Beneath the Surface

ה׳ שבט

So I realize that among all my pictures and anecdotes, I haven't really been telling much about my experiences of learning, which is, after all, my primary activity and purpose here. Part of the reason for that is because my life is so full that I don't often have the time and energy to sit down and write at length. More importantly, though, it's taking me a long time to have something to write about. That may sound surprising; what I mean is that although I do take time to process, to digest, to absorb, I haven't felt anything gel. I do feel like I'm learning, and I'm sure somewhere in my subconscious I'm growing from the process. I just don't feel like I have anything to give off because of it yet. However, I can comment on some of my learning activities:

I love being in involved in gemara again. It's sometimes frustrating that a lot of the technical knowledge I've been taught over the years has never stuck in my head, so that I'm constantly looking up the same terms and trying to remember where in history -- and corresponding hierarchical authority-level -- to place rabbinical figures. Nevertheless, my background in the subject does make it easier to break down the sentence structure and reasoning style of the text, and b"H I have an aptitude for much of the type of logic it contains. Our teacher is really, really cool...and I even have the z'chut, since last week, of having a chevruta with her (and in a masechet that I happen to like much better than the one we're doing in class). How that came about is a long story, but it's a great experience!

I love learning halacha. Until this year I had never opened a Mishna Brura (not going to explain that one; either you know what it is or it's too in-depth to bother explaining) or even a Shulchan Aruch (ditto), but our teacher has introduced both, with a much-needed, thorough explanation of the content & authorship of those and related volumes and of the structure of the entire collection of fundamental halachic texts. Furthermore, we don't just learn the texts themselves; rather, through various examples of the expression and analysis of laws on the same or related topics, our (brilliant, vivacious and holy) rav demonstrates how halacha is constructed. He truly illustrates the concept of Living Torah by revealing the type of process used by poskim throughout the ages to apply rationales from stated laws to infer an entire body of parameters. I spend most of every class saying "wow" to myself, and find it so frustrating that I only have it twice a week. I absolutely thirst for it.

So I'd like to be learning more gemara and more halacha. I'd also like be learning mishna with the Kehati commentary (a fantabulous sefer of gemara-summary that I only discovered this year), and I'd like to explore the Sefer haChinuch (a sort of annotated reference guide to the 613 mitzvot that I only heard about a couple of days ago). All sorts of things that I've heard the names of but never really associated with anything I knew about are coming alive and becoming exciting...

On the flipside, I'm struggling with an internal contradiction regarding Tanach: In principle I consider it hugely important to study. That's obviously an absurd understatement; it's the core of our religion, history and culture. It drives me crazy to hear about smicha programs that practically disregard it...but in practice, I find it extremely difficult to focus on. It sounds terrible, but tanach just doesn't hold my interest the way halacha and gemara do. Maybe I haven't found the right teacher...or maybe I haven't found the right part of my brain/heart to use on it.

And speaking of spirituality (and yes, I think that's what this is about), I'm having lots of difficulty with focus and kavana in t'fila. It's also very disconcerting to recognize such beauty in the teachings I am given, the teachers who give them, the homes I enter on shabbat and the families who welcome me...and yet to feel so disconnected at random other times. Oh, well...I can only get so far so fast, I suppose.

Hmm...I entitled this post "Beneath the Surface," although I'm not sure it goes very far under. It'll have to do for now, though. Hope all you friends of mine are doing well...I miss you.

Shabbat shalom!