Spencer Brasch

AP Gemara

It took until the end of March for all of my classmates to grow to love our second semester Gemara rebbe.

            But I liked him from the very beginning—Rabbi Miller’s big beard and deep, Yiddish-South-African accent were the very characteristics that drew me to him; these aspects made me feel like I could be a real Talmid Chacham (student of wisdom/Torah). Perhaps it was the escalating number of jokes we told in class that motivated more boys to participate and eventually learn. Perhaps it was a simple stage of maturation that some of my friends experienced during junior year. Nevertheless, all grew to love Rabbi Miller, and we started calling him “Rebbe.”

            In this moist, nutrient-rich ecosystem of Torah, my love for Talmud grew into strong tree, bearing strong roots. Talmud was a whole world of learning that—though I had studied in the classroom before—I had never truly enjoyed. The Talmud, I began to see, contained a type of superior analytical thinking that I could find nowhere else. I relished the exercises of mind that excited my soul every day. Talmud was a mental exercise in which I found myself thinking analytically as in philosophy. In Talmud, as opposed to in philosophy, I always came to a plausible answer at the end of a section; in philosophy, the answer often is that there is no answer.

            Furthermore, the thought that actual men have seated themselves in a house of learning and had these discussions that lifted from the page as I read them increased my wonderment and awe of the vast energy and wisdom that has gone into the vast Talmud. I felt as if the rabbis of the Talmud were there with me, having the passionate discussions at the same moment at which I read them.

These discussions in the text were so passionate; it seemed to me that these discussions bespoke only pure passionate pining for God. I wondered why in the world would a group of men actually sit down and argue over what they thought was God’s will, about putting certain types of food on certain types of ovens. Who the heck cares? This is the question I used to ask. Now I ask the following: Why, indeed, did they care? My only answer to this question is invoked in the fact that I could only see the great love that the rabbis of old had for our Master of the Universe. They cared because they loved and feared God, almost similar to the way a talmid (Hebrew for “student”) loves and fears his Rebbe.

My passion and love grew and grew and grew. My goal became clear: before I die, I want to finish Shas twice: once by myself, and once with my future children.

My passion was also fueled by the new unique connection it forged between my father and me. I started bringing home my Talmud book to share its gold with my father, a man who only became religious later on in life. Every Friday, the tradition was born to share a bit of Talmud at the Sabbath table. The pure delight and deep discussion was what my newfound love brought to my family.