Wednesday, August 30, 2006

5 Jewish Book Beginnings

What follows are the opening paragraphs of five works relating to Jewish tradition, learning, and faith. See if you can name them. (Please don’t give them away right away if you know them, rather present hints for others.)

1. When I first completed this manuscript, I forwarded a copy and request for criticism to a dear colleague – a brilliant academician possessing extraordinary breadth and depth in the liberal arts. Months passed with no response. Later we met at a social gathering, and I asked him if he had reviewed the essay. His response was stunning. He said that he had not read the manuscript and probably would not, because he “was never bothered by the question” of the Torah’s origin.

How was it possible, I wondered, that such an inquisitive scholar could approach the origin of humankind’s most read, most published, and once most influential text with such unabashed apathy? A few weeks later, a teacher of mine who was aware of the project asked me, “Why is it important that the Torah was written by G-d?” Since then this essay has elicited many similar reactions.
Such responses reveal a double tragedy.

2. The subject of these essays is given in the title as “duties” – the duties of Israel. In Jewish parlance duties in general are designated Mitzvoth, an expression which immediately indicates what constitutes duty for Judaism and what the basis is on which all our duties rest. It is commandment, the commandment of G-d, that constitutes duty for the Israelite, and the will of G-d that is the sole basis of all our duties. And should any other basis for any duty be possible for the whole of mankind? Ought the idea of “duty” to be conceivable without the idea of “G-d’s will”?

3. Why another “aid” to Gemorah study? The question is a good one – and it is not by chance that we begin with a question. This book is meant, above all, to teach you to ask the right questions. To achieve a precise pshat (understanding) of a section of Gemara, one must first ask the proper questions.

4. We were sitting at a Shabbos meal. And I was relating to our guest some of the many stories that had been handed down in my family, and sharing with him a few of my memories of first generation American Jews. I mentioned to our guest how upset I had been with my uncle, who had been a virtual treasure house of family traditions and stories laden with precious teachings, and who had commented only a small fraction of these to writing and took the rest with him to eternity.
“You are critical of your uncle,” our guest said, but aren’t you guilty of the same thing?”

5. The writer says: I have written this work not to teach men what they do not know, but to remind them of what they know and is very evident to them for you will find in most of my words only things which most people know, and concerning which they entertain no doubts. But to the extent that they are well known and their truths revealed to all, so is forgetfulness in relation to them extremely prevalent.

8 Comments:

Blogger SS said...

#5 Mesilas Yesharim - we musthave gone over that single paragraph about 30 times when I was in sem.

August 31, 2006 at 2:55 PM  
Blogger rabbi neil fleischmann said...

Yes, SS! He goes on to say that what he's written needs to be read and reread.

No other guesses?

September 1, 2006 at 6:39 AM  
Blogger Uri Cohen said...

You said you want hints. Okay, here goes.

#1 is by Lawrence Kelemen.

A word or phrase of each of these titles is included in its beginning paragraph:

#2. Duties
#4. Generation

P.S. At first I thought #3 was Aiding Talmud Study. But I checked, and it's not. Must be one of those newer guides that I don't have.

September 2, 2006 at 2:12 PM  
Blogger rabbi neil fleischmann said...

#2's hint is not correct - duties isn't in the title.

the other hints are well done.

3 - the Talmud guide was published by Schappel's/Darchei Noam in 1988 (after having existed for a while in unpublished form).

September 2, 2006 at 9:02 PM  
Blogger SS said...

The aiding talmud is called Understanding the Talmud, I think, and it's written by Rabbi Feigenbaum, who taught me in high school. We actually have it in the next room and I could have checked before, but I guess I'm just lazy...

September 4, 2006 at 1:43 PM  
Blogger rabbi neil fleischmann said...

Thanks for the visit and comment SS.

Rabbi Yitzchak Feigenbaum. I'm guessing he was your teacher in Toronto.

It's a good book. One of the ideas that's come and gone over the ten years that I've been at the same school (b"ah) along with one of the administrators that's come and gone is the idea of using that book to really focus students in on the mechanics of the Gemorah...

The book also has a place in my heart because I frst learned of it from an old friend who was learning in Schappel's when the book existed in an underground, unpublished form...

September 4, 2006 at 5:07 PM  
Blogger Uri Cohen said...

Okay, time's up. (It's been 2 weeks.)

#1 is Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen, Permission to Receive.

#2 is Rabbi S.R. Hirsch, Horeb.

#4 is Rabbi Abraham Twerski. Generation to Generation.

BTW, it turns out that the reason Rav Hirsch starts by saying "The subject of these essays is given in the title as duties" is because the original subtitle of Horeb (in German)was "Essays on Israel's Duties in the Diaspora." So it was a trick question.

September 11, 2006 at 2:46 AM  
Blogger rabbi neil fleischmann said...

Thanks Uri. All correct. I didn't get that "duties" was in the title so the questioner was tricked by the question.

September 11, 2006 at 6:01 AM  

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