Torah study
Dec. 24th, 2001 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioThe Saturday-morning group (well, a subset of the people who come for the service) studies Torah for a little while after services. This group started 13 years ago (long before my time there) at the beginning of Bereishit (Genesis), reading a few verses at a time, sometimes spending months on a passage and sometimes going more quickly. They spent 6 months on the flood, I'm told. I remember spending about as long on the revelation/10 commandments, at least a month of which was spent on Shabbat alone. So overall, it's been slow and thorough. Last week we finished Shemot (Exodus). So this past Shabbat we had a party (siyum) to celebrate, and we had a discussion (not yet resolved) about what to do next.
Some people want to go ahead to Vayikra (Leviticus). A lot of people find this book distasteful, but it is part of the Torah and there is stuff in there other than laws of sacrifices. And, well, if it only takes us 3 or 4 years to do Vayikra compared to the 6 or 7 spent on each previous book, that's not a problem. You can probably tell that this is the option I favor.
The other popular opinion is that we should study the portion of the week. The problem with that is that the weekly portion is typically several chapters, so any short discussion (we don't spend all day at this) will of necessity be either cursory or very tightly focused. I think what's going to happen is that a separate parsha discussion group is going to form out of this group (and others). Our congregation already has a weekly parsha discussion, but it's lunch time on a weekday so lots of us can't make it then. So they're looking for an evening slot, or maybe Shabbat afternoon (late, timed to end when Shabbat does).
There is a minority movement to study prophets instead of Torah because, well, we basically never do. It's an interesting idea but doesn't seem to have the required support. This ought to become more of a focus in the adult-ed program, though.
One person (and no, it wasn't me) advocated studying Talmud.
We'll continue the discussion next week, though presumably over less food. :-)
Some people want to go ahead to Vayikra (Leviticus). A lot of people find this book distasteful, but it is part of the Torah and there is stuff in there other than laws of sacrifices. And, well, if it only takes us 3 or 4 years to do Vayikra compared to the 6 or 7 spent on each previous book, that's not a problem. You can probably tell that this is the option I favor.
The other popular opinion is that we should study the portion of the week. The problem with that is that the weekly portion is typically several chapters, so any short discussion (we don't spend all day at this) will of necessity be either cursory or very tightly focused. I think what's going to happen is that a separate parsha discussion group is going to form out of this group (and others). Our congregation already has a weekly parsha discussion, but it's lunch time on a weekday so lots of us can't make it then. So they're looking for an evening slot, or maybe Shabbat afternoon (late, timed to end when Shabbat does).
There is a minority movement to study prophets instead of Torah because, well, we basically never do. It's an interesting idea but doesn't seem to have the required support. This ought to become more of a focus in the adult-ed program, though.
One person (and no, it wasn't me) advocated studying Talmud.
We'll continue the discussion next week, though presumably over less food. :-)
Re: My vote...
Date: 2001-12-25 06:00 am (UTC)I think the only way parsha hashavua could work -- given that people won't commit to homework -- is to study a small part of it in some depth. Not the depth we've been doing, but a cursory pass over the entire thing would be unsatisfying after what we've been doing. And if we just pick a small chunk each week, what are we really accomplishing? We're jumping around and skipping bits.
This week's vs. next week's parsha: yeah, that came up too. I got the impression that the people who want to do this are fine either way; they just want to be in sync with the rest of the world.
Studying the prophets is an interesting idea. Were they thinking of a "haftorah of the week" thing, or starting with Joshua and going on?
Both came up, but I think most of the sentiment was for the latter. If we're going to go this route I'd rather just start with Joshua and go, too, for the same reasons as above.
But in the end, anything we choose will be fine with me. I have preferences, not aversions. It's all good! :-)