“Why learn Gemara?” is a question most ba’alei teshuvah will ask themselves in the course of their Torah study. It is rather unlikely that Gemara inspired the ba’al teshuvah to take his initial step towards Torah. He was probably attracted to Torah by the beauty of its ideas about life, purpose, self-knowledge and relationships. Having decided to put his life on hold to learn more Torah, he now finds himself in front of a large, intimidating volume comprised of two foreign languages, with discussions on obscure details of various laws that he is likely never to encounter. And there he sits, somewhat bemused, wondering, “Why this is so important?”
Although a great deal of appreciation for learning Gemara comes from actually doing it–ta’amu ure’u–and for this there is no substitute, nonetheless a good orientation is certainly required. The Torah is Hashem’s will, and the process of elucidating His words connects us to Him, irrespective of the particular subject in question. In addition, it should be stressed that every area of Torah is impacted by one’s inability to learn Gemara.
Rashi is the most basic commentator on Chumash. Yet many Rashis flow like a Gemara–and many more are direct quotations from the Gemara. These Rashis may well remain inaccessible if one has not acquired the ability to analyze a gemara.Moreover, any given biur halachah (elaboration of a halachah) on the most relevant halachic topic can often read like a Tosafot; such a work too would be off limits to one unfamiliar with Gemara methodology. This is certainly the case with regard to the “new” halachic questions that are so prevalent due to technological advances and societal changes. In general, the newer the question, the “older” the answer will be, as one needs to explore the roots of the particular sugya (topic) as found in the Gemara, to deal with cases that the Shulchan Aruch didn’t address.
In the realm of Jewish thought, Gemara is also significant as it contains much machshavah (Jewish thought or theology), the full impact of which is only gleaned if one is sensitive to the nuances of diukim (deductions) and hava amina (original suppositions) upon which the Gemara discussion is based. To this end, it is worth demonstrating once in a while how the principles in the sugya have bearing on everyday life, e.g., the concepts of kinyan chatzer (acquiring something when it enters your domain) and keilav shel lokeach (a vessel that belongs to the one who wants to possess it) as they would relate to loose change found in a soda machine, et cetera.
Having decided to put his life on hold to learn more Torah, the ba’al teshuvah now finds himself in front of an intimidating volume comprised of two foreign languages, with discussions on obscure details of various laws that he is likely never to encounter.
This leads to another question: How much of the ba’al teshuvah’s yeshivah day should be devoted to Gemara? The answer would seem to depend on how long the student has been exposed to learning. The yeshivah where I teach–Machon Yaakov in the Har Nof section of Jerusalem, under the leadership of Rabbi Beryl Gershenfeld–consists of a two-year program. In the first year, although emphasis is
placed on introducing students to the study of Gemara, it is within the context of a well-rounded curriculum of Torah subjects, e.g., Chumash, halachah, hashkafah, et cetera. The second-year program focuses significantly more on Gemara, with most of the day devoted to iyun (analysis) and bekiyut (widespread knowledge) although there are still slots for other Torah subjects as well.
A major obstacle for the newcomer to Gemara is vocabulary. The student may still be struggling with basic Hebrew, and now he is now confronted with Aramaic! For a young adult with an analytical mind, it can be especially frustrating to be unable to read more than a few words. There are no quick solutions to developing a Gemara vocabulary. Many teachers use vocabulary sheets that may be very useful for making the sugya at hand more digestible, but they rarely yield enduring gains. A wonderful idea 