LUBAVITCH-----rambam yomi

MODERATOR Posted - 28 February 2008 12:43

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The issue with the Rambam Yomi is quite simple.

The Rambam can be learned 2 ways:

1) As a halachah sefer
2) as a commentary on the Gemora

If you learn it as #2, then you shouldn’t follow the order of the Rambam but rather the order of the Gemora and then see how the Rambam understood the Gemora to reach his halachic conclusion. Unless you’re going to learn the sugya and then follow it down to the Rambam, you can’t use the Rambam this way.

It would be like learning Ritva straight without the sugyos. Rambam Yomi clearly does not make sense this way - its like learning Ritva yomi (actually Ritva Yomi would make more sense, since the Ritva at least follows the order of the Gemora, but the Rambam follows his own seder, which means you’re skipping from sugya to sugya). Doesn’t make sense.

That leaves (2). But the Rambam as a Halachah sefer is not a good idea since we often do not pasken like the Rambam. So it's like learning let's say the Shulchan Aruch without the Rama or if you’re a sefardi, so at best you know that the halochos that you are learning are not necessarily what you should follow - so what’s the point - better go learn halachah that’s designed for you - and the danger is that you will not realize that something you learned in this halachah sefer is assur for you to follow, and you will follow it anyway.

So if you take Rambam yomi and instruct every Tom Dick and Harry to learn this halachah sefer that really isn’t applicable halachicly in many instances, you’re inviting trouble in terms of people following something even though they shouldn't.

Yeshivish613 Posted - 28 February 2008 20:46

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Mod:

The Rambam goes through Kol Hatorah Kula (hence the name, Mishna Torah), as opposed to Shulchan Aruch which doesn't paskin dinim which aren't applicable nowadays.

So why can't Rambam Yomi be a good idea in that a person could get a broad yediah of kol hatorah kulah in one year. Of course the eventual goal is to learn all of shas, but that will take many years, so why can't a person learn shas just like everyone else but also have a short seder of learning a couple of halachos of Rambam every day so he can become somewhat familiar with the entire Torah?

MODERATOR Posted - 28 February 2008 20:52

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The Rambam doesn’t go through kol HaTorah kulah. There are no hava aminas in the Rambam and no shakla vetaryah and no recording of shitos that we not pasken like - or rather that the Rambam does not pasken like. The Rambam picked and chose what he put in and left out, and his intent was that these items are halachah L’maaseh.

Yes,the Rambam paskens also on Hilchasa LMeshichah and things that are not relevant to us here and now, but the danger is in the other areas, the majority of the Rambam, which are a list not of all the Torah but only of Halochos that the Rambam holds we should follow. But we don’t follow them all.

Like I said - it's like an Ashkenazi learning the mechaber without the rama. It’s not a good idea because you may end up knowing things that are not applicable but you won’t know that. Rav Shach correctly (not that he needs my haskama) pointed this out.