Rambam Mishneh Torah: Hilchos Talmud Torah Chapter 1 - Q & A

the yeshiva.net [Music] didn't rashi teach his daughter's tarda of course the rambam said no in other words you have to understand who this woman is who this girl is what they need in order to be able to become the person they're capable of becoming this is not a blanket statement excluding women from tyra as i just explained redmayer had a wife brewery and the gemara ghazal described how she used to she was an exceptional learner throughout all the generations there were absolute exceptions and some of them were extraordinary exceptions we're not talking here about again a blanket statement talking about appreciating who the girl is who the woman is and what she needs most in order to be able to live a fulfilled life let me add something we don't believe in the concept that everybody has to copy everybody else just because somebody else is doing it that's not how you work in life you have to figure out what's really the best thing for this person i know it's not politically correct to make any differences between women and men but judaism doesn't buy into that because there are differences and not differences where one is better or one is worse but just differences of character differences of biology you can't deny that differences of disposition differences of nature different types of souls so there's mitzvahs that relate to men there's misters that relate to women there's mitchells that relate to both of them there's mitzvahs that relate exclusively to one gender more than the other here it's not a blanket statement black and white but the realm says most women at least in this time this is what tayo shabalpal would do there are other times where things are different today we know sarah schneider founded the basiaco school movement some were very opposed to it what you're teaching girls torah and yet most of the gdalia israel at the time the belzero of the gary rebecca the kafitzkai and rebecca moise grazinski the previous labacher the rabbi rayats and many many other israel embraced it enthusiastically because they realized in the early nineteen hundreds pesach was founded in krakow in 1917 by sarah schneider she went to the belzerov and her brother thought that the belzerov will you know dissuade her from doing something so foolish and idle and he actually blessed her with success what was happening is the boys were going to yeshivas and even many of the boys were lost to all of the you know modern systems and cultures and isms but the girls were going to public schools and many girls were just leaving yiddish guy they were having an education if the girls are home all day with the bubba and the mama learning center and then preparing for shabbos and yum tiff and weaving sweaters and taking care of the babies fine so the whole culture was that way but the moment the girls were out there going to theater and going to school and going to exercise classes and learning culture and reading literature and becoming experts in many disciplines of wisdom and sciences and others now when judaism doesn't compete on that level what do you have you have sophisticated educated women who are making a major impact on the world but in terms of jewishness they're completely deprived of their jewish heritage their jewish faith and the indispensable contribution they will give to the jewish world as future wives and mothers who will build a new generation in a way that only moms can do and not dads even stay-home dads with all the respect of that so that's when they realize that judaism for women has to become a very serious academic discipline and everything changed and all the earliest all understood this nobody's going to quote this grammar and say oh you see what the wrath is close all the girls schools even cherish myself don't teach kumish nobody says that and even the hungarian rabbis who were then opposed to it yeah take the satmir of rebuilders he created a whole girl system by surukel here in and not here in muncie but here in new york today also in muncie but here in new york korea whole scroll system according to his understanding and his way there was some disagreements what they should learn how they should learn etc why why put them to school his grandmother didn't go to school the answer is because he realized we're living in a completely completely different generation if you're not going to elevate and inspire the girls you're not going to have a future to the jewish people so this is not a statement a blanket saying that girls should not be learning terra on the contrary it's a statement that you want to teach in a way that is applicable to the soul of the person it shouldn't be misused so you have to know what the girl needs what the woman needs to remember is describing most women why because that was the nature of most women the way they were brought up in general society whether we like it or we don't like it today all jewish sages without exception from all circles and all backgrounds who will not divert one iota from shulkin or rambam or mishnayus or gemara have changed the policy for good reasons i hope this makes it a little clearer next question somebody wrote here 14 comments on on the payrique which i read before this year i think i addressed some of them to the best of my ability i really really appreciated your comments wonderful wonderful remarks and questions and insights in the comments section of the yeshiva.net beautiful beautiful thank you thank you i think i addressed most of your questions now i think a lot of your questions not all but most of them beautiful questions thank you i didn't address one question which is a big question why does the rambam start these and only in allah does he get to the kiov the rabbi starts with women slaves and miners are exempt from talmud that's how he starts off is that the way to start of the halacha like why start off with those who don't have to do it is about learning so the ram should have started every jewish man is obligated to learn tara that's how he should have started or at least earlier where he says that just like you have a mitzvah to teach you son you have a mitzvah to learn yourself but he starts off with everybody being those who are exempt from tired and then he says but a child he's exempt but his father has to teach him it's a valid question you'll see the same structure very difficult to understand why would they start off this way you would expect start off it's a mitzvah on every single jew to learn tired and then you can add and there are those who are exempt from taina the pastors the answer to this is because learning today is unique from all the other mixtures all the other mitzvahs a child doesn't have to do the rabbis obligated parents fathers to educate their children and other mitzvahs as well educate your child to bench educate your child to put on sitsis educate your child to darwin educate your child to keep shabbos educate your child in all of the 630 mitzvahs whatever we do age-appropriate fine even though he's not obligated till bar mitzvah is the only exception the torah commands the father this is the only mitzvah from the 630 mitzvahs where there's a biblical obligation to teach it to your child even before bar mitzvah no other mitzvah has that you know that fascinating in other words when does the obligation of tal material begin in my life not when i'm 13 when i start talking turrets ilana and even if that's madeira bonan at least when you could educate me you could teach me torah that's why the rambam begins with a child's obligation to learn to hit an obligation on his father because simply and age-wise learning traitor that i have to do is a mitzvah when i'm an adult but here there's a geval deca novelty in tomato when i'm a baby or at least when i'm a young boy that's a unique only mitzvah that you're as a child because my father is to teach me so that's why their album actually begins with chronology he begins with the earliest time when i learned tired when is that not as an adult not when i'm a mitzvah but i'm a child so that's why he begins as a cotta furthermore if i didn't learn as a child it's going to be very hard for me to learn myself as an adult i'm going to have to learn i'm going to have to find a teacher i'm going to have to train myself the ability for me to learn tired of myself is because i was taught it as a child again there are exceptions but that's generally how it works so that's why the rambam begins with the cotton the cottonwood however if he starts off right away that a child is to learn toyota then you would make an error you would think that a child has obligated himself and tired and a child is not obligated his father is obligated so the rambam first has to explain the exemption that a cotton himself is take exempt however his father is much of the teacher now once the rambam is saying that a cotton is exempt as the system of the rambam he tries to include things together she already says everybody who's exempt but he right away says aval cotton why i say avo because i'm telling you taka that they're exempt but my main point is but a cotton is not really completely exempt because his father is obligated typhus and based on this you can also explain that that once he becomes a child and he recognizes the value of turner there's a fear on him because really to defeat him even earlier but it's not on him it's on his father but how does the father fulfill his obligation through the child learning so it's not an obligation on the child it's an obligation on the father but what's the obligation obligation is that the child should learn toyota so it's like an obligation on the father and the child together so this is a very unique mitzvah and that may be a source why the rama molds that yakir the child himself as is there's another element another element i would add here and that is according to the rambam in his minion ah mitzvahs in the beginning of say for hayat what's the source that you have to learn today yourself the rambam here brings all the mother to my son right that's what the rambam says that if your father didn't teach you but the rambam in safer hamitzvis and in the list of mitzvahs the beginning of you know what he brings he brings the possibility one is to teach my children and i see here also my students and it's also the mitzvah to teach me to teach to learn myself that i have to master the tortoise i should be able to really be an expert teacher that means we see from here that the pussac that tells me that i should learn myself is the same person that tells me i should teach my child in fact the words are vashinata lavanacha and from there you learn the mitzvah that i should learn myself at least it's one of the main sukkah from which you learn the mitzvah that you have to learn so if the main source of the obligation of toyota is from the shenandoah vaneka teach my child so the random therefore starts off with the obligation to teach my child because that's vision that could be another reason in addition to the first reason that lima data is unique that it's the only mitzvah in atera that begins when you're a child and that's why the rambam starts it that way because it starts as a child doesn't start as an adult the question is why is attacker that mitzvahs talmud is so different that limu data is connected to a child and not only that the obligation to learn toyota is learned from the passive mission that's a great great question and i'm going to present to you very very briefly a long beautiful answer that we once heard from the laboratory he said this uh shabbas was saying the summer of 77 and also 1978 it's printed in the cote city's volume 19 and very briefly there's something unique about terra which doesn't exist in all the mitzvos every mitzvah is about an action to do or something to say usually whether it's blowing schaefer whether it's reading the magilla whether it's benching whether it's getting stuck or putting on filling toyota is unique what is taita taita is a mitzvah on the person that i should actually take my mind and use my brain to understand hashem's torah that's what tyra is the mitzvah of toyota is essentially that a person uses his mind to comprehend hashem's divine infinite wisdom that's why the prerequisite of toyota is for a person to be completely humble for me to realize that learning toyota is not about learning what i want to no in order to confirm what i believe what we call bias confirmation that's not learning title learning title is now that i should find a source that acquiesces and surrenders to my uh my preconceived notions and conclusions and convictions that's the antithesis of toyota toyota is that i want my mind to be able to grasp and comprehend and become aware of the divine will and of the divine wisdom and therefore the first prerequisite for learning is absolute humility it's a thirst it's a yearning to be able to know that there's something that transcends me and i want to understand it this is true about all science and wisdom but especially with toyota because you're talking about infinite divine wisdom that is essentially transcendent there's no way that a person with his or her limited faculties and intellectual cognitive abilities can grasp infinity unless there's an absolute humility and an openness to be able to understand whatever i can understand and if a person doesn't do this you could use the toyota for the wrong reasons it's called magala panama territory that's why hazal have to make a bracha before you learn before i learn i have to say i have to realize that it's divine wisdom that i need to humbly tune into this is not only important before i start learning it's also critical throughout the entire time that i learn because when i'm doing a mitzvah i'm doing a mitzvah shem said i should do something i should do it but toyota i have to actually use my mind i have to use my creativity i have to use my individual way of thinking about things trade is all about your personality your mind it's really using your brains you can't suppress your brains and just follow obediently and blindly try it is not learned blindly you have to learn try it and understand and if you don't understand you say i don't understand selection in other words it's something that really requires human participation and involvement and creativity and here there's always the danger that my biases and my own desires and my own ego should actually blind and eclipse my ability to stay tuned to the truth of toyota to the point that i become so convinced that i'm right that if somebody argues with me they're not arguing with me they're arguing with toyota in other words my ego can take over and i can start thinking that every idea of mine is tired and if somebody disagrees with me it's absolutely immoral it's against the title and the truth is i'm being bothered because you disagreed with me i'm being bothered because it's an egotistical issue so therefore whenever i learn i have to always be permeated with the humility that it's never about me and me being right it's always about the truth i should never allow the bribery of an ego or any other form of bribery to eclipse my true dedication and commitment to toyota and this the laboratory explained is the reason why we see that the mitzvah of toyota is the only mitzvah that hashem tells us in the torah begins not when you're adult it actually begins when you're a child and it begins the moment you start speaking the moment you start speaking you don't have very developed cognitive abilities at least on a conscious level you don't have the methodology and research and analytics and rigorous study and analysis that happens later what does a child have a child has more than anything else the openness and the humility to absorb everything which is why children absorb everything they're like wet sponges they take everything they take everything and they remember it for life that's why children remember things much better than adults because it goes in and it penetrates so the traitor says that limu data is something that starts as a child why because this tells me that the beginning of today does not have to do with intellectual genius or maturity or development or creativity the foundation the beginning of is the bitter it's being a cotton it's like a child a child is eager a child is thirsty a child doesn't do bias confirmation you can feed a child everything unfortunately you can induction rate a child a child's brain is just open that's the foundation of tyra the foundation of tyre is as a cotton as a little baby an infant who's just starting to talk and is learning about the world with this infinite curiosity and inquisitiveness that's when you start learning because that's actually the foundation of trade and this bittle doesn't have to do with how brilliant you are or how mature you are or how old you are it exists by every single jew even muhammad infant who can start talking because he has an ashama which is a helical and is open to torah that's number one number two the mitzvah of you learning yourself you also learn from the shining level because the torah is saying even when you're learning entire it has to be i'm teaching a child always remain a child even when you're learning so the mitzvah for you learning yourself also comes from the mitzvah somebody teaches toyota to a child it's like ink written on fresh parchment teaching toyota to an old man is like is like ink on old parchment it's a race it's been erased many times so it doesn't get absorbed and they ask the obvious question what's the mishna trying to say i understand you're trying to encourage people to teach toyota to little children but why deplete the enthusiasm of an elderly man who never learned tighter throughout his life and now he wants to learn tired as an older person what are you telling him oh the paper department has already been erased and erased the ink is not going to be absorbed like what's the point of the mishna why just you know drain him from his energy okay unfortunately he didn't learn as a child so encourage him like why would the mission to put in the statement of alicia benavoya it's like you know you're a lost case forget about it so okay i'll give up i mean is that what you're trying to do is that what the prick elvis is trying to teach us encourage the positive that people should learn when they're young people should teach children when they're young what's even the kids do you need a mishna to tell you that when you're young you can absorb information much easier and much faster you know how many languages children can learn when they're young now try learning 10 words in a new language when you're older it's not going to happen our neuroplasticity as they say is just not the same when we're children and we're adults so the laboratory explained that the mission is saying something much deeper it's not talking about age it's talking about attitude i could learn toyota as an old person and i could learn toyota as a child learning turret as a child means i have the ability to be open to be fresh my paper my parchment is fresh i don't come into the sheer with my old toxic thoughts i don't have to bring in my old paradigms that force me to take all the new information and reduce them and limit them to what i know and if it doesn't fit in i either shut down or i reject it learning toyota as a child means i always could be a child even when i'm old completely fresh it's like i never knew anything i'm completely open to absorb new ideas that may challenge me to the core because i'm ready for transformation because i'm a child that's why the rambam and the both begin with with the mitzvah of teaching a child tata number one because halogenically that's when it starts you start as a child unlike every other mitzvah you don't start as a child only number two because the mitzvah of learning yourself comes from vishinath and the explanation and all of this is because the foundation of toyota the uniqueness of taylor is that you learn it as a child because it's the openness to the bittle the humility to hashem who's and even when you're learning to always be that cotton in some to some degree in the sense that i have that freshness that humility i don't have to fit it in to my preconceived notion i want to fit it into my squareness and to my box and to my old paradigms but rather there's a freshness i'm ready to really hear newness i'm ready to be open to infinity to ensigf that's a brief a brief uh insight of the laboratory in the opening of the rambam why is banach him why is it sons not daughters because it says ben is a son and a boss as a daughter could have said imagine so we see here that the mitzvah is only to teach your sons not your daughters so we have no mitzvah to teach the daughter why is there no mitzvah to teach the daughter because she's also not obligated to know if she was obligated to know the torah there would be a mitzvah to educate her just like there's a mitzvah to educate my sons so hazal also say just like she's not mitsuva to learn you're not mitsuba to teacher and since she's not mitsuba to learn and you're not mature with the teachers you're also not commanded to teach somebody else this is a gemara suggestion that's where the ramen took it from the rambam says to learn and then get married the man should learn turtle first before getting married but toyota's study is lifelong even after marriage toyota study is always something one should do so does it really matter if married first or married later i understand what the ramen was saying about learning toyota before marriage no obviously there's a big mitzvah to get married and to start building a family but the rambam's point is that if the eight sahara is not bothering the person they can dedicate as much time as they can to learn torah and then they should get married of course in every person that could be different there are different customs and different communities but that's the basic idea but the moment you are not serene enough or spiritually focused enough or intellectually honest enough to really learn then the rambam says get married how are we allowed to sell a safer of toyota which is tereshabalpe well the one who sells a safer he bought the safer so he bought the safer so you're saying he bought truth but he's now let us sell truth he's selling the book he paid for the book and he has to make his prognosis so what do you want he should give away the book for free so now he's going to lose money he's not going to be able to sell anymore and he won't be able to support his family the rambam believed that you shouldn't get money for teaching toyota which is why the rambam was first a diamond merchant and then he became a doctor that's true they say that rashi also had a partner some say he was a winemaker without being judgmental maybe it's okay today because we just can't do it any other way so that's the justification for charging and it became the status quo yeah it's true the rambam certainly believed that the ideal situation is that every rabbi and every sage and every teacher and every every rabbi and every judge should have a source of income and revenue without uh charging the students or the community that's what he really believed believed this that fastly he didn't believe it changed but many other rabbinic authorities including the quest of mr who discusses this felt that under many circumstances that has to be changed many men still believe that women are second class citizens why why do they believe so i can't answer the question but the same gemara that speaks about teaching territory about pet to women also says bini ish et cetera et cetera why are women not obligated to learn a woman who doesn't learn would experience a huge void without that learning i would get lost in kashmir's and not encourage my children to be from my aunts did not learn they used their mind for law my uncles were sent to learn in poland the children of my aunts who were not sent to learn raised children who were not religious you're right and that's why i explained that women are obligated to learn all the mitzvahs that relate to them and women are obligated to learn anything of yiddishkai that relates to their life which between you and me is plenty an enormous amount uh in some areas of jewish literature it's the majority of it so in that sense she is obligated there's no obligation on the woman just to learn turner in and of itself in other words the obligation on the man is to use every single moment and to know the whole tereshabuksab and the whole tereshabal and the whole talmud and never stop until he dies and use every moment for that yiddish guy realized that the woman's primary contribution to the world and jewish life is creating the tomorrow creating families creating children raising them creating a jewish future and giving them their identity their moral identity their physical emotional psychological and spiritual identity to tell a woman that you are obligated to take every single moment of the day and learn torah that the territory feels would deprive a woman from giving her the empowerment and the ability to be able to fulfill what is her primary contribution to the world which is continuing civilization and contributing and making sure that we have a healthy and vibrant future and jewish tomorrow which is the most important thing obviously because without that there's absolutely no future so the mother is the foundation of the house the foundation of the marriage the core of the family and the one that guarantees the future of the jewish people should a woman learn of course she should learn if she's not inspired if she doesn't know how to do her mitzvos she's not going to be able to do it but as an independent mitzvah just to learn learning for the sake of learning and never stopping to learn and mastering more and more and using every moment for that that's an obligation for the man and not for the woman because the toyota recognizes that a woman's life is very very different there's a lot of emotion in a woman's life there's a lot of attachment in a woman's life a woman feels very very responsible a woman is really caring holding the foundations of the world and you have to be very sensitive and respectful of that toyota is oxygen for the soul the father has to learn toyota before he can teach his son because he's the transmitter of the messiah and the chain from hashem to myself from generation to generation if i don't learn toad i break the chain that is like what the flight attendant says on the airplane if the oxygen masks come out of the overhead put your own mask on first because if you try to save your young son before you save yourself you're both going to die that's why learning terror is so important that why the father has to learn before he can teach the child tyra is the same put your own mask on first and then you can teach the child that's how i understood about learning yourself before you teach your child and before hiring a teacher to teach your child unless you see great success coming from your child and then the priority should be your child and you should just make times to learn by yourself that's a very good example thank you very much for that clarification according to the ramchal in maimur haguala women are second class only in galas in gaulah the status of man and woman will be equal as was meant by hashem that's what explains i would say it a little deeper according to kabbalah actually in the cave with the slave of governor when mashiach comes the cherish of malchus will be revealed and malchus is higher than zom so actually the milo of the nikkei will be revealed over the zohar when you say second class citizen even in gallows that's not true it's not second-class citizen it's a different type of avoidance hashem in the time of mashiach everything will be revealed as what it really is so we'll see the absolute unity of women and men each one fulfilling their unique contribution in their own indispensable way but that certainly is a very interesting essay of the ram khal known as ula the fact is the women today learn terrorish about cemetery the fact is that in most girls institutions they have a rigorous curriculum of tereshabiksaf sometimes much harder than the boys and many many jewish schools have a pretty intense curriculum of shabbat including so many parts of halocha and so many parts of ashkafa and this is done with the sanction and encouragement and enthusiastic blessings and often ideas of all of the daily israel the great terrorist sages of literally all backgrounds within the terror world without any protest why if somebody tries to reform halacha they protest why don't they protest here i explained this at length before because this is not about a black and white prohibition against women learning toyota at all it's rather doing the right thing in order to make sure that our girls and our women are getting the oxygen that they need just like our boys and men need to get the oxygen that they need in order to be able to live happy fulfilled lives as human beings and as jews spiritually and also materially because a life of titus study is not just a successful life spiritually it's also a successful life materially and psychologically and emotionally everybody have a beautiful day this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at www.theyoshiva.net donate