Research Fellowships – Talmud Skills

The Talmud Skills Research Fellow will assist Rabbi Daniel Reifman in developing his Intermediate/Advanced Talmud Skills course into a curriculum and/or online resource to be distributed to schools and educators.

Requirements

Editing/design skills
Critical thinking skills
At least 2 years experience studying Talmud (Pardes level gimmel or higher)
(Preferred) Some teaching experience or graphic design experience

Responsibilities

Spend 5 hours/week working on projects, predominantly within the Pardes Beit Midrash
Meet weekly with the faculty advisor
Participate in the Talmud Skills course

Award details

Living expenses grant ranging from $200-$600/month (exact amount determined by financial need)
Highly subsidized Beit Midrash Program tuition: $3000 discount for those not eligible for Masa Israel Journey funding / $2000 for those eligible for Masa funding, for a full year of study

More about the project

Daniel has been teaching intermediate and advanced Talmud classes with a distinctive approach to skill-building for over 15 years. His Talmud Skills class at Pardes has become popular among students looking to develop independence in Talmud study. Students have frequently requested a way to continue using his methodology beyond the framework of the course, both for continued study and for teaching their own students.

What distinguishes this approach from that of other Talmud curricula is the focus on systematic structural elements rather than on content. The Talmud Skills Project will lay out discrete sets of techniques for reading Gemara and Rishonim that can be used regardless of the specific material being studied. Similarly, the advantage of the charts and visual tools is that their underlying structure allows the teacher to adapt them to a very wide range of content.

Over the past year and a half, the Talmud Skills project has taken the form of individual pamphlets, each outlining a particular technique or skill set. These are geared for use by students, and are designed to demonstrate how specific techniques and skills can be used productively at different skill levels (e.g., using the same chart for mapping out Mishnayot, sugiyot and Rishonim). Already a number of these pamphlets are ‘in beta’ and have been distributed to students and teachers for their feedback.

The next phase of the project will involve editing the completed pamphlets for both content and design. Hopefully, we will also begin combining individual pamphlets into a larger and more comprehensive guide.

Current outline of the curriculum:

Tools for parsing the Talmud text and structuring Talmudic discussions
Functional categories of common structural terms in halakhic sugyot
Use of charts and other visual tools for teaching and studying Talmud
Interpretive assumptions and techniques in midrash Halakhah in the Bavli
Tools for parsing and structuring Tosafot and other Rishonim

Important: Supplemental fellowship applications will only be considered once a full Beit Midrash Program application has been received.