Gemara Keywords

Hello Everyone,

I am writing to welcome you to our sessions on “Key Words in the Gemara.” The Gemara is the treasure-house of the Jewish people. The ideas, customs and practices which make us unique are found in the Gemara. There are many fine translations of the Gemara but these translations do not convey, and cannot convey the beautiful language of the Gemara. The Gemara is written in a very terse style. The most profound ideas are expressed in the fewest possible number of words. Therefore, it is well worth the time necessary to become familiar with the original Aramaic text of the Gemara.

And that is the goal of this series of classes. We will be studying the first chapter of the tractate Pesachim. This chapter deals with the halacha of checking our homes before the Passover holiday to make sure that no  chametz is present. In these classes we will not discuss the halacha – we will discuss the text. We will learn how to navigate through the unpunctuated text of the Gemara in order to follow the discussion. And the Gemara is a synopsis of discussions which take place over centuries.

I have been studying Gemara for almost 60 years and, I am very grateful to Hashem for this privilege. The Gemara is continuously new and I hope that I will be able to share  the experience of studying Gemara with you.

Before each session I will post a scan of the “standard” Gemara ( which was published in Vilna in the late 19th century) and a Word doc of the page. During the class we will read the Word doc ( which is punctuated and broken up into sentences) and then find the “key words” in the Vilna page and learn how to find our way through the unbroken text in the “standard” page.