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well, here’s what I think. For most people, daf yomi is a waste of time. For people who don’t spend all day learning the daf-in depth and until halacha l’ma’aseh(and that’s the vast majority of people) it is an illusion created by he yetzer hara. A person thinks he is ‘finishing’ masechtos when in truth he knows almost no Torah at all. How many people making the ‘siyum’ on shas will actually know shas, or even one masechta, or I dare say-even one perek? Instead, the precious time spent daily on Torah study should be focused on aquiring knowledge of halacha l’ma’ase like shabbos ribbis issur v’heter ona’ah yichud tahara brachos etc. Slowly, day after day, with a serious commitment, one can become a very real talmid chacham. The yetzer hara knows this and therefore gets people to ‘learn’ daf yomi, make siyumim, and provide the illusion of knowing vast amounts of Torah, when in truth one remains more or less the same am ha’aretz he was 7 and a-half years ago. We are not fooled or impressed by grand ‘siyumim’ at big stadiums or ‘frum’ newspapers and magazines and organizations telling us what a big kiddush hashem it is. Instead I suggest we start having shiurim on halacha topics that matter, mixed with words of aggada and yiras shamayim as all jewish communities did from time immemorial until recently when this was all substituted for the daily daf. This is all one big illusion and I must say the yetzer hara has succeeded to a very great degree and ain potze pe u’metzaftzeif. It is time we stood up for the honor of Hashem and the honor of his Torah. I welcome your comments and intelligent remarks.
Do you know anyone, notably a rov, that shares your opinion on this?
You are mixing two issues. Daf Yomi may be superficial, but that does not necessitate learning halachah. You might suggest learning less than a Daf, but deeper.
And while you are entitled to dislike the idea, the Daf was instituted by Gedolim, who knew that people were not spending many hours on it, so your calling it the work of the yetzer hara is out of place.
Longarekel, i don’t think you should so easily bash so much of k’lal yisroel and lemaiseh it is a kiddush Hashem when so much of klal yisroel gets together to make a siyum.
if there wasn’t such a thing as daf yomi which sets a goal, i’m sorry to say this, but i think a lot less people would have keviyus itim latorah. look how many people are learning because of this! Also, why would you just bash all the se people? do you have a specific reason?
Aha, So you have a more clear picture of it, than Reb Meir Shapiro Z”L.
I gotta disagree on this one for numerous reasons. A large majority of daf yomi learners work full time and have very little extra free time, that one hour a day of torah that their learning is a tremendous source of chizuk for them. Not everyone is made to sit and learn gemera in depth and some people just want that sense of learning every day.
Daf Yomi serves more then just “creating achdus for klal yisroel”, it is the sole source of learning for tens of thousands. Of course its easy to say that its never enough and people should do more, but think about how many of the daf yomi people wouldnt learn at all if not for their daily daf. This is their connection.
Additionally people in fact do become more learned by learning daf yomi, they obviously dont remember everything but trust me from personal experience they know a lot more then they had before.
Im not saying that people shouldnt learn halacha lemaisah, but dont be so quick to discredit the daf your just putting down a positive behavior.
If you truly feel the way you do, maybe start a halacha yomi shuir (or something of the sort) but please dont put down something which is such an integral part of many frum jews lives
ok i should have read your post clearer my apologies. I understand what your saying it makes sense, but i dont think its such an issue. The fact that so many people are learning anything is so amazing despite the fact that they can be learning something else, i think that the purpose if daf yomi is more to give people a set seder to leanr regardless of what their really learning
Wasn’t it the CHOFETZ CHAIM who said he is mekane Rav Meir Shapiro’s chelek in Olam Habo, since Rav Shapiro will be crowned there with all the Mesechtes, whereas till then most Mesechtes were neglected and unlearned?
I am not a big fan of the way daf yomi is learned today either, but I am not as cynical as longarekel either. There may be better ways for average balebatim to acquire torah knowledge but the daf yomi program has had a lot of success in getting people to be koveah itim (even people who you wouldn’t expect) and that is nothing to knock!
I would also like to point out that halacha l’mayse does not need to be the goal of your limud (it can be if you like). torah l’shma is learning for the sake of understanding the torah you are learning (at least that is how the nefesh hachaim defines it). If people are dedicated to learning pshat gemara, rashi, tosfos- or understanding the lomdus on the daf that is also great.
What he means is that the daf has become what has become of chukk yisrael. people daven it up and gain nothing, and if that could be fixed, it should.
Hi longarekal.
Your passionate view is well-made and understood, making a good deal of sense.
On the other hand, anything that encourages people to sit down and even look at words of Torah, as well as bringing people to take on Daf Yomi, who might otherwise procrastinate their learning, has merits.
The depth of one’s understanding would be the responsibility of each person.
It would be difficult to measure just what is and is not gleaned by learning Daf Yomi. Certainly, a lot of ground is covered.
What is better? Learning a few things deeply, or learning many things, and covering more ground with a moderate understanding of those things?
I agree, and by the same logic it’s a waste of time to learn Mishnah B’rurah because it is spoon fed and superficial.
I have heard the complainers yapping about this for years and you know what, they don’t learn anything; not g’mara b’iyun and not shulchan aruch because they say that they will only learn the real deal, for which they have no time for.
But these complainers promise, when they have the time, it will be the real thing and not the daf or Mishnah B’rurah.
Daf Yomi is a daily comittment of learning. Yes, it’s best to also have other learning shiurim and most of us do. For so many of us, the daf give us an insight to the tens of thousands of concepts and links to the written Torah that we otherwise would never have, and that those who don’t learn the daf will never have.
To borrow a line from the political world: Please don’t make the perfect an enemy of the good.
great line midwesterner
S’koach. By the way, it was Voltaire over two hundred years ago… Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.
Nearly every rebbi or rosh yeshiva I have ever had agrees with longarekel, and made their views clear in shmuessin and what not. Heck, I even wore a “do the daf” cap one Purim in high school because I knew it would get under their skin.
longarekel, i basically agree with everything you said. i just want to add 2 points:
1. the daf yomi system has been elevated to such a madreiga that many people actually consider it the highest form of limmud hatorah. the result is that many people who can/should be able to learn much more (both in terms of breadth and depth) simply remain in the daf yomi system, blowing through masechtos, and never fulfill their potential.
2. on a related note, a big factor in the popularity of daf yomi is artscroll. now anyone can easily jump right on to the daf yomi train. while i admit that this is great for those wtih no background and would otherwise never be capable, there is a whole generation of people who continue to learn with artscroll instead of ‘graduating’ to the real thing. besides the obvious absence of ameilus batorah when learning from artscroll, many, many people are never going to acheive their true potential in torah learning because its just so easy to pick up the artscroll. i’m embarrassed to say that i know several people who are referred to by others as ‘talmidei chachamim’ who would break their teeth on a gemara without artscroll. its really just sad. again, i am all for opening up torah to everyone (like the gemara where they added 400 benches to the yeshiva when the entrance requirements were loosened), but we need to recognize that while artscroll might be a ‘sam hachayim’ for one person, it might be a ‘sam hamaves’ for another (in the sense that it is preventing them from reaching their potential)
The mere fact that vast amounts of Gedolei Yisroel sit on the dais at the Siyum HaShas in New York, Eretz Yisroel and many many cities around the world. Including almost the entire slate of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, both in the U.S. and in E.Y., speaks volumes about their support for the Daf Yomi system.
And to top that off, not that the above point even needs any additional support, the total lack (or close thereof) of any public dissenters, against the Daf Yomi system by any Rov of stature, speaks volumes too. Their silence is deafening.
Their silence isn’t. Anyone who went to a mainstream Litvishe yeshiva has heard these things before.
I sent to major mainstream Litvish Yeshivos and never heard this before.
Anyone who went to a mainstream Litvishe yeshiva years ago would know that that in addition to the iyun sedarim, there was also a b’kius sedar which is similar to the amount covered by the daf. I wonder also if many of those in yeshiva rabbeim positions today are familiar with all non-yeshivashe masechtas and inyanim covered by the entire shas. Ahem.
From personal experience (a womans point of view), i see a tremendous difference in those that sit in kollel all day and those that work all day and learn the daf a day.
Again this is my own personal view of the people i know, love, and care for (brothers, brothers in law, husband, father, father in law, grandfathers, and a couple of neighbors and friends)
I noticed that the men who learn the daf and cant learn all day because they’re busy making a parnassah for their family, they learn with a greater geshmake than those learning in kollel.
I am in no way putting down those in kollel! They learn with a tremendous geshamke, but the working men who wish they could learn but cant, really appreciate the time they have in the beis medrash.
Again, I am not bashing men in kollel!
miritchka – I’ve been in many shuls etc on Sundays, I don’t see them overflowing with those who really wish they could learn more…
“I know plenty of people who learn in kollel even though they have no geshmak but do so only because that’s what Hashem wants them to do.”
In my opinion, people like that should not be in kollel. G-d doesn’t want you to be miserable.
1 Daf Yomi was not invented by Rav Shapiro or the Chernobyler Rebbe it was in fact the Chortkover Rebbe zya.
2 For me who is busy working all day it is alifeline. No i do not understand or remember every word but when things come up in my other limmudim such as Chumash Rashi I remember some related gemorrohs from the Daf quoted by Rashi in chumash and the experience is exhilarating!
3 It leads on to other limuudim such as Halacha like you correctly suggest which are important and mussar etc.
4 The Keviyus/regularity is very important
if done correctly, the daf is wonderful. ive been in several shuls learning while the daf was going on and ruba diruba of the men are dozing or checking their email on their bbs. thats not called correctly. and men in koillel learn 10-12 hours a day and learning that much is tough, even if you have a geshmak. i bet you all my money in the world that if those baalibatim you know would learn ten hours a day for five months theyd also need a break. its not that they bi’etzem have more geshmak, its that an hour a day is a tease and only a morsel. its like finishing the meal after the first course; they want more. theyd be stuffed after the second, whereas a yungerman, a good one, isnt stuffed until hes had two portions of dessert. gedolim also took breaks. im gonna stop typing this cuz its getting me mad.
I agree with the longarekel in theory. But I believe that metzios is that there aren’t enough people that are able to give over a shiur every day in halacha lema’asa. In my mind, it’s easy for any Joe Shmoe to give over the daf, but to give over halacha p’suka in choshen mishpat, orach chayim, yoreh deah, is much harder.
g73: I would also like to point out that halacha l’mayse does not need to be the goal of your limud (it can be if you like). torah l’shma is learning for the sake of understanding the torah you are learning (at least that is how the nefesh hachaim defines it).
Yes, I agree that halacha lemaysa does not have to be the goal of all your limudim. But for 99% of baale batim to learn only Torah Lishma is a churban. Because I highly doubt that more than a couple percent know most of mishna brura. And that gets whittled down even further when you consider how many of those know halacha lema’ase in Yoreh Deah and Chosen Mishpat. So to learn “Lishma” and to remain an Am Haaretz should not be our goals in life. Many mussar sforim mention that’s its not enough to just be a good person. One must also learn the halochos to get anywhere.
uneeq- Torah lishma is the greatest darga. to decide otherwise based on some logical explanation is downright wrong. what your emotions tell you in regard to learning torah lishma is also wrong. Torah is meant to be learnt lishma, fartig. knowing halocho isnt called not learning lishma.
Those who learn daf yomi have learned many years in yeshiva and kollel but continue to learn post yeshiva, which also includes daf yomi.
But some people like to complain all the time and find issues with anything that’s good. Oh, was I just quoting an anti-semite?
But, it seems that longarekel is right and thousands of Rabbonim and Poskim who are involved in daf yomi are wrong.
uneeq: In the shul I daven in, we don’t rush from mincha straight into maariv every evening. There is a break in between, where the Rav gives a shiur in halachah l’maaseh. It isn’t a very long shiur, maybe 15-20 minutes, but it is only on halachos that apply in our daily lives.
As for Baal Habatim not learning halachah, I think the bigger churban is the kollel guys not learning it. After all, these are the people who are supposed to become the next generation of Rabbonim. Let them learn halachah so they can become poskim! Gemara b’iyun is not the only thing that needs to be learned.
Toi: You missed my point. All learning should be done lishma. But an am ahaaretz in halacha should decide to learn halachos, which can also be learnt lishma. I would think one who doesn’t care about his personal obligations to god, is not really learning Torah Lishma. It’s learning Torah for his own personal reasons, such as personal enjoyment, not enough time etc.
See Rashi Avos 1:17 on “Velo hamidrash hu ha’ikar, ela hama’ase”, that one who does the mitzva is greater than the one who learns and doesn’t do the mitzvos. I would say that one who doesn’t know halachos doesn’t do pretty much any of the mitzvos properly.
Also see the bartenura in the same spot. He says exactly my point that one who learns only gets most of the reward for actually doing the ma’asim in the end.
you all assume that everyone has to be a talmid chacham.
you all assume that everyone has to learn the same things and the same amount or their leaning is worthless and superficial.
you all assume that your derech halimud and the derech halimud of your respective yeshivos is the only correct derech halimud and everything else is just a bunch of sheep playing talmid chacham.
longarekel: what is wrong with you? lets break down your criticism of daf yomi.
so some people have mentioned that if not for daf yomi many people wouldnt learn at all. if thats the case then daf yomi is a wonderful thing–because of course you would agree that limud hatorah is a wonderful thing–but no. youre completely discounting the benefits of daf yomi in favor of some lofty ideal where you live in a world where everyone knows kal hatorah kula. good luck with that by the way.
so more people are learning, but according to you theyre learning the wrong thing. assuming theyre actually interested in knowing halacha they will find time in their day to learn some. assuming they dont care that much but know that they have to be kovea ittim, then mitoch shelo lishma ba lishma, and your ranting is useless because they would never have learned halacha anyway.
some other genius mentioned that every litvishe rosh yeshiva is against daf yomi…that person is wrong. patently wrong. i spent some time around rebbeim who were a bit critical of daf yomi, but it wasnt the institution that they disliked, it was the fact that these people dont learn more. FOR WHATEVER REASON. the ideal for every rebbi and rosh yeshiva is to produce talmidim who never leave a beis medrash, and while that ideal is nice, it is completely unattainable and they know it. so they spend as much time as possible trying to convince as many students as they can, and one way of doing it is by saying “do you wanna be a daf yomi sheep, or a true talmid chacham?”
the choice is loaded of course because if you asked them outside of their roles as rebbeim, they would tell you that daf yomi l’maaseh is a wonderful thing–the fact that the person left the koslei beis hamedrash is what isnt wonderful. the fact that he needs daf yomi isnt wonderful. not the fact that daf yomi exists.
so knowing the entire shulchan aruch is a prerequisite for learning gemara? im sorry…i may have missed that in Intro to Judaism 101. last i looked, the mishna berura and shulchan aruch often make references to topics in the gemara and expect you to have some knowledge of those references. how would one have knowledge of those references if they cany learn gemara because they must learn halacha instead. bit of a catch 22 wouldnt you say?
so what you must want is a balance of the two, which i already addressed above.
So, basically it’s all or nothing….If you can’t devout your entire day to learning, then better to not learn at all…
longarekel,
well, here’s what I think. For most people, daf yomi is a waste of time.
I would be very careful about bashing other people’s learning like this. If my toddler gives me a picture of me and her holding hands, and in the typical toddler style they are two heads with long stick legs sticking out and the arms coming out of the sides of the head, and I know it took her only 5 minutes to draw it, I would be delighted by her attempt to connect with me in her own way. If an older sibling insulted the picture in front of her – after all, there are much better ways to draw a picture – I would feel upset with this sibling.
Yes, I understand and even agree with your concerns. One should not stand in place, doing nothing to rise higher. One who CAN learn on a deeper level should. The 15 year old shouldn’t think that a 5 minute stick figure drawing fulfills his obligations towards his parents. Still, the way you worded things was hurtful and derogatory towards those engaged in the study of Hashem’s Torah, and I don’t think that’s what Hashem wants us to do. There is a reason, after all, that the rebbeim you know are discreet about their concerns.
For people who don’t spend all day learning the daf-in depth and until halacha l’ma’aseh(and that’s the vast majority of people) it is an illusion created by he yetzer hara.
These are pretty strong words. Are you implying that the gemara should be closed to those who don’t have all day to learn it?
A person thinks he is ‘finishing’ masechtos when in truth he knows almost no Torah at all.
This may be true for some. It may not be for others.
How many people making the ‘siyum’ on shas will actually know shas, or even one masechta, or I dare say-even one perek?
I think that to put siyum in quotation marks is quite derogatory and uncalled for.
Instead, the precious time spent daily on Torah study should be focused on aquiring knowledge of halacha l’ma’ase like shabbos ribbis issur v’heter ona’ah yichud tahara brachos etc.
This is a valid argument, and I’m sure that a person serious about his learning discusses his learning with his rav.
Slowly, day after day, with a serious commitment, one can become a very real talmid chacham.
This is also a goal that can be corrupted by the yetzer hara. The ultimate goal of Torah learning is to come closer to Hashem, whether or not you have the ability to become a talmid chacham.
The yetzer hara knows this and therefore gets people to ‘learn’ daf yomi, make siyumim, and provide the illusion of knowing vast amounts of Torah, when in truth one remains more or less the same am ha’aretz he was 7 and a-half years ago.
It’s not the daf yomi that causes this, but rather a person who doesn’t grow from his learning. Some may grow learning the daf, others may need to use a different approach. Interestingly, there was a thread here in the CR a while back where the OP complained of the exact opposite: of yeshiva classes that “kvetched” over a single sugya for the whole semester, leaving the rest of the gemara a closed book.
I personally lean towards the more in depth approach. For me, I find it more important to make a piece of gemara mine, to get it down and understand it, then to cover a lot of ground. I certainly wouldn’t bash other people’s learning, however.
We are not fooled or impressed by grand ‘siyumim’ at big stadiums or ‘frum’ newspapers and magazines and organizations telling us what a big kiddush hashem it is.
I think this comment risks being an insult to the gedolim who attend the siyum, and who consider it a big kiddush Hashem. Are you smarter than them?
Instead I suggest we start having shiurim on halacha topics that matter, mixed with words of aggada and yiras shamayim
I think this is a great idea, and there are such shiurim in my community (and they don’t compete with or have rivalries with the daf yomi shiur, either).
as all jewish communities did from time immemorial until recently when this was all substituted for the daily daf.
Gemara wasn’t studied in previous Jewish communities?
It is time we stood up for the honor of Hashem and the honor of his Torah.
These are nice words, but make sure to not stand up for your ideas of honor while stomping on others’ honors to Hashem and His Torah.
Logician: i said this was from my personal view. It was not a general statement that all men in kollel dont have the same geshmake-keit as one who works nor is it that eveyone that learns the daf learns with more geshmake than a kollel yungerman.
Longarekel: Thats true. And isnt it amazing that although they have such a busy and hectic life with working and helping out their families they still go out to learn after/before work, sometimes as early as right after the first possible shacharis or close to 10PM! We cant be teh judge of why someone leaves kollel or doesnt go altogether, but we can see how wonderful it is when they do go…
etzhar: keep it up! its great that you can keep the seder!
Toi: Lets not put anyone down. Isnt it a great idea that the time that working men put into the daily daf is with complete concentration and geshmake? I think the mesiras nefesh these men put into it is really amazing. On the other hand, kollel yumgerman also have mesiras nefesh in a different way. One of my points about why i think the daf yomi is so wonderful is that it gives even those who cant sit all day learning (for whatever reason), a daily dose. While learning all day is hard, it can become mitzvas anashim me’lumadav – a practice that comes from doing it so often that its missing something – so lets not put anyone down.
Toi,not fartig!The Poskim in S.A. say that ba’alei batim who have only 3-4 hours to learn should learn Halocha le’ma’ase, and not only Gemora. Everyone, including bnei Torah, must know Halocha in order to know what to do! You can’t be yotzei just with boich pilpulim in the Reb Chaim’s chidushim!
“Torah is meant to be learnt lishma, fartig.”
Anyone who learns Temura, as we are doing now, is learning lishma, fartig.
Great, so your maskim.
Feif Un: Look at my first post. I agree with you. I don’t think there’s enough people that are knowledagble enough to give over a halacha shiur everyday. There should be. For me that’s the only problem with Longarekel’s idea to switch from Daf Yomi.
Stam to add a bit; Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s son Rabbi Yitzcak said that if one learns Daf Haoimi the proper way then its excellent. The right way is calm and learn the halachos from the gemorra etc.
<i>there is a whole generation of people who continue to learn with artscroll instead of ‘graduating’ to the real thing. besides the obvious absence of ameilus batorah when learning from artscroll, many, many people are never going to acheive their true potential in torah learning because its just so easy to pick up the artscroll. i’m embarrassed to say that i know several people who are referred to by others as ‘talmidei chachamim’ who would break their teeth on a gemara without artscroll.</i>
Even though I may not be world’s greatest learner, but a Tzuras haDaf is so ingrained in my mind, that I won’t know the Gemoro, just from reading down the English side of an Artscroll nor Soncino. ………. In the olden days, when you got stuck on a word, you went to a Jastrow dictionary. ……… Nowadays, even when learning from the Aramaic side on the Tzuras haDaf, one looks at english side of an Artscroll Gemoro.
The Reality is, one has to be proficient in basics, such as Chumash Rashi & Gemoro learning, and not just be spoonfed by Artscroll.
However, for luxuries such as Ramban, or Yerushalmi, or Baal haTurim, which never was on the curriculum in the past, this is just fine utilizing an Artscroll, as for most of us, short of Artscroll, we would never learn Ramban nor Yerushalmi nor Baal haTurim.
As far as Daf Yomi being too fast pace, follow my method:- Pick say every 4th or 5th Messechto, and then prepare it up front, timing your self to conclude it before Daf Yomi reaches it, and then utilize opportunity of Daf Yomi, as an aopportunity for Chazoro, to cover that same Messechto a 2nd time over.
There are many Mesechtos in Sha”s that were “neglected” until Daf HaYomi came along and took them out of the attic.
Uneeq said “In my mind, it’s easy for any Joe Shmoe to give over the daf.” I’ve been learning daf yomi for 20 years or so (with some gaps). While it’s certainly true that there are Joe Shmoes who give over the daf, there are also true talmidei chachamim who do so. Personally, I’d choose the talmid chacham over Joe any day.
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