Wednesday, May 11, 2011

How long does it take to become a Rabbi?

[Post I just read: JTA Archives are now digitized and on-line for free , at Michtavim]

The other day, a comment from a friend caused me to calculate just how much time rabbis spend in training for the halachic component of the rabbinate.

Without any particular goal in mind, while sitting on a plane, I did the math: Aside from pastoral, administrative, or communal training, aside from studies of Hebrew language, Chumash, Navi, Jewish History, homiletics and so on… how much time do rabbis spend on learning either law, or legal theory, in Talmud or Halachah classes?

Of course, the answer will vary by program. I understand that there are 1-year rabbinic training programs. I also know that certain yeshivot grant automatic ordination when their kollel students get married. And then, of course, there are ‘partial ordination’ programs in which students specialize in specific areas of law, for which they are tested and for which they receive certificates.

So I’ll take a student who follows a course of study with which I am familiar: Day school, followed by Modern Orthodox high school, followed by Yeshiva University, two years in Israel, and semichah studies at RIETS-Yeshiva University.

As a general rule, day schools have their students – sometimes boys and girls, sometimes just boys – begin to study mishnah and gemara in 5th or 6th grade. Let’s say it’s 6th grade. They generally spend 40 minutes each day for the first year, for which I’ll assume 180 curricular days. So that’s 120 hours.

For 7th and 8th grade it’s more intense, more like 90 minutes each day. Continuing with 180 days each year, that’s 540 more hours, for a total of 660 hours.

Then high school. As I recall, we spent 3.5 hours each day in gemara and halachah at MTA. Again, I’ll allow 180 days. Over a four year high school career, that’s 2520 more hours, for a total of 3180 hours by the time he graduates high school.

[Of course, I have not counted time spent on homework, or Sunday school, or outside chavrusa learning; that’s too hard to estimate. And I also haven’t counted summer learning experiences, formal or informal.]

Our student then goes off to Israel, where he studies for two years. For five days each week he studies gemara and halachah for at least 8 hours per day, and in certain yeshivot more like 10-12 hours per day. But let’s go with 8 hours per day during the week for 200 days each year, and then 6 hours on each Friday-Shabbos combination for 40 weeks. That’s really undercutting it, but it yields 1840 hours each year, 3680 total [again, minus summers], for a lifetime total of 6860 hours spent in studying gemara and halachah.

Not all of these studies are at the same level, of course; in 6th grade he’s getting an introduction. In 7th-8th he learns about Rashi and Tosafot on some level. In high school he studies Rishonim, and to a certain extent he is introduced to Acharonim. In Israel he may learn Acharonim in greater depth. But it’s 6860 hours, before he has even entered college.

At YU’s Mazer Yeshiva Program, he studies gemara and halachah for 4 hours each day as part of the curriculuum, and another 2 hours each night, and let’s assume 180 days per year. Again, we discount outside studies, Sundays, summers. But for 3 years in college, that yields another 3240 hours. Total of 10,100 hours lifetime.

Then he enters the semichah program, and he learns 8 hours each day, 180 days per year, for 3 years, for a total of 4320 hours. Again, this is undercounting because of summers and Sundays, and it undercounts the numbers per day, but it’ll have to do. Total of 14,420 hours lifetime, before receiving semichah.

By comparison – someone who attends a full daf yomi cycle, hearing 1 hour of shiur per day (as opposed to our 35 minutes here!), spends about 2707 hours. This is more than 5 times that number.

And it’s only the beginning; a rabbi who stops learning when he enters the rabbinate will soon find himself out of his depth.

That’s an awfully long time to spend on this, much more than I think necessary for a person who is not entering the rabbinate. For a non-rabbi, I think the time could be better spent on other parts of Torah.

Further, one could give educational classes and write articulate articles and give inspiring speeches without all of this study. It’s not particularly hard for an experienced student to tackle a new topic by reading a few existing articles, digesting and organizing the information and finding a good way to present it.

I've been told by Conservative and Reform colleagues that this time is unnecessary, that primary sources can be summed up by secondary and tertiary sources, later articles presenting a digest of learning and views.

But I do think this amount of time is necessary if one is to be serious about learning and teaching on a deep level, let alone answering halachic questions. Accepting someone's digest means sacrificing the possibility of personal investigation, and the depth of understanding that comes with that investigation. And it means that when new questions come up, one flounders for a way to address them. The time is necessary.

As I said, I don’t really have a goal or conclusion here. Just thoughts on a plane.

20 comments:

  1. Shalom!
    Very interesting. I heard Rav Shlomo Aviner say many times that a reporter asked him how long someone should learn in Yeshiva. He answered:
    To be a Ram in a Yeshiva - 5 years.
    To be a Rosh Yeshiva - 10 years.
    To be the Rav of a city - 15 years.
    To be a Jew - 20 years.
    And to be a ben adam - 25 years...

    Mordechai Tzion

    ReplyDelete
  2. you quoted some heterodox clergy as stating that "primary sources can be summed up by secondary and tertiary sources, later articles presenting a digest of learning and views"

    to me the most fundamental argument against this (it's actually not an argument, it's a reason why the quoted view is just wrong) is that there is a mitzva of Talmud Torah.

    What you said of course is also true.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, you interestingly touched on two things I've often spoken about.

    1. All rabbis are *not* created equal. Even 'Orthodox' rabbis, as you pointed out, may have come to the title pretty quickly. BUT, if we compare the curriculum from RIETS (YU) and the non-Orthodox mainstream programs, something becomes quickly clear. NO non-Orthodox seminary invests serious time in learning g'mara and halacha. And their students come to the program without the years of previous learning that many Orthodox students have before RIETS, as you noted it. Therefore, their graduates are not qualified to deal with questions of halacha for the community. It simply isn't in their education. And when the executive head of the RA says otherwise, she is misleading the public.

    2. I completely agree that for most community members, the limited time is better spent on other areas of Torah study than g'mara. But I have a hard time selling this idea. Talmud has a certain prestige or cachet, as it should. But anyone serious about being a competent 'Jewish citizen' should be learning Tanach and mishna, halacha and some Jewish thought and mussar. The Hayai Adam wrote that he penned his book of concise halacha for those citizens who could commit only about four hours a day to learning Torah. He was worried that from so 'little' learning, they couldn't possibly arrive at an independent competency in halacha. Most of our community members can devote only an hour or two per day to learning. That time should be thoughtfully invested in what will provide them with the best education for their present stage of learning and understanding. Personally, I wish that learning Mishnah were more popular than Daf Yomi.

    Good post, rabbi!

    ReplyDelete
  4. >I've been told by Conservative and Reform colleagues that this time is unnecessary, that primary sources can be summed up by secondary and tertiary sources, later articles presenting a digest of learning and views.

    Since I try to always look sources up, I'm afraid to say that in a decent percent of the time secondary and tertiary sources make mistakes, sometimes crucial. Furthermore, sometimes they leave out some very worthwhile things that are a shame to miss. Furthermore, the producers of secondary sources get to have all the fun? I mean if you don't just enjoy learning, why be a rabbi? (and yes, I get the irony of that statement re time, etc.)

    ReplyDelete
  5. The assumption that the learner of daf yomi attends shiur and neither needed any prior learning as preparation nor learns otherwise seems to be a needless aspersion cast on a broad class of serious learners. After all, the daf yomi attendee probably put in at least most of the precollege hours you accounted for the rabbi, and probably learns regularly aside from the daf.

    However, I do not understand why you (and the yeshiva world in general) should discount time spent on Tanach as preparation. The Tannaim, Amoraim and Rishonim all assume their audience is familiar with Tanach in their discourse, and one's learning of Talmud is much greater if one is, in fact, familiar with both the language of Tanach and the context of the snippets quoted.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mordechai Tzion-
    That's a great quote. Reminds me of (I think) Rabbi Dr. Twerski on young marrieds who come to him for advice on parenting, and he says they're 21 years too late...

    Shmuel-
    True, but that's not an element of rabbinic training per se.

    R' Mordechai-
    I don't know what the head of the RA says, but I think it's as you and I have both written - That's not their goal. And I agree re: Tanach et al.

    S.-
    Indeed. (on all points)

    Mike S.-
    No aspersions intended. I taught Daf Yomi for 8 years, and have now resumed teaching it again for the past 5 months. I love the people who come to Daf, and I value their efforts. I never wrote anything about their prior learning, or other talmud torah pursuits. All I said was that the time it takes to go through a cycle of Daf Yomi - just the cycle itself - is less than 1/5 of the time one spends learning for semichah. Which is true.
    As far as Tanach - True that Tanach is a necessary fundamental, but the vast majority of people who study Tanach do not study it as legal theory, or actual law.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Indeed, I myself do not study Tanach as legal theory or actual law, nor do I recommend it. But just as study of the vocabulary, grammar and rhetoric of English is needed preparation for the study of American law without being study of law, so, too, study of Tanach is needed preparation for Talmudic study.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Very interesting. I was just talking with a friend and our two boys who are 5th grade about the "number of mitzvos" you get for one word of Torah that you learn and we were figuring out the "mitzvos" per hour and how it adds up during the week that our boys were in school.

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Blogger has eaten the comments from this post, so I'm re-posting them here:

    Anonymous wrote:

    Shalom!
    Very interesting. I heard Rav Shlomo Aviner say many times that a reporter asked him how long someone should learn in Yeshiva. He answered:
    To be a Ram in a Yeshiva - 5 years.
    To be a Rosh Yeshiva - 10 years.
    To be the Rav of a city - 15 years.
    To be a Jew - 20 years.
    And to be a ben adam - 25 years...

    Mordechai Tzion

    ReplyDelete
  10. Shmuel wrote:

    you quoted some heterodox clergy as stating that "primary sources can be summed up by secondary and tertiary sources, later articles presenting a digest of learning and views"

    to me the most fundamental argument against this (it's actually not an argument, it's a reason why the quoted view is just wrong) is that there is a mitzva of Talmud Torah.

    What you said of course is also true.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Mordechai Y. Scher wrote:

    Well, you interestingly touched on two things I've often spoken about.

    1. All rabbis are *not* created equal. Even 'Orthodox' rabbis, as you pointed out, may have come to the title pretty quickly. BUT, if we compare the curriculum from RIETS (YU) and the non-Orthodox mainstream programs, something becomes quickly clear. NO non-Orthodox seminary invests serious time in learning g'mara and halacha. And their students come to the program without the years of previous learning that many Orthodox students have before RIETS, as you noted it. Therefore, their graduates are not qualified to deal with questions of halacha for the community. It simply isn't in their education. And when the executive head of the RA says otherwise, she is misleading the public.

    2. I completely agree that for most community members, the limited time is better spent on other areas of Torah study than g'mara. But I have a hard time selling this idea. Talmud has a certain prestige or cachet, as it should. But anyone serious about being a competent 'Jewish citizen' should be learning Tanach and mishna, halacha and some Jewish thought and mussar. The Hayai Adam wrote that he penned his book of concise halacha for those citizens who could commit only about four hours a day to learning Torah. He was worried that from so 'little' learning, they couldn't possibly arrive at an independent competency in halacha. Most of our community members can devote only an hour or two per day to learning. That time should be thoughtfully invested in what will provide them with the best education for their present stage of learning and understanding. Personally, I wish that learning Mishnah were more popular than Daf Yomi.

    Good post, rabbi!

    ReplyDelete
  12. S. wrote:

    >I've been told by Conservative and Reform colleagues that this time is unnecessary, that primary sources can be summed up by secondary and tertiary sources, later articles presenting a digest of learning and views.

    Since I try to always look sources up, I'm afraid to say that in a decent percent of the time secondary and tertiary sources make mistakes, sometimes crucial. Furthermore, sometimes they leave out some very worthwhile things that are a shame to miss. Furthermore, the producers of secondary sources get to have all the fun? I mean if you don't just enjoy learning, why be a rabbi? (and yes, I get the irony of that statement re time, etc.)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Mike S. wrote:

    The assumption that the learner of daf yomi attends shiur and neither needed any prior learning as preparation nor learns otherwise seems to be a needless aspersion cast on a broad class of serious learners. After all, the daf yomi attendee probably put in at least most of the precollege hours you accounted for the rabbi, and probably learns regularly aside from the daf.

    However, I do not understand why you (and the yeshiva world in general) should discount time spent on Tanach as preparation. The Tannaim, Amoraim and Rishonim all assume their audience is familiar with Tanach in their discourse, and one's learning of Talmud is much greater if one is, in fact, familiar with both the language of Tanach and the context of the snippets quoted.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I replied to the above


    Mordechai Tzion-
    That's a great quote. Reminds me of (I think) Rabbi Dr. Twerski on young marrieds who come to him for advice on parenting, and he says they're 21 years too late...

    Shmuel-
    True, but that's not an element of rabbinic training per se.

    R' Mordechai-
    I don't know what the head of the RA says, but I think it's as you and I have both written - That's not their goal. And I agree re: Tanach et al.

    S.-
    Indeed. (on all points)

    Mike S.-
    No aspersions intended. I taught Daf Yomi for 8 years, and have now resumed teaching it again for the past 5 months. I love the people who come to Daf, and I value their efforts. I never wrote anything about their prior learning, or other talmud torah pursuits. All I said was that the time it takes to go through a cycle of Daf Yomi - just the cycle itself - is less than 1/5 of the time one spends learning for semichah. Which is true.
    As far as Tanach - True that Tanach is a necessary fundamental, but the vast majority of people who study Tanach do not study it as legal theory, or actual law.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Mike S. wrote:

    Indeed, I myself do not study Tanach as legal theory or actual law, nor do I recommend it. But just as study of the vocabulary, grammar and rhetoric of English is needed preparation for the study of American law without being study of law, so, too, study of Tanach is needed preparation for Talmudic study.

    ReplyDelete
  16. "a total of 3180 hours by the time he graduates high school"

    and after all those hours what type of facility does the average MTA grad actually have with a gemara?

    i actually think your estimate of hours is grosssly inflated, but even if you reduce it by 1,000, the results are till poor, at best

    anyway, i'm not sure if you really need to go that far back to 5th grade. should an actuary go back to pre-school when he learned how to count in order to calculate how many hours it took him to become an actuary?

    shabbat shalom

    ReplyDelete
  17. Abba-
    1. I agree with you re: the average high school grad. Part of that is the challenge of gemara, but I think that while many hours are spent, they are not necessarily spent optimally.

    2. "Grossly inflated" where? I provided my calculation, and showed that it's likely a gross understatement. Where are my numbers off?

    3. An actuary's counting might be compared to a Rabbi's learning to read - a fundamental skill, but not something for this calculation. So I would exclude the actuary's pre-school studies, and I would exclude the Rabbi's pre-school studies. But yes, I would include the actuary's first education in fractions.

    ReplyDelete
  18. "Where are my numbers off?"

    a) no day school has 180 school days (i only know the NY-NJ area). the vast majority don't even come close. 2 years ago my son had 161 days. and this included about 30 1/2 days (erev shabbos, fast days, parent-teacher meetings, etc.)!

    b) 3.5 hours a day may be the norm at MTA, but unless things have changed it isn't the norm for day schools. my own alma mater had 7 classes per grade. 5 of the classes had one 45-minute period/day (shortr on friday) and 2 of the classes (so-called "bet midrash program") had a double period daily.

    c) for MTA: were you really in shiur for 3.5 hours/day? or was a large chunk of it "chavrusa" or preparation time? if the latter, i'm sure you took it seriously, but can you say the same for your average classmate. how much time in chavrusa for them was really learning?

    d) whether it's your 3.5 or my 1.5 hours/day (or someone else's 45 min/day) still doesn't tell the whole story because:

    i) how much of it was "down time" (attendance, PA announcements, discipline, musar or other non-gemara-related "distractions" that fall into the gemara rebbe's lap, etc.)
    ii) how many times were classes canceled because of assemblies or other special circumstances?

    etc.

    this is why you're numbes are grossly infalted (i didn't mean to imply intentionally or malevolenty).

    so now that we know the averyage day school grad spends *considerably* less than 3180 hours, should we feel better that he/she is typically functionally completely illiterate in gemara?

    shabbat shalom

    ReplyDelete
  19. i should have noted that my alma mater had a new advanced gemara elective when i was in 11-12th grade (45 min x 4 days), but it wasn't popular and it was only 11-12th grade. (i don't know if it continued either)

    ReplyDelete
  20. Abba-
    Thanks for explaining your point, but I don't agree.
    I can't speak for other schools, but those were the MTA hours, over 180 days, and they were largely not disrupted. Certainly, much was chavrusa, but the great majority of the guys who ended up going for semichah did take it pretty seriously. Or, better put, no less seriously than we took other classes.
    Granted there were Fridays as well, but there were also many other periods of homework, chavrusa and night seder (high school, college and during semichah) which I did not include, as well as the summers I excluded.
    So I disagree with the idea that the number is inflated, grossly or otherwise.

    But to your main point - I wasn't talking about your average HS grad; that's a post for another time. My post is about the guys who go into the rabbinate. Certainly, a few of them didn't do much in high school with their gemara time, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

    ReplyDelete