Tag #138640 - Interview #78499 (Bernat Sauber)

In the yeshivah from Szekelyhid we didn't take up the weekly pericope anymore, we were beyond that. Instead, we studied the Talmud. The rabbi had some quite large, very thick books he used to teach from. He extracted something from them, for instance the Gitn [the tract of Talmud by Gitn], the divorce. What were the rules in order for a Jew to be separated from his wife? There was no such thing that a woman divorced her husband, only the husband could divorce his wife. There were around 250-300 pages on this issue. And it had 2 or 3 intepretations. This wasn’t' working as simple as one took it and read it, and gave a simple explanation. Instead, one had to provide an explanation for each section, which wasn't in the text, it had to be said based on a deduction. The rabbi gave a lecture on these issues, but we didn't take notes, we only paid attention to what he was saying. The interesting thing was that these comments were not written down, these were just coming by themselves. I'm not saying that those who finished yeshivah knew everything word for word, but they knew the essence of all the comments. Regardless whether you went to the yehsivot in Szatmar, Vizhnits or Tasnad, or to the yeshivah in Szekelyhid, there were the same explanations, with minor differences. I often wondered how this was possible. It's true these people studied the books not once, but five or six, even ten times. There were, I don't know this, some 70 books they studied for 4-5 years. There were the beginners, then the second year students, then the advanced ones, and those who were in the last years they were actually able to teach.