The Yeshiva

The Yeshiva

Description

Yeshiva life is a life of an ongoing conversation, a conversation that takes place in the Beit Midrash—a large, simple study hall where students sit and study. In the famous and big Yeshivas the Beit Midrash holds a few hundred students whose ages range from 16 to 40 years old or even older. The conversational mode of study is created through the institution of the havruta (in which students are divided into pairs). The pairs or partners spend twelve hours a day or more reading together the Talmud and its commentaries, exploring its meanings and debating its complexities. Thus the choice of one's partner is one of the most crucial decisions in the intellectual life of a Yeshiva student. The discursive mode of study is not restricted to the individual partner; questions and answers circulate across the Beit Midrash. It is very common for students to move around in order to discuss a problem with another havruta who has earned a reputation in the study hall. Since the whole Yeshiva studies the same tractate from the Talmud, the Beit Midrash becomes a microcosm of a cross-generational give and take. Young and old often discuss the same problem, which circulates around the hall as the issue of the day. The Beit Midrash can be compared with another arena of study: the library. Libraries are areas where silent reading and isolated reflections on a text take place. Movement and noise are minimized as much as possible as they are considered a desecration of the silence of the sacred space. The Beit Midrash is noisy and full of body language, where study is experienced as a communal activity. The accumulation of the dozens and sometimes hundreds of small havruta discussions creates a steady and loud background noise for the observer an impediment for learning - for the participant, almost a necessity for concentration. The movement of hands, the shaking of the bodies, the different ways of leaning on the “stender” (stand) the variety of facial expression ranging from a concentrated face troubled by a difficulty with the text to a triumphant and joyous smile of discovering a novel insight, all constitute the choreography of the Beit Midrash. This rich body language adds a dimension of physicality to the act of learning never experienced in lecture halls or libraries. The conversational mode of the Beit Midrash affects the nature of frontal teaching at the Yeshiva. Students spend most of their time studying with their partner the same page of the Talmud that will be taught by their teacher in the classroom. The average ratio between hours of frontal lectures and time spent in havruta study at the Beit Midrash is approximately 1 to 20. Many students invest more time preparing for class than their teacher, developing their own ideas, and coming to their lesson ready not only to listen and learn but to argue and be heard. A usual class in the Yeshiva will quickly turn from a well-ordered presentation of the teacher into a lively and sometimes chaotic exchange between a few bright students and their teacher. The classroom does not function as the presentation of the truth by the all-knowing scholar imparting knowledge to ignorant or less knowledgeable receptacles, who write down all he says uncritically. Yeshiva learning is conversational in yet another sense. Students do not write exams or papers at the end of a term. The evaluation of the students and the ranking of their achievements occurs through the students' participation in the ongoing exchange in the Beit Midrash. The close and intimate knowledge among students of each others' capabilities and achievements is remarkable given the lack of any systematized form of evaluation. The steady oral exchange, however, creates a reputation, and forms a clear picture—who is sharp, who is hard working, who is lazy and who is out of place—well known to the participants in the enclosed space of the study hall. In addition, writing is rare in the Yeshiva even when it comes to summarizing the teachers' classes or the students' own ideas. Teachers reading their lectures from a prepared text is a rare event. The lack of writing highlights another feature of the Yeshiva. In the Beit Midrash ideas come and go, questions and answers are raised and forgotten. When the same tractate is to be studied again in the next cycle of learning, teachers are expected not to repeat their old readings but to innovate. A good teacher and a bright student are not known for a particular thesis or theory which they have advanced, but rather for their unique style of teaching and approach towards a talmudic discussion. It is no wonder that teachers are selected and promoted not on the basis of written publications, but on their oral reputation in the Yeshiva world as sharp and knowledgeable Talmudists. In the Yeshiva both students and teachers own their talents and knowledge, not their ideas or theories. Since being a Yeshiva student is being a contributor to an ongoing discussion at the Beit Midrash, older students and partners are far more crucial to the initiation of a student than teachers. Socialization at the Yeshiva occurs through successful integration into the stream of conversation at the Beit Midrash, in mastering its rules and in internalizing its discourse. There are no introductory classes to the Talmud at the Beit Midrash and there is no methodological orientation, 3 any entrance point in the conversation is as good as another.

Source Publication

Philosophers on Education: New Historical Perspectives

Source Editors/Authors

Amelie Oksenberg Rorty

Publication Date

1998

The Yeshiva

Find @ NYU

Share

COinS