Yeshiva Days: Learning on the Lower East Side

Jonathan Boyarin is a scholar of Yiddish, an anthropologist, and a professor of Judaism at Cornell University. Yeshiva Days is an account of his Talmud study at the Yeshiva Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem near his apartment on Manhattan's Lower East Side.The book is well-written and readable, considering that Talmud is an almost technical subject. Boyarin manages to capture the substance, style, and experience of Talmud study. I could see this becoming standard reading for university-level courses Judaism and on comparative religion.Some background for those who are not Orthodox Jews: he Babylonian Talmud was compiled between the 3d to 6th centuries CE and is written in Aramaic and Hebrew. It consists of two parts, the Mishnah and the Gemara. The Mishnah lays out legal rules and rabbinic legal decisions in shortened form. Orthodox belief holds that God spoke this law to Moshe on Sinai and that it was passed down as an oral tradition. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Judaism lost its physical center. The rabbis known as the Tannaim started to write the law down around 200 CE. The Gemara consists of debate and elucidation of the rules and legal opinions in the Mishnah and was compiled by rabbis known as the Amorim.In the pious and traditional Jewish world, Talmud study was considered the most worthy use of a man's time. This was especially true in the learned and severe Lithuanian tradition, relative to the Hasidic one. In some households, the women worked on a family business while as many of the men as possible studied full-time. In traditional Jewish Eastern Europe, Talmud study was a big deal, and the prestige of Talmud learning continued after WWII in Orthodox communities in Israel, the United States, and elsewhere.Boyarin manages to capture something of the special quality of Talmud study: the struggle to parse and understand the text and then the further struggle on occasion to understand the relation between the several rabbinic debaters and commentators. Students at a yeshiva study the Talmud in a small group, or at least with a partner, and sometimes under the leadership of a rabbinic scholar. The idea is to unravel the text and commentaries and discover the meaning together. The Talmud describes the ancient world of the Temple, of agriculture in Israel, and of life in Babylon (Mesopotamia / Iraq). In studying this record, the students can build, as Boyarin puts it, “a shared imagination of the past.”This brings me to one of the last conversations I had with a family elder, who was studying Talmud with a group in. He was concerned by a passage on the cleanliness of the Temple in Jerusalem on feast (sacrifice) days. "How was it" he asked me, "that the place wasn't infested with flies"? He reminded me that 'it's hot in Jerusalem on Sukkoth, and meat rots fast.' I wasn't sure if this was an expression of doubt about the truth of the Talmud's account. Or perhaps he was baiting me for claiming that the holy ritual of sacrifice was a giant public barbecue, where the priests taxed the people in meat. I think he was both awestruck and puzzled by the power of the holy place to scare off flies. This underlines the ambiguity of Talmud study for modern people: are we talking about religious Truth, or debating objective questions?It matters whether the Mishnah is the literal word of God or whether it's just a legal and culturally traditional text. The meaning, moral weight, and experience of Talmud study must be different from a perspective of faith. Boyarin’s book speaks to the meaning of the traditional practice of Talmud study. But I keep asking myself, what's the meaning of the Talmud --the Law itself?A further problem is the Amorim and Tannaim’s claim to speak, in effect, Torah from God. They appropriated God’s authority, isn’t this an act of super-chutzpah?

As a woman and therefore forbidden to study as Professor Boyarin did, I felt priviledge to be an onlooker at his multiyear somewhat sporadic immersion in the Lower East side Yeshiva. His anecdotes were memorable as was his humility and willingness to share his occasional discomfort at being prehaps the less learned among his peer. However the writing was clumsy at best and sometimes felt as if it was ineptly translated from another language( Yiddish?) and would have benefited from editorial scrutiny. And often his descriptions of conversations were frustratingly abbreviated. The reader was left with saying " So the what happened?" Maybe a next book will finish the conversations.

Dr. Boyarin is an anthropologist, a tenured professor at Cornell University, and this book is the story of the year spent learning at Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem (MTJ) on the Lower East Side of New York City. He refers to this year as his “Kollel year.” For Boyarin, learning Talmud and codes is part of his DNA. Kollel study is a time after simicha (rabbinical ordination) for post-graduate study. Boyarin wasn’t a rabbi, but this period was after he earned his Ph.D. and J.D. degrees. Since Boyarin was writing about MTJ he sought the permission of the Rosh haYeshiva, Rabbi Dovid Feinstein, who was the son of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, MTJ founder. Sadly, Rabbi Feinstein passed away on Nov. 6, 2020.While this is an academic book, Boyarin is careful to explain every Hebrew or Yiddish term and has a glossary for the general audience. He not only tells of his personal experiences but his also teaches the reader some points of Jewish law (halachah). The collection of stories are told to illustrate the people and community where he lived and studied in and his feelings and analysis. It is not a chronological report.My only complaint is that this book is too short. I would like to know more about his study partners, MTJ, and the community. Some conversations are too abbreviated. One can read this book for recreational reading or to learn about community. The Lower East Side has long passed its role a place for new Jewish immigrants and a center of Jewish life in New York. Most of the former institutions have moved or dissolved. This book will give the reader a taste of what yeshiva learning is all about for an adult. This book is recommended for personal, synagogue, and academic libraries.Daniel Stuhlman, MS LS, DHLLibrarianTemple Sholom of Chicago