On the translation of scholarship to pedagogy: The case of Talmud.

摘要

It is argued from the perspective of the pedagogical theory that derives from Joseph Schwab and finds expression in the work of such Jewish and general educators as Seymour Fox, Joseph Lukinsky, and Lee Shulman that a strong familiarity with the diverse types of advanced Talmud scholarship is valuable, if not essential, for the competent teacher of Talmud, even at the beginning level. From a general theoretical point of view, to know a discipline entails knowing not only the data of a subject matter but also, and just as critically, the methods by which the data are classified, connected, and interpreted. On a more practical level, the types of difficulties even beginning students will encounter can be satisfactorily handled by the teacher only by recourse to diverse scholarly sources.;The theoretical argument, the background of and basis for which is laid in the Introduction to the present study (Chapter One), is made by means of a practical demonstration, through a series of three chapters. In each of the chapters a lesson of Talmud, utilizing a passage taken from those passages that are commonly taught to beginning students, is developed. In each lesson attention is divided between the steps a teacher must take in preparing the text for understanding it and assessing its educational potential, and the steps a teacher must take in adapting the text and the materials that are pertinent to interpreting it for the purposes of pedagogical presentation. The lessons are constructed to demonstrate, in addition, that handling difficulties that might at first seem to involve only technical matters can be made into the foundation for a meaningful, conceptual class discussion.;Chapter Two treats a passage from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yoma, dealing with the confession of the high priest on the Day of Atonement. The confession includes two textual deviations from the classical rabbinic sources in the familiar High Holy Day prayerbook. To handle the one textual dissonance, we turned to the Brisker commentary on the Tosefta by Yehezkel Abramsky, the Hazon Yehezkel; to handle the other, we turned to the Tosefta commentary by Saul Lieberman.;Chapter Three treats a passage in Tractate Megilla concerning the question of whether or not to recite the Hallel liturgy on the festival of Purim. Certain difficulties in following the argument were resolved by the source critical research of David Weiss Halivni.;Chapter Four deals with two types of problems in the chapter of Tractate Pesahim that enumerates the questions a child is expected to recite at the Passover meal, the seder. The first difficulty is textual, involving differences among the early rabbinic sources concerning the content and language of the child's questions. The second, related, difficulty is historical--what historical changes have occasioned the textual changes that are evident even to a beginning student? The comments of the standard rabbinic commentators as well as the more sophisticated historical scholarship of Gedaliah Alon lead to highly plausible solutions to the difficulties.;The conclusions (Chapter Five) reflect on certain pedagogical tendencies that emerge in the development of lessons by the present writer and underscore the implications of the present study for the training of teachers, both in general and in the subject matter of Talmud.