21:
The second element in study "the Jewish way" is to study in tandem. After we have done our best to learn what has come before we must test our understanding of that learning against the understanding of someone else. It is for this reason than traditionally Jews try to learn in pairs, what is called in Hebrew
Ĥavruta. Inevitably, when we have to evaluate what we have learned we tend to assume that our own understanding of the material is the only one possible, or at the very least is the best understanding of all those understandings of the material which are possible. It is only by forcing my own understanding to be challenged by the understanding that someone else has of the same learning material that I will be able to best evaluate what is most likely the correct understanding of what has come before – in all its multifarious ramifications.
22:
It is interesting to note the different verbs used by Yehoshu'a ben-Peraĥyah in this mishnah. As far as a teacher is concerned he says we should 'create' one for ourselves. That is to say that the decision as to whom we select as our basic 'learning authority' is entirely up to us. (We must assume that under all normal circumstances any Torah authority we approach would be eagerly amenable to teach us, for, as Rabbi Akiva once said so picturesquely, "the cow wants to suckle even more than the calf wants to suck" [Pesĥim 112a].) But as far as a constant study companion is concerned the author of our mishnah says that we must 'acquire' one. In his commentary on our mishnah, Rambam puts it this way:
Our mishnah uses the term 'acquire'; it does not say 'create for yourself a friend' or even 'associate with others'. What it means is that a person must 'earn' a friend for himself [by himself being a good friend]… as the masters of ethics say: when you love someone it should not be according to your standards but according to the friend's standards. When both friends act this way each will want to do his best for the other.
23:
Only when we have absorbed what has come before and tested our understanding of it against the understanding of our companion can we proceed to the third element in Jewish learning, and that is making our own imprint on the material learned and discussed.
To be continued.
Still on the subject of matrism,
Gabrielle Harris writes:
From personal experience, it strikes me as very clear that in the context of orthodox and ultra-orthodox (and especially chabad) men, it is possible to get a very different reading concerning the directive to have only brief conversation with one's wife/other people's wives. If we turn it upside down and say that the underlying but unspoken premise is that the man is the one vulnerable to distraction and getting flurried if subjected to prolonged contact with a woman (no matter how pure and good), then he risks getting distracted from the job at hand, i.e. hospitality. I'm not sure I logically see a direct jump from "don't talk too much to the women" to "because the women are bad/inferior/temptresses" within the context. From a hopefully even-handed matrist.
I respond:
I am not sure that I understand why Gabrielle has implied a connection (even negatively) between "don't talk too much to the women" to "because the women are bad/inferior/temptresses". While I am sure that there must be some male Jews (and maybe even some female Jews!) who think along these lines I do not recall that we have made a similar connection in the present context of discussion. Also, in a modern and Conservative context, surely there is no difference between the duty of a male to practice the virtue of hospitality and the same duty of a female. Maybe I have misunderstood something here.
The discussion on Matrism is now closed.
In Avot034 I wrote: Last week I had an exchange of e-mails with a colleague who had been confronted by an orthodox person who insisted that the historical information given by our classical sources is to be accepted even when modern scholarship would have it otherwise.
Meir Stone writes:
I have heard more than once from Orthodox sources that the non Halakhic parts of the Talmud need not be believed. One source is Out Reach Judaism's movie in which Ramban says as much. (In this movie Ramban says more than once that he does not believe everything in the Talmud only the laws.)
I respond:
This is a link to a description of the movie of which Meir writes:
