and what one does when she walks into someone else.
Method:
We have established that the Talmud embodies the values of a range of viewpoints, debate, democratic participation, free speech, and the interconnectedness of the whole and that the internalization of these values is the primary goal of Talmud study.  With these goals in mind, we must redefine what it really means to learn Talmud.
Many consider Talmud study to be the process of decoding the difficult elliptical text redacted in the sixth century.  However, reading about how tannaim and amoraim engaged in the study of Talmud, debated, and participated freely and then culling information from their debates is not really learning Talmud in the sense that Rav Brandes intended. According to Rav Brandes this is more akin to learning Mishnah than Talmud.  In fact, Rashi defines Gemara as the reasons behind the Mishnayot, the resolution of their contradictions and the logic from which halakhah can emerge [bBer. 5a, 11b s.v. gemara].  Similarly, Maimonides defines Talmud as “understanding and deducing, taking things to their logical conclusion, deducing one thing from another, making comparisons, and utilizing the characteristics by which the Torah can be interpreted” [MT, Laws of Talmud Torah 1:11]. Thus, even classically Talmud is considered more of a mode of inquiry than a specific text.  The Talmud invites students to participate in its debates, to become part of the discussion, not just to watch the discussion from the side.   
Because our goal is to engage in discussion, to draw analogy and think innovatively,  the technical skills of reading Aramaic and decoding a difficult text are means to an end rather than ends in themselves.  Understanding the text is a prerequisite to discussing it, but the discussion is the objective.  The Aramaic jargon and legal terminology are simply obstacles which must be overcome in order to get to the substantive analysis.   According to Rav Brandes, one can even study Talmud without ever opening a tractate.  The moment one cites a law and another raises an objection and attempts to resolve it, one is learning Gemara.
In an ideal world, by a young age children would have accomplished the task of learning enough “mishnah,” i.e. attaining sufficient proficiency and breadth of knowledge in Talmud and Mishnah, to engage in serious discussion.  However, the reality of our modern educational system is that students have not achieved this proficiency.  Given this reality, a teacher should be careful to maintain a balance between providing information and learning Talmud.  The teacher should try as much as possible to reduce the amount of effort expended on the technical aspects of understanding a page of Talmud.  If the process of decoding the page is too laborious and time consuming, by the time it is accomplished students will be exhausted and unable to invest in the more important stage of learning.  To this end, a simple translation and commentary should suffice.  Even if the teacher’s goals include achieving independent reading skills, this skill should be taught in small doses in order to maintain a sense of momentum.  At the same time, a serious discussion requires a careful reading of the text.  Without close meticulous reading, the discussion which follows will be shallow and empty.
The core of the class and its very purpose is the discussion.  Discussion should precede the encounter with the text and be continued after it as well.  Students should have a sense that their opinions are legitimate and that they are equal participants in the debate.  The discussion should be a journey which belongs to the class as a whole rather than the teacher alone.  As much as possible, it should be non-hierarchical and everyone should feel that they have freedom of expression.  Questions can be left open, since the process is the very goal there is nothing to fear if the questions are better than the answers.  Whereas in a traditional classroom, teachers might often use questions or discussion as a tool to involve their students in the Gemara, these teachers will identify their ultimate goal as to communicate their own “message” at the end of the class.  In this case, the discussion is the meat of the class and the end in and of itself.
One important tool in encouraging students to become involved in the debate is making the text relevant.  Students of all ages will surely be more interested in texts which have relevance to their own personal lives.  A teacher should never come to class without being prepared to show in a deep way that the text is important to them, not just in some external or formal way.  This is the only way to have learning which is insightful and meaningful.  “A person only learns in a place which he finds pleasing.” [bAZ 19a]
Another important tool in achieving the goal of transformative discussion is promoting close reading of the text.  The Talmud cannot be treated like prose or a legal handbook.  Despite the fact that the Talmud is printed as a huge book, it should be read as drama or poetry, and if possible even reprinted in smaller units which will force the student to focus on the meaning of every single word.
The Class:
	While Rav Brandes teaches in a number of places, I observed his classes before Pesach in the women’s section of Bet Morasha.  Bet Morasha serves adults with previous yeshiva learning and academic backgrounds who are trying to find a synthesis of both worlds. Rav Brandes’ approach reflects a use of classic yeshiva texts with an openness to academic questions and sources.  I found Rav Brandes’ class to be one of the most interesting and compelling classes I had ever heard.   The class was exciting, intellectually challenging and very relevant to the modern religious person.  
When asked directly if his class reflected the theory described above he assertively answered ‘yes’ and gave several examples.  First of all, discussion is an important feature of the class.  Students are active in class, not just at the level of asking questions and raising objections, but also at the level of proposing and arguing independent positions. Whereas many Gemara teachers may also elicit discussion from the students, their discussion is often intended primarily as a gimmick to involve students and to pave the way for the teacher’s own sermonic reading at the climactic end of the class.  In his class, quite the contrary, the discussion is the essential and primary goal of the class, not a means to an end.  In fact, often ideas are not even entirely developed, and fleshing them out is the joint task of the class as a whole.
The centrality of discussion and the expectation to share the intellectual work points to the essentially non-hierarchical nature of the class. This is also reflected in the class’s very structure.  Much of the important work is done outside the class, in the hevruta learning.  Furthermore, Rav Benny Lau runs the hevruta portion of the class and serves as a co-teacher, by teaching a more general class at the end of each day of learning.  This inherently undercuts the unique status of Rav Brandes as the holder of truth.  The fact that they do not at all “coordinate” a position about the material and are not concerned if they contradict one another further emphasizes the multifaceted nature of Torah and the value of a range of positions.  However, while all of these things are true to some degree, observing the class and speaking with the students brought home to me some of the challenges and difficulties inherent in actualizing this method of teaching.   
 “Rav Tarfon said, ‘I was going along the way and I reclined in order to recite the Shema, in accordance with Bet Shammai, and I endangered myself because of the robbers.’ They replied to him, ‘You deserved to incur guilt because you transgressed the directive of Bet Hillel’” [mBer. 2:3]  

What precisely is the source of Rav Tarfon’s culpability?  Rav Brandes suggests that Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai disagree about the very essence of the religious experience of accepting the yoke of Heaven.   Bet Shammai demands that a Jew stop what he is doing and create a space for accepting the yoke of Heaven.  When Bet Hillel emphasizes ‘while you go on your way,’ it is not a leniency which allows the Jew to continue daily activities while serving God.  Quite the contrary, Bet Hillel demands that serving God be done throughout one’s routine.  It should not be compartmentalized into a specific time, but integrated into everything that one does.   
	This is the idea set forward for debate the first time I observe Rav Brandes’ shiur.  Despite the fact that Rav Brandes’ class comes at the end of two full mornings of independent learning, discussion is not as much a center of the class as one might expect from Rav Brandes’ theory.  Rav Brandes does the overwhelming majority of the talking, and students passively drink the waters of his Torah.  Even so, there is a decidedly non-hierarchical feeling in the classroom.  Rav Brandes is quite respectful of his students and listens to them carefully.  They feel comfortable putting forward independent theses and raising objections.  
Of course, it is not surprising that the students do not participate more actively in the class.  In the two full mornings devoted to preparation, students are asked to learn three pages of gemara and a long list of sources.  Students have seldom successfully read through all the sources, much less mastered them or given them serious thought.    While the shiur focuses on a single sugya, students have invested the majority of their learning in covering three folio pages of Talmud, so that they do not have that much time left to prepare directly for class.  This is primarily the kind of learning Rav Brandes would certainly classify as “mishnah,” that is to say, gathering of information rather than its analysis.  While gathering “mishnaic” material is a prerequisite to talmud learning, they do not get a chance to move to the next level until class. 
The disproportionate amount of thought the teacher has invested in preparation in comparison to the students simply amplifies the already unequal  footing of the students by virtue of their inferior general Torah knowledge.  Not to mention the fact that Rav Brandes’ position as teacher inevitably creates a clear hierarchy in the class.  If students feel entitled to participate and express themselves, they certainly do not do so as equals. 
Furthermore, even though discussion may be considered valuable in and of itself, there is no question that like a traditional shiur,  Rav Brandes had a  clear hiddush which he was developing throughout the class.  Rav Brandes’ goal was to understand the conceptual conflict which stands behind the disagreement or sugya.  If there were some ideas which were not completely developed, his central thesis was unusually well developed, as noted above.   
While the relatively “hierarchical” presentation of a thesis cannot be defined as weaknesses in his class.  Students most certainly enjoyed and benefited from his persuasive analysis of the texts.  Students were quiet out of an appropriate sense of their own place vis-א-vis their teacher.  Rav Brandes is simply able to bring students to a level of analysis that is otherwise entirely beyond them, and they recognize that. 
 The most clearly talmudic aspect of the class as defined by Rav Brandes is his relationship to Rav Lau.  Even though the two teachers have somewhat different spheres, both of them are preparing the same material with an eye towards teaching and are genuinely colleagues.  They inevitably bring differing perspectives to the text, and from time to time, they come to opposing conclusions in their classes and then proceed to “argue” with each other during class.  A plurality of voices is guaranteed to be heard.  Several students mentioned this dialogue as a very exciting one, which does in fact give the sensation of continuing the talmudic dialogue.  Unfortunately, budgetary restraints may make this structure unrealistic for many schools.
The most tangibly “transformative” and exciting aspect of the class from the students’ perspective was its content.  The class was decidedly conceptual and philosophical rather than halakhic, and focused very much on the page itself, especially understanding the conceptual framework of the tannaim and amoraim.   Because Rav Brandes chooses a single sugya from the three  pages studied weekly, he has a large degree of flexibility from which to choose something which would both speak to him and to the students. Without suggesting or implying that every sugya is not equally critical to the religious life of the student, Rabbi Brandes picks something which he does find especially pressing and focuses on it.  The class maintains a real sense of momentum by balancing iyun and bekiut and also has the advantage of selecting especially important issues with out skipping. The choice of Masekhet Berakhot also clearly has this as its objective.  Students felt that they consistently left the class with something “in hand.”  They did not hesitate at all when asked for examples of things they had learned which had affected them personally, or at least left them thinking.  Two of the students with whom I spoke cited the primary difference between this Talmud class and previous ones they had taken was that “this one is interesting.”  By this they meant the emphasis on things which are relevant from a conceptual and philosophical perspective. 
Analysis:
Upon reading Rav Brandes’ theoretical writing on the subject (cited above), I was initially shocked at the very radical nature of the position being argued.  The discussion and debate of the students which is beyond the page of Talmud is given such primary importance, one wonders whether this should be considered Talmud study at all.  However, I was also surprised by the extent to which this was not the case in the classroom in actual practice.  Quite the contrary, one of the things that students found most interesting was the extent to which the shiur was “daf-centered.” 
Nevertheless, the theoretical danger of distancing from the text itself remains. The emphasis on learning method rather than content means that the study of every page of Talmud is equally justified.  However, the method, at least as it is defined by him, also justifies the debate of things completely detached from the page and thus can be very much removed from the book itself.  This does not bother Rav Brandes himself at all.  He argued that the relationship of learning Gemara to the Talmud is parallel to the relationship of the internet and English.  Just as English is a mere tool to utilizing the internet, so too the book called “Talmud” is just a tool for learning Gemara which is discussion and analysis. To me, however, not emphasizing the text itself   risks disconnection from our tradition, at least on a theoretical level.
Although measuring religious growth of any kind is extremely difficult, assessing the transformative potential of Talmud’s learning method or genre is especially so.  Most students did not explicitly identify Talmud’s literary form and the learning method which extended to the classroom as making an impact on their lives and world view.  However, this does not mean that it does not have an impact.  One student interviewed noted that she only came to realize the extent to which Talmud impacted her thought processes and approach to the world when she studied at an institution with women who had no Talmud experience.  It was then that she became aware of how important her analytical skills were to all of her learning and world view. 
While inspiring content will also be internalized gradually, it can often be identified immediately.  The transformative aspects of Talmud’s literary form  however, may not even necessarily be grasped on the conscious level. The goal is to change the assumptions with which one approaches the world, and assumptions very often not only remain unarticulated, they also remain subconscious.  Furthermore, even though on an explicit level, many of the articulated methods were not achieved in the classroom, the overall attitude and assumptions with which the teacher approaches the class very much infected the way things were received by the students.
Many would agree that the transformative aspect of Talmud study is the learning process itself.  However, they might also argue that the particular approach chosen by Rav Brandes is highly subjective. While debate may clearly be a central value for the Talmud, one might identify other equally central values. For example, while Rav Brandes identifies the text as democratic and to a large extent non-hierarchical, others might emphasize less egalitarian aspects of the text such as the inability of amoraim to disagree with tannaim, tannaim to disagree with mishnayot.  Indeed, another teacher whose class I observed pointed to the constant act of separating, classifying and refining as the central pursuit of the Talmud, and the point from which the student should draw spiritual inspiration.  Many of these truths are not mutually exclusive, but the choice of emphasis flows as much from the teacher as from the Talmud itself.  This too need not be taken as a limitation of Rav Brandes’ approach.  He would surely concede that this is the case.  By definition there should be a range of views and disagreements—that is just what the medium of Talmud dictates!
Several problems are specific to this definition of talmudic process.  I have already discussed the difficulty of developing serious discussion and dialogue between a teacher and students given the natural hierarchical classroom structure.  Any attempt to democratize the learning experience by compromising this structure needs to be done gingerly.  If done incorrectly it could undermine the value of kavod ha-rav and subsequently kavod ha-torah. The development of serious discussion also requires a very serious investment of time on the part of the students as well as the teacher.  In order to do so, students would have to resolve themselves to serious sacrifices in the area of “covering material” in order to be insure that they actually “uncovered” material as well.
A final issue that I personally find disturbing is that ironically, even as Rav Brandes emphasizes the form of the Talmud as its most important feature, for him, that does not include deciphering the text. Understanding the give and take of the text, which demands so much effort on the part of the beginning student, is entirely secondary in his opinion.  On the one hand, the process is everything.  On the other hand, by defining process as “debate,” he essentially defined a large part of the process as entirely technical and preliminary to the real  process.
These concerns aside, Rav Brandes’ method is a very effective one.  Students who desire to do so have more than ample opportunity to draw inspiration.  Even students who are not actively searching for religious transformation are undoubtedly affected by the process of learning.  The basic assumption that Torah learning is meant to impact one’s life even beyond the bet midrash infects the entire enterprise, so that the method of learning, the structure of the class, and its content all make their impression simultaneously.
Religious Awareness: Rav Yair Kahn
The Theory:
	Talmud study is first of all a form of Divine service.  Rav Kahn conceives of the experience through the lens of Rav Solovetchik’s philosophy of  religious humanism.  The religious approach places God at the center and awards man a secondary, in fact passive role of absolute acceptance of the Divine word.  Secular humanism places man at the center of the universe and views him as a creative force above nature.  However, it minimizes and even denies the role of God.  Religious humanism, on the other hand, entails an absolute submission to God’s will.  “Man passively bows and acts according to the guidelines of Divine imperative.”  The Jew is totally committed to the will of God, but God Himself demands that human beings play an active role in the perfection of creation.  God intentionally created the world in need of perfection in order to allow the human to become His partner in the Divine work.
	Talmud Torah is perhaps the most profound expression of that philosophy.  On the one hand, Torah is the word of God and the Jew demonstrates his total submission by committing infinite energy in order to understand every detail of His word and the will reflected in it.  For this reason, talmud Torah is a form of acceptance of the yoke of Heaven.  At the same time, the Jew takes an active role and continues the Divine work by interpreting and building on that word.  Torah she-be-al peh is a profound act of human creativity.  Hiddush is an act of partnership with the Divine.
	This philosophy underpins his approach to talmud Torah, justifying it as a spiritual and religious act.  Even if the subject-matter being studied is entirely technical and has no practical implications for the student, the act is important because it is a submission to the will of God.  Furthermore, because the student becomes an actor and not just a receiver, by thinking and making deductions and inductions,  he is constantly becoming a partner to God and involved in the dialectic between passive submission and active engagement.  In this sense every page of Talmud is by definition relevant.   That does not mean that every moment of studying Torah will be personally transformative or spiritually uplifting.  However, learning Torah within this philosophical framework creates an environment for a religious, committed life which is itself redemptive.
Rav Kahn, however, realizes that this philosophy may not be fulfilling for everyone, particularly for the non-initiated.  For learning to be transformative in this way, the student must begin with a commitment to and a willingness to dedicate himself to God’s word because it is God’s word.  However, the content of the Talmud is also a tool in the effort to impact on the student as a religious personality.  The teacher and students are also expected to pose the question “What does this mean to me?”  There may not always be an answer to this question.  Not only that, but a teacher who demands to find an answer to this question for every page of Talmud will be driven, God forbid, to distort and falsify Torah.  However, whenever it is possible to extend the Talmud into the life of the student, it should be done.  Furthermore, an effort should be made to choose a chapter for study with this goal in mind.
Class and analysis:  
I observed Rav Kahn’s shiur at Midreshet Lindenbaum where he teaches the top Gemara shiur for women in the American post-high school program.  Of course, these women are the best, brightest and most committed in the school, and Rav Kahn has been brought in once a week to supplement their regular seder and bring it to a new level.  
	The day I observe the class, the students are studying bGittin 47a, which revolves around the question of who actually owns the land for the purposes of bringing first fruits if the Jubilee year is still in effect.  The class utilizes classic Brisker methodology and focuses on the differences between the interpretations of Rashi and the Rambam.  The class is essentially a law lecture, and a high level one at that.    The legal status of ownership in a number of cases is compared, as well as the psychological assumptions of the owner in each situation.  Because it is focusing on the question of land ownership in the reality of the Jubilee which is no longer applicable, the legal discussion seemed totally detached from reality, although intellectually challenging and exciting.  
The seriousness of the enterprise was certainly visible in the comportment of both the teacher and the students.  Religious humanism does not manifest itself in a tangible way, but several aspects of the class reflect its grounding in this framework.  Close attention is paid to details in the wording of Rashi and Rambam. Every sugya is studied with the same commitment.  At the time, the class is insightful and challenging, truly a creative enterprise. 
At the end of the class, however, Rav Kahn caught me entirely off-guard and brought the class to the level of the religious lives of the students.  A land sale is complete and total even in the time of the Jubilee, but God demands its return through His decree—the Jew then demonstrates his submission to the Royal command volitionally by releasing the land from his ownership.  The active relinquishing of the land demonstrates submission to the Divine will.  This same balance between passive submission and active response is our duty in our personal relationship with God.
	Students’ first response to Rav Kahn’s class is simultaneous frustration and satisfaction.  They feel satisfaction at watching a brilliant creative process which gives them a glimpse of Torah worlds beyond them. At the same time, they feel frustration at their almost total passivity in the experience.  Students realize that they cannot achieve Rav Kahn’s analysis on their own, so they can only be partial participants in the religious process described above.  While they submit to God’s will by investing long hours deciphering God’s word, they do not achieve the level of being creative partners of God.  This may merely be a function of Rav Kahn’s role as a once a week enrichment teacher rather than their full-time rebbe. 
	The good news is that the students are aware of the what the spiritual experience is meant to be.  In what they perceived as a digression that Rav Kahn was “unable to resist,” he made this conception explicit to them.  This “digression,” somewhat into the course of the year, helped the students understand the overall goals.  They cannot identify the process on a class by class basis, but they feel satisfied that they understand the overall goals.  Of course, it must be taken into account that these girls are outstanding students eager to achieve and already very committed to the study of Gemara.  And even these women, after explaining their excitement and investment in the debate of precisely what the difference was between a kinyan halipin and mesira, were essentially stumped when I asked them “why do you care?” (The right answer according to Rav Kahn would be “I am demonstrating my submission to God by investing myself in understanding and interpreting His word”).  
An important advantage of this method is that it combines philosophical innovation with a method of learning that is very traditional.  This is especially helpful since what ultimately draws students to Talmud study is their desire to participate in that tradition.  Rav Kahn’s philosophical framework explains any number of traditional methodologies, be it Brisker, halakhic or pilpul.  The concern with rigorous, detail-oriented analysis and commitment to tradition is clear in all of them.  Nothing is considered “irrelevant.”  This is somewhat different than the first two approaches, especially the content focused one, which may at least be perceived as a break with tradition.
As Rav Kahn has already conceded, we cannot assume that this approach would be effective for less committed students (or even for eager students who are not excited by Gemara).  Moreover, satisfied as these outstanding students are at the moment, one could question how thoroughly successful this method has been for them.  Rav Shalom Berger told me a story of the brother of a student who remembers nostalgically the excitement of the intellectual challenge and its inspiration in his year in yeshiva.  But even as he remembers this experience nostalgically, is not observant.  We must be cautious not just to keep our students happy on the short term, but also to provide them with answers that will withstand the test of time. 
	However, as mentioned above, Rav Kahn does not rely on these philosophic and religious underpinnings to fully justify the study of Talmud.  Even while students admitted that they had forgotten the hakirot Rav Kahn had taught them, they immediately identified the major ethical message which was underlying the text and felt it connected to their lives.
	In sum, for Rav Kahn, learning Talmud is primarily for its own sake.  Rav Kahn successfully gives the slogan “talmud torah lishma” meaning and transmits it to the class.  However, moving from a cognitive understanding of this experience to actually internalizing it is a very difficult leap.  One can hope that if he is successful in doing so, that the religious inspiration they draw from it will cause them to strive to develop in others areas of observance as well. However, his secondary goal of transforming students through content whenever appropriate is a more easily attainable goal which can serve to insure greater growth for a larger portion of the class.   
Conclusions:

Talmud and the Quest for Religious Transformation: Three Educational Paradigms 	
Typology	Transformative Content	Medium is the Message	Spiritual awareness	
Teacher observed	R. Aryeh Ben David (Pardes)	R. Yehudah Brandes (Bet Morashah)	R. Yair Kahn (Midreshet Lindenbaum)	
Talmud Defined	Torat Hayim	Dialogue	Commitment and creativity	
Desired impact	Subject matter alters world view and practice	Gradually infects approach to world	Creates environment of religious commitment and human uniqueness	
Method 	Literary/textual analysis, 
Emphasis on the big picture/macro issues
Application of R. Kook, Maharal and other philosophers	Emphasis on democracy, openness, dialogue and debate,
Non-hierarchical, discussion-centered class,
Focus on process rather than conclusions	Religious humanism—
Rigrous conceptual approach geared at developing appreciation of both minutia and overarching concepts of halakhah	
Strength	Speaks to the central expenditure of energy—there is a personal need to know this	Applies equally to all texts,
Accounts for the unique form which characterizes the entire Talmud	Applies equally to all texts,
Requires minimal shifting from the traditional learning style	
Challenges	Easy to paint the “message” onto the text rather then emerging from,
Requires tremendous time and brilliance to achieve convincingly,
Some texts seem less appropriate,
Demands less emphasis on dry technical skills (to conserve energy)	Requires serious investment of time and energy on part of students if they are to be truly active,
Needs to be balanced with conclusions,
Demands less emphasis on dry technical skills (to save energy)	Requires pre-existing commitment to the study of God’s word because it is God’s word
Risk of remaining in the realm of slogan
	
Audience	Good for all levels, including beginners	Most effective with students with better skills	Only for the most motivated students of variable levels	
Common denominator	All teachers were informed by the expectation that Talmud learning affected the human being as a whole
The teacher’s commitment to his method was clear and approached explicitly with the students
Masekhet chosen carefully for appropriate subject matter
Goal of influencing the human being was part of a larger framework and rested on a solid reading of the text	

The various paths: I have identified four major methods of influencing the student through his learning: the inspirational content; the transformative aspect of the method and process of learning; the spiritual and religious experience of contact with God and His Torah; and the development of an appreciation for Hazal and more punctilious halakhic observance as a result of that appreciation. 
Content: The approach of Rav Aryeh Ben David excelled in accentuating the inspirational content of the Talmudic passage and its applicability to the life of the student.  While Rabbi David Derovan also suggested a model of drawing inspiration from details within the text, Aryeh’s method speaks to the modern sensibility because it is rooted in a literary analysis of the sugya as a whole, with the assumption that the editors of the Talmud constructed sugyot and chapters with a eye to the big picture and in an attempt to communicate subtle and important messages. 
Two major objections have been raised to this approach.  Some argue that coming to the text with an assumption it speaks to our personal religious experience is destructive and unfair to the text.  Furthermore, the student who finds in her independent studies that she cannot find the “relevance” of a particular text may come to the conclusion that the enterprise is a waste.  However, I believe that I pay homage to the rabbis by assuming their words are eternally meaningful.  As for the second claim, the student who never asks the question “what does it mean to me?” will never come away transformed by her dialogue with the sages.  Even those who disagree with Aryeh may consent that it is possible to ask that question without demanding that every page must have something which speaks to them personally.
Method: Rav Yehudah Brandes emphasized the way the structure of the talmudic bet midrash should extend to the modern bet midrash and into our personal lives.  A range of opinions and debate is essential to understanding the complexity of the world and approaching things thoughtfully and with an appreciation for the contribution of every individual.
Partner with the Divine: Rav Yair Kahn builds on the model of religious humanism which assumes that the human must both subject himself entirely to the Divine word and join in the Divine work of creation by interpreting His Torah.  An awareness of this religious mission imbues the entire experience of learning with a sense of purpose and creative inspiration.
Osmotic Appreciation: The most common identifiable effect from the study of Talmud is a heightened attentiveness to the details of the halakhic system and a newfound awe for the sages responsible for that system.  When students see the rabbis investing much energy debating seemingly small details of halakhah, and see the complexity of the halakhic system and its development, they very often respond by taking these details more seriously in their own life.  This is true even when the Masekhet they are studying is completely disconnected from practical halakhah.  The tremendous awe of the rabbis for the law is absorbed osmotically, and extends to the entire halakhic system.  
Commonalties:
These typologies offer distinct paradigms for religiously transforming the student.   A number of commonalties emerged from my observations:
The centrality of the text: Ultimately, the primary reason for studying Talmud is its centrality to tradition.  Learning Talmud connects the student to a thousand years dialogue of our Sages.  Not only has Talmud always been at the center of the Jewish curriculum, it is also an essential building block to other holy texts.  Halakhah, Jewish thought and Rashi on the Torah all make frequent reference to the Talmud.  Basic knowledge and familiarity with the Talmud is critical to making the student feel like an “insider” and have a sense of ownership of her own tradition.
Redefining learning Talmud: The above is true with respect to the book entitled “Talmud,” but the enterprise of learning Gemara is not necessary identical with that book.  Each of our models defined Talmud study in a different way.  For Rav Aryeh Ben David, Oral Torah means living Torah which speaks to the individual engaging with it.  For Rav Yehudah Brandes, Talmud is a method of analytical thinking and debating which infects one’s worldview.   For Rav Yair Kahn, it is a creative process which continues the work of, and therefore engages with, the Creator.   The varied definitions of Talmud reflect a variety of goals.  But they all share the assumption that learning Gemara is interacting with and being affected by a sacred book, not just understanding it.  
Creating an environment: To enable a move from learning about a book to interacting with and being affected by it, the most important factor is the student’s attitude.  He must be imbued with a sense of struggle and a desire to internalize what he is learning.  “The beginning of wisdom is fear of God.” [Ps. 111:10]  To a great degree, the responsibility and capability to do this rests firmly on the shoulders of the student.  When asked if she was affected religiously by the class, one student declared “Oh no, I am much too old to change religiously.”  Even if she went on to refine her opinion somewhat, the statement reflects a closed quality which a teacher will find difficult to overcome.   
Nevertheless, the teachers I observed went a long way by creating an environment of struggle by framing the endeavor as such and by assuming this posture personally in approaching the text.  True, the above student disclosed that she was somewhat closed to change.  However, in speaking to students who learned in a class where that was not part of the teacher’s agenda, I met with completely blank faces—the majority of them could not even identify with the question.  This was true even though the teacher himself had a thoughtful and well-articulated answer to the question.  Because it was not one of his conscious educational objectives, students were completed removed from it.
The rebbe-teacher relationship: Each of these methods can have a serious impact on the religious life of the student.  However, implementing these methods in one’s classroom successfully is not a technical matter.  One aspect of the oral character of the Talmud is the need for the teacher.  In effect, the teacher becomes not only the mediator but is also inseparable from the text itself.  It is the teacher who draws the pupil into the multi-generational dialogue and mediates it for him.  The medium of the Talmud to a certain degree is the teacher, and the teacher becomes mingled with the text.  For this reason students will often identify the inspiring aspect of the Talmud class is the religious personality of the rebbe and the importance of the rebbe-student relationship.  However, to make Talmud itself inspiring, it is not enough that the teacher be a great religious personality—that personality must also be seen through the Talmud itself.  Thus what makes the method convincing is the contagious conviction of the teacher.  This “contagious conviction” is so powerful that it can even make what might otherwise be a forced hakira inspiring and an otherwise perfect hakira will be equally uninspiring if the teacher himself is not inspired by it.   Thus, while all of these methods can be utilized effectively, this is only true if the teacher himself is completely convinced of its efficaciousness.
State the method explicitly: Because by definition the transformative nature of Talmud learning is a gradual one, it does not hit students over the head.  Most teachers, even those who think about these issues and their application in a concrete way do not speak about their objectives explicitly.  Some are hesitant to do so because placing these long term goals too much in the forefront of the consciousness can destroy their ability to organically develop.  
While it is true that an obsessive self-consciousness of learning’s impact can be destructive, it is also important to some degree.  When teachers state their goals and methods explicitly from time to time, even in the context of an occasional “digression” students are much more likely to grasp the place of the trees within the forest.  Students cannot be expected to intuit these goals through the day to day experiencing of them.  In every case where objectives were stated explicitly students were able to (sometimes retroactively) identify these beliefs as they played themselves out on a class by class basis.  However, no students were able to reconstruct these large-scale objectives without an explicit statement on the part of the teacher.  At best, they were able to confirm that these goals rang true after they were explained to them. 
Inspiration is personal:  All of the teachers whom I observed were outstanding and almost universally appreciated.  Nevertheless, they did not impact each student in the same way because what moves a student to make even a small change in themselves is incredibly idiosyncratic.  In cases in which the teacher himself was inspired, students were touched by a tremendous range of things.  While some students found a musar shmooze after a text inspiring, others found it redundant and insulting—“If the text speaks for itself, there is no need to say it a second time less well.”    
What is convincing at Machon Pardes may not be convincing at Bet Morasha, and vice-a-versa. Each teacher must be incredibly sensitive to her students and preferably implement a range of methodologies to reach the widest range of students.  My research showed that while both Israeli and American girls learning the year after high school are very eager to change and are searching for inspiration, women after university are much more closed to this inspiration and likely to prefer an entirely intellectual approach.  However, one commonality of many of the successful models I observed was their emphasis on the conceptual and philosophical rather than the dry halakhic elements of Talmud study, and the focus on the page of Talmud itself, rather than on the commentators.  These observations may reflect the inclination of the modern sensibility; alternatively, they may be a reflection of my own idiosyncratic preferences.  
The day is short, the task is abundant [mAvot 2:20]:  One thing that characterizes all of these theories is that they demand a tremendous effort to go beyond the text on the part of both teacher and student.  Yet maintaining a degree of momentum was also very important to the success of the class.  This need brought several of the teachers to make certain choices, both in the emphasis of skills building and in the selection of material for study.
Both Aryeh and Rav Brandes stressed the importance of not expending all of students’ energy on dry translation and deciphering of the text.  Skills are essential, but need to be acquired gradually and in small doses so that students will be able to simultaneously go beyond the text to more meaningful work.
Furthermore, almost every teacher who places impacting the religious life of a student beyond the classroom as a priority carefully chooses the masekhet so that the material will be important to the student.  Even the most mundane discussion of the meaning of a word may also make a contribution to creating a sense of ownership and participation in one’s tradition.  However, with the amount of Torah available for teaching, there is every reason to begin with subject matter which is important to the religious development of the students in the classroom.  This need not be an indictment of other material as irrelevant.  Different material will be important to different groups of people and at different points in their lives.  Those getting married will be especially excited to learn Ketubot, while those getting divorced will be especially engaged in Gittin.  Similarly, a generation plagued by its leadership may find Horayot especially pressing, while in times of drought Taanit will be interesting.
Of course, within a masekhet, discussions will always wander sometimes to subjects in which the pressing or eternal importance of the questions are less apparent.  Theoretically, there may be some cases in which the teacher may not be able to identify something pressing and relevant about the discussion, but this need not undermine the authenticity of the pursuit. If we have a belief in the eternity and organic nature of the whole, then perhaps it can be weathered if the eternal meaning of every section has not been uncovered.  Rav Brandes has an approach which essentially speaks to this dilemma—by covering a relatively large block of material and only focusing on a small section, one can find something eternal in the big picture, without either saying explicitly ‘this is not eternal” or “I cannot find the eternity” in this passage, but still maintain the organic character of the text.  For lower levels, it may be necessary to skip some sugyot in order to best utilize time, but again this may not be a statement that this sugya is not important—it may simply be a statement that given a very limited window of time, it is necessary to focus on particular sugyot.    
In sum, Talmud is a complex text and a complex process and one cannot expect a single answer to the question we have explored. However, one must find answers that ring true and are communicable to students.  It is possible for Talmud to facilitate religious growth in a number of ways, by focusing on the genre, the process, the content, and the rebbe-talmid relationship.  However, there is no guarantee that Talmud study will do so.  Quite the opposite, Talmud study can also be a dry intellectual enterprise completely isolated from the students’ relationship with God.  This may be true even for good students who enjoy studying Talmud.  I have provided a number of models which demonstrate the ways Talmud can contribute to the spiritual development of the student, but one might argue what is needed most is that the teacher approaches the learning with the assumption that the learning is intended to influence the individual—once the space is opened for that to happen, it can be filled in numerous ways.  As the Talmud itself states, talmud Torah has the ability to bring death as well as life [bShab. 88b].  May we all merit to learn Torah in a way that brings us continued growth and life.

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