My Parashat HaShavua (Torah Portion) Preparation
Photo: Miriam Woelke
B"H
I am a person who has always been sitting down with books. As a matter of fact, I grew up with books and nothing has changed until today. However, for the past 14, 15 years, I have almost exclusively studied "Sifrei Koidesh - Jewish Religious Books". Gemara in a professional litvishe women's seminary and some courses at Bar Ilan University. I have participated in an academic university course about "Jewish Symbolism" but I have remained a Yeshiva person. I am not at all into Chavrutah but going to lectures of great Rabbis and sometimes university professors. I love it when the lecturers are professional and really know their field ! In other words, I am not wasting my time with people lecturing who actually know nothing and will always remain Internet Content Thieves as well as Wikipedia Fans.
Once I went to a lecture of such a person at the "Orthodox Union" in Jerusalem. A lecturer quite known in the modern "Orthodox" Anglo world. Whatever the person said sounded interesting although the person concentrated on many subjects at the same time. As a scholar or student in Judaism, you cannot do this but limit your research. However, some people don't even bother with research.
There were some subjects this particular lecturer mentioned and I became interested. As I always do, I got the right books in order to find out more. To my regret, I realized that he had made some vital mistakes. One huge mistake regarding the false Meshiach Shabtai Zvi and I noticed that this mistake has its roots in a Wikipedia site. Since, I am not too excited anymore about going to "any" class but choose lecturers according to their knowledge, background and amount of research. There are plenty of people lecturing and trying to sell any subject but do they really have a clue about what they are talking ?
I also think that certain specific information should not be published but remain within a small circle. After all those years of study, I have topics which I wouldn't publish and even if, only parts of it.
B'H
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the beauty of Judaism: You can all have all the Sifrei Kodesh of the world...but even at 90 yrs old, you will discover new things and new meanings. This si quite normal: G-d is infinite, and the Torah is His word, so even the Torah is infinite. You will never cease studying and learning.
Ashreinu, we are a blessed people, and the other religions don't have such deepness in their books. This is one of the reasons why they copy paste our Torah, but why we don't copy them. We have nothing to learn from them. We have an eternal and infinite Torah which can be understood by all, according to his/her level, all the days of our lives.