Hello.

You raised two main arguments which deserve discussion, one by one. These are your claims:

1. In essence, there is a need for the study of Torah and the Talmud, financed by the secular state, though in more limited numbers. The reason for this study is that yeshiva students also study moral issues.

2. Most of the examples cited in the Daily Pilpul section are not included in the formal curriculum in yeshivot. (Implied is that they learn other things which do deserve financing.)



Now let us discuss your claims:



A secular state based on humanistic values, guided by the happiness of man, human dignity, and liberty for all people — man, woman, Jew, non-Jew, theist, and atheist… cannot financially support institutions which contradict these values. It would seem that there is no need to explain to any reasonable person why communal institutions which champion discrimination against women and the trampling of the dignity of non-Jews cannot be supported and encouraged. All you have to do is examine the messages taught as morality in religious and Charedi communities, as presented in our Religion & Ethics section. The trick of the religious to which you have fallen victim is in using the same terms to mean different things. The word “morality” is used by the religious to mean support of the Torah, encouragement of observation of the commandment and all the Torah’s details. Religious ethics and not universal ethics, not ethics in the true sense of the word, but rather the agonies which afflict a person who obeys Divine law. The verse “Listen, my son, to the moral teaching of your father” (Proverbs 1:8) is interpreted by Rashi to mean “Listen to what is written in the Written and the Oral Torah.” Woe to a secular state which encourages obedience to the Written Torah and to the Oral Torah, which by their nature contradict the nation’s laws, undercutting the rule of law for which the Knesset exists. Four hundred yeshiva students are as bad as tens of thousands of yeshiva students. Your statement “yeshiva students who use this (to my regret) legal loophole to get out of army service” should read “who use this legal but contemptible loophole,” as in “contemptible, but following the letter of the Knesset’s law.”



As to your second argument:

First I will explain the yeshiva day and its structure, and then I will explain the curriculum. At the end, I shall summarize.



A boy who reaches the age of 13-14 finishes his studies in the chiuch atmei framework, which is recognized by the government but not official; cheidar, Talmud Torah, or the El HaMa’ayan network of schools. Afterwards he goes to a yeshiva ketana for three years, and then a yeshiva gedolah until he marries. The framework of his school year is divided into three semesters (z’manim): Winter (Cheshvan-Adar), Summer (Iyar-9 Av), and Elul (Elul-Yom Kippur). That is why yeshiva students’ vacation is called bein haz’manim. The daily studies are divided into three parts. In the morning the students learn iyun (in-depth study, or so they claim). In the afternoon they learn b’kiyut (survey of broad swaths of material). In the evening they must study and prepare material which is to be learned the next morning. You must recall that all they learn, throughout the day, be it in-depth or survey, is naught but the Babylonian Talmud and its commentaries. There are no other books studied, not even Maimonides’s Guide to the Perplexed, and it goes without saying that they do not learn general studies; the opposite is true, and they come out strong against secular knowledge.

Another thing which it is important for you to know, and which also relates to your first argument, is that each day there is a mussar lecture given by the masgiach ruchani (spiritual supervisor) to the yeshiva students. It is meant to strengthen the students’ desire to learn Talmud, the details of the commandments, and Halacha. They are told to maintain modesty in the face of the secular public, not to read newspapers or watch television, not to surf the internet or read “external books” (any book that is not Judaica), to be careful and beware of sexual thoughts, to try not to walk in places known for spontaneous meetings with girls, and many other items which strengthen and support observance of the Torah. The ethical teachings of the mashgiach is laden with proofs from the Talmud. Thus, for example, they will support their warning not to look at women with the Talmudic quotation “Any who looks at the pinky of a woman is considered as one who looks at her sexual organ” (Berachot 24a). To support their warning not to go out into streets teeming with secular people, they cite the words of R’ Joshua, who gained longevity because he did not look at the image of an evil man [a secular person] (Megillah 28a).



Let us return to the structure of studies in the yeshiva. As stated above, the academic calendar is divided into three semesters. To illustrate and explain, let us follow the curriculum of a year’s worth of morning study sessions (iyun, as it is called in yeshiva. How amusing that yeshiva students delve within their gnat’s eye world of the Talmud and fantasize that they learn something “in-depth.”)

I asked a yeshiva student who recently gained his freedom which tractates he had learned in the last year of his studies.

In the Elul semester they had studied the first chapter of Tractate Ketubot. In the summer semester they had learned the tenth chapter of Tractate Sanhedrin, and in the winter semester they had learned Tractate Yevamot. At most these yeshiva students learned some 60 pages of Talmud (which could have been learned in a month or two). The Babylonian Talmud, in all its tractates, numbers 2711 pages, but a yeshiva student, after three years of study, will have learned at best 180 of those pages. After three years in a yeshiva a student will have learned only 6.6% of the Talmud. This statistic explains the truth behind your claim that yeshiva students do not encounter the issues raised in our Daily Pilpul section, but I will discuss that later. At this point I will focus on the lessons these students do learn in the official framework of their yeshiva.



Let us begin with the Elul semester and Tractate Ketubot.

The first chapter is composed of 14 pages. The issues studied are: on which day is a virgin married (Wednesday) and on what day is a widow married (Thursday). There is discussion about why these days were chosen. (Not only is this issue not relevant any more, yeshiva students do not come out of this discussion educated on the matter, because they do not learn the history of Chazal’s era, without which it is impossible to fully understand this issue.) They also learn the tasks a woman is obligated to do for her husband — pouring him drinks, making his bed, washing his face and feet, and that a menstruating woman does not perform these tasks lest the couple’s desires overwhelm them and they have marital relations. Is a man permitted to have an initial sexual encounter with a virgin on the Sabbath (see the pilpul Having sexual relations with a virgin on the Sabbath: permitted or forbidden?). The laws of the seven blessings said under the marriage canopy. What the rule is for one who marries a woman and in performing the initial sexual intercourse find “an open path” (her vagina was unobstructed, meaning that she had previously had sexual relations, though she had claimed to be a virgin). The laws of the ketubah: a virgin gets 200 zuz and a widow 100. What is the rule for a woman who has sexual relations with a boy under the age of nine — is she still considered a virgin? What is the rule for a girl under the age of three who has sexual relations — is she still considered a virgin, given that Chazal thought the hymen could heal itself? They also learn who is to be trusted when it comes to the woman’s and the man’s claims on issues of sex and of the ketubah. These are the topics studied during “in-depth” learning in the yeshiva. To complete the picture you must understand that even though they (sometimes) learn issues of practical Halacha, like the seven blessings recited under the marriage canopy, the students do not learn this in a legal sense or as Halachic rulings. These are “virtual” studies, with no connection to practical Halacha. Even when they do discuss matters of Halacha, they learn it as theory only. From the midst of yeshiva students, and this is something every yeshiva student knows, will emerge no religious arbiters.



Let us move to the summer semester, in which the tenth chapter of Sanhedrin was learned.

The topics studied are the death penalties mandated by the Torah for those who transgress commandments. There are four types of death penalty — stoning, burning, decapitation, and strangulation. The tenth chapter of this tractate deals with the laws of death by strangulation. The types of transgressions which lead to strangulation are discussed — one who strikes his father, one who kidnaps a person, a false prophet…This chapter also includes an issue which appears as a Daily Pilpul, One who shames a sleeping man who then dies.



We will conclude with the winter semester, in which they studied the sixth chapter of Tractate Yevamot.



The topics of study: How does a brother-in-law buy his brother’s widow, what is the rule if he accidentally has sexual relations with her, exposure of the sexual organs without penetration? If the brother-in-law fell from the roof and his sexual organ entered the sexual organ of his sister-in-law, who happened to be lying on the ground with her legs spread, is he now considered to be married to her? What is the rule for one who has homosexual relations with only partial penetration? Is a married woman who has been raped permitted to her husband? To a cohen? What is the rule for a girl under the age of three who has had sexual relations (see the Daily Pilpul An infant of under three years who has had sexual intercourse — is her hymen torn and healed, or does it not tear at all?. The laws of a High Priest who marries a virgin, and what the rule is if a girl has no hymen but has not had sexual relations; which women a cohen is permitted to marry…



You see for yourself the nonsense and lack of relevance in the formal yeshiva curriculum.



In summary:

Yeshiva students learn irrelevant things.

Unrealistic topics — “One who falls from the roof and whose sexual organ enters his sister-in-law’s sexual organ.”

Pedophilia, without accompanying condemnation from the teachers — a girl under three years old with whom one has sexual relations for the purpose of marriage.

Those topics from which Halachic conclusions can be drawn are not learned in yeshiva for that purpose.



Until now I have treated your claims based on your assumption that the contents of the Talmud in general should be separated from the segments which are studied in the official framework.

But this distinction is erroneous for several reasons. The Talmud, in the eyes of the yeshiva students, represents a canonic text, and it makes no difference if its entire contents have been studied or not. The very fact that they view this book as the word of G-d, that this book teaches how one should live, means that the contents should be brought to the attention of those who finance the study of this book.

Also, the rabbis and the older yeshiva students learn the entire Shas, including the issues raised in the Daily Pilpuls, with awe and compassion. From this they draw their world view and pass it on — consciously or unconsciously — to their students.

The students themselves, fascinated by the opinions of Chazal, strive to expand their “Talmudic knowledge” and try to learn more and more pages of Gemara, so that they are directly exposed to all the repugnance, abomination, and nonsense which we present as Daily Pilpuls.



For more on this issue see the answer to The new section, Daily Pilpil, challenges the image of the Talmud and the answer to Yeshiva students deal with empty Talmudic sophistry.



Sincerely,



Daat Emet