Rav Rosensweig, Yevamos and me

To be honest I was not excited when I realized that this year at YU they are studying Yevamos, which is the tractate on the topic of yibum, in which the brother of a man who died without children has an obligation to marry the widow.

It is one of the tractates that during the daf yomi cycle I studied a bit and in some ways to me exemplifies the seemingly trivial and overly complex nature of Talmud study.

At first I had decided that I would not try to follow along with Rav Rosensweig, but after listening to his introduction, I am re-energized. As always he did an amazing job in beginning to explain the overall importance of yevamos.

History of the Torah She'be'al Peh (Oral Torah)

Just finished this 7-part series History of the Torah She'be'al Peh by Rabbi Hershel Schachter. He did a great job in exploring the history, while also explaining most of the Hebrew terms as we went through.

He also helped me want to dig into the book, The Path of Torah, by the Netziv, which I did not realize was the Netziv's discussion of Torah She'be'al Peh.

The whole Oral Torah tradition makes me appreciation the creativity of Judaism and the immense honor and respect the tradition gives to the study and explication of Torah.