V'dibarta Bam

3:22 PM

Hey hey

Is there anyone who blogs their learning through a particular set of texts?

josh waxman, United States

12.9k 23 52

parsha.blogspot.com

Cool.

dafyummy.blogspot.com

I've been inactive on SE for a while, barring the occasional question, and I was thinking about using it as a springboard to get more serious about learning.

rifyomi.blogspot.com

^^^ Those are all from the same person

@Moshe Sounds like the beginning of an idea for a cool project.

What are you planning to learn?

3:30 PM

I have an on and off chavrusa over the phone we recently switched from Mishnah to Mishna Berurah.

But I want to go through Shas at some point.

So really my premise is that to be a good Jew one has to know the rules.

Well, backtrack:

Premise 1: I want to be a good jew.

Premise 2: To be a good jew, one must follow the rules. (Culture isn't enough.)

Premise 3: To follow any set of rules, one must know what those rules are.

Premise 4: The rules of Judaism are defined in the Torah, explored in the Mishnah and Talmud and defined in the more recent halachic books.

Premise 5: One way to learn rules is to read about them.

Given those 5 premises, I think I need to work through some of these texts.

@Moshe QED

QED?

@Moshe "It is thus demonstrated."

Ah

Indeed.

OK. I don't know Latin, but it's something like that:

Q.E.D.

Q.E.D. is an initialism of the Latin phrase quod erat demonstrandum, meaning "which is what had to be proven". The phrase is traditionally placed in its abbreviated form at the end of a mathematical proof or philosophical argument when what was specified in the enunciation—and in the setting-out—has been exactly restated as the conclusion of the demonstration. The abbreviation thus signals the completion of the proof. == Etymology and early use == The phrase quod erat demonstrandum is a translation into Latin from the Greek ὅπερ ἔδει δεῖξαι (hoper edei deixai; abbreviated as ΟΕΔ). Translating from...

3:34 PM

^ I learned something today.

Another user who's been known to post questions as he learns: @msh210. See, e.g., the top few questions here:

judaism.stackexchange.com/…

He's a mod, lol.

Nice.

@Moshe Mods are users, too.

Also, I wonder if @msh210's email is the same as his handle - I think he might have reached out to me once about an app.

Oh I know.

I think I proved why I need to learn, but I missed out on why blogging it might be a good or a horrible idea.

(BTW, to reply to a specific chat message, hover over [on mobile, touch] the right side of the message, and click [tap] the grey arrow that appears.)

3:38 PM

@IsaacMoses I know, been on SE for 5-6 years.

Just being lazy given nobody else is here right now.

@Moshe Writing up what you learn is a good way to force yourself to understand it well.

@Moshe OK

Writing up questions on MY as they occur to you is a good way to make the questions clear in your head and to get help from the community in answering them.

@IsaacMoses That was premise 6. Just unsure if it goes against צניאות and עין הרע

Remains to be seen, I suppose.

It's important, though, to remember that if your main goal is to learn, then if you can't keep up with the blogging, you should not let that drag down the learning with it.

True say.

Q: Does "reputation scoring" make "the Torah a crown to magnify yourself with"?

65

Is "reputation scoring" against the spirit of Pirkei Ovos 4 (5) "Rabbi Tzaddok would say: <snip> Do not make the Torah a crown to magnify yourself with, ...."

hashkafah-philosophy torah-study mussar-ethics stackexchange

Some of the thoughts there are relevant to your dilemma

Also, I would say that Avot 4:6 (numbered 4:5 in Sefaria's version) is directly relevant.

> One who studies Torah in order to teach will be given the opportunity to both study and to teach. One who studies in order to practice will be given the opportunity to study, to teach, to observe, and to practice.

Your syllogism proves that you're interested in studying in order to practice, which is ideal. Avot tells us that being able to teach is a salutary byproduct of that.

3:44 PM

Salutary?

Ah, once again, looked it up.

<-- learning a lot today.

@IsaacMoses I'm curious, what's your day job?

number mi-yodeya-series halacha product-recommendation tefilla shabbat words

Isaac Moses, Silver Spring, MD

26.3k 6 55 180

Whoa, cool stuff.

Which transit system?

@Moshe DC Metro.

Nice.

Speaking of which ... There are other windows to which I should apply myself now.

3:48 PM

Indeed, me too.

Gonna go build a TextKit stack or something.

OK. I wish you much success with your learning, and look forward to seeing byproducts of it here!

Q: Text of Purim Torah Disclaimer

4:29 PM

@Moshe Now you've got me curious.

Meta-Man

0

I think the disclaimer we have for Purim Torah is excellent, in size, position, and content. I would like to suggest a small change: Instead of "This question is Purim Torah and is not intended to be taken completely seriously. See the Purim Torah policy." What about "This question is Purim Tor...

discussion purim-torah-policy

@msh210 Is your last name Lax?

4:59 PM

@Moshe Nope!

My SE "about me" links to a Wayback Machine copy of my old Web site, which has my real name.

Cool looking

Thanks.

Cool beans.

@Moshe I'm told those go well with that.

Cool beans? How many calories do they have?

5:07 PM

@Moshe I guess, all energy considered, slightly less than hot beans.

Q: How should we handle contributions written from the perspective of religious believers?

@IsaacMoses :-)

Monica Cellio

5:58 PM

Hi @Moshe and welcome back! I find that trying to write about (or otherwise explain) what I'm learning is a great way to find the parts that I don't understand well enough. And that asking questions here helps me clarify what my question actually is. (Isaac already said that, but just adding a "me too".)

Double AA

6:32 PM

5

I've noticed that we've been receiving some poorly researched questions and answers written by people who believe in the religion being discussed: An answer written by a native american with a tribal connection to the "Underwater Panther". At what point is a question out of scope as being too c...

discussion

I hadn't even noticed that beta started up.

@DoubleAA Keep it in mind as a migration target for questions about Judaism from a PoV that's not consistent with Judaism.

Double AA

@IsaacMoses Yes, I will.

Q: why not automatically archive links in questions and answers

They're averaging 0.7 questions per day, so they could use the injection of material!

Meta-Man

0

This is a suggestion. Why doesn't stack exchange automatically archive links in questions and answers. There are links to websites that no longer exist, etc. Since they are such a large part of the quality of our answers, it would make sense to archive the links with https://archive.org/ or ht...

feature-request hyperlinks