learning from an artscroll

Bec in order to understand Torah you must work on it. Also otherwise you’ll never develop skills to read a Gemara.

Theres nothing wrong with it but I’ll spell out 2 reasons (there may be many more but this is what I could think of right now). First of all, an Artscroll is not appropriate for anyone currently learning in a yeshiva. The yeshiva years are designed to teach boys the skill of “knowing how to learn”. Yeshiva is not meant to be a trade school for rabbis, it’s meant for bochurim to learn from a rebbi a derech halimud and acquire the skills to learn the rest of their lives. This is why the yeshivos focus on certain mesechtos which are conducive to developing these skills. Just as you wouldnt let first graders learning arithmetic use a calculator, anyone learning any skill is better off figuring it out on their own. Secondly, even for those not in yeshiva, our mesora is that Torah is nikneh with ameilus. This doesn’t mean one cant be amul with an artscroll, certainly you can, but for many people, true ameilus comes with working out the gemara on their own.

Because…
“If you’re gonna’ only eat food that was chewed up for you by other people and spit out on a plate so that you can eat it…
it will be very easy to eat, but it won’t be very tasty.”
-Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky
from his shiur on How to Love Learning
https://www.rabbiorlofsky.com/podcast/42

If the idea was to make it a struggle to learn, the gemorah would have been written in Hebrew, not Aramaic. Aramaic was the everyday spoken language of the people, as is English in the US

Obviously people have to learn how to learn. And they can’t have stuff spoonfed to them. But at some point, amount of Torah learned has to outweigh the ameilus aspect. We wouldn’t say that we shouldn’t learn beis yosef, rather we have to look up all the gemoros and individual rishonim that he quotes instead, would we?

The Artscroll Talmud has entered almost every frum home and is used by almost everyone. The result is a deterioration in the quality and depth of understanding in all areas of Torah study, from Mishna and Gemara, through Poskim and Shutim. I doubt there is a way back.

I have just bought the new Artscroll Tosafos English sefer on Makkos – a tremendous piece of work and it thoroughly explains each Tosafos with backgrounds, footnotes, summaries and plenty of detail.
What do others think of it.

Also many of the comments above of learning how to learn in Yeshiva etc. The Yeshivos only cover the most lomdish masechtas, Bobbah Kamma, Yevamos etc. To be able to learn the more technical masechtas like Shabbos and Eruvin, Zavochin, Chullin, Kodshim, Taharos,that are not taught in Yeshivah is not possible without something like the Artscroll or Mesivtah.

What happened before Artscroll is that many people just didnt learn. We totally over romanticize the “old country”. Many people were illiterate or just could not read aramaic. Translations allow people access. (The only argument against “Artscroll” is that translation is a de facto commentary — so often times — they provide one possible interpretation to the exclusion of others.

MrSarahLevine613 – There was a translation pre Artscroll – it was the Soncino.

It was like trying to read the English Law Reports. It was like a classical literal translation of the Gemara without much commentary.

It was no near as good as the Artscroll which not only translates but explains and comments on the Gemara.

Also Artscroll is a frum organisation producing seforim that have haskomas from our leading Rosh Hayeshivos, Rabbonim, and Gedolei Hador.

Soncino had no such Haskomas apart from say the English Chief Rabbi at the time of its printing.

There have been many questions asked of the company particularly about their Chumash and Tenach editions that included commentary from Bible critics, University academics and others. Many people found that learning from such seforim could lead to atheism or agnostic leading to doubts about faith we must have in the words of the prophets.

Also pre Artsroll there was Marcus Jastrow’s dictionary of the Talmud. Again although acclaimed by University scholars and the like, many frum people had problems with the Author, was he frum?

Like you said I was not lucky enough to have a chavruso for every seder in Yeshivah and many times I sat there with an open Gemara just staring into space and bored out of my head. If only there was the Artscroll Gemara then I would have had no problems!

Akuperma: “Aramaic and Hebrew are closely related, similar to French and Spanish, or German and Yiddish. Hebrew is as different from English, as English is from Chinese or Navaho or Zulu.
If you are serious about learning Torah, learn Hebrew.”
Your logic is flawed. If your problem with learning from an artscroll is because it’s in English and therefore it takes away from the context of the original text (that’s how I’m understanding you) than how is any english speaker who only learns gemara till they’re a little older (5th grade) supposed to learn? How are you supposed to learn when you come across a new word? obviously your brain makes a translation into your native tongue. As for words that people have a hard time to translate because it becomes part of your gemara lingo (i.e. lechaora) artscroll has academic words for all of those. Besides you get both the aramaic and english with artscroll, it’s not like Soncino which is straight english.
That said: I still believe that one should learn in yeshiva from a standard gemara for reasons already mentioned here (i.e. with hard work comes greater analysis and understanding, and long-term memory, etc.) but if one comes across a word they aren’t familiar with it’s a great tool (Jastrow is quicker for words in my opinion, and mesivta is better for a sugya you’re truly having problems with).

when you work on understanding the gemara etc you remember better, if you just read it from artscroll you won’t remember it and also u won’t learn how to learn, but for beginners which cant learn gemara at all alone should start with artscroll to start them off

MSL613: If by “if you know how to learn you don’t need it in the first instance” you mean that one won’t initially pull out an artscroll to learn, but if they come across a word they’re unfamiliar with, or are Stam having a difficult time understanding the sugya, then they’ll use it, then I agree with you and believe there to be no problem.

before artscroll came out with their shas they went to rav schach ztl who was opposed to it and for good reason
as we now see
though much learning has happened due to artscroll it isnt for everyone all the time as mentioned a boy in his developing years in yeshiva will never fully gain the tools to learn on his own as well as miss out on the toil and huruvanya that brings the geshmak in learning on the other hand someone who is learning the daf and gets stuck artscroll is a tremendous help and tool to reach his goal of finishing the daf

I think at the root of the question lies the issue of what are the goals of a bachur learning in Yeshiva is it
A. to gain the skills necessary for life long learning
B. to gain Torah knowledge

If its 100% emphasis on A then indeed a bachur should never touch an Artscroll. If it is 100% B then he should use it more often than not. Perhaps the goals of a bachur should be a hybrid of both with a bit more emphasis on A at the beginning of his Yeshiva career and more emphasis on B toward the ( projected) end of his career.

If no thought is given to reassess his gaols each year then any serious yeshiva student will be missing out. If a 9th grader can still say that “he is learning how to learn” with the same conviction as a 5th year kollel yungerman then we have a serious flaw in out system.

Soncino and Jastrow are far better than Artscroll. You’ll never learn Aramaic using Artscroll because of the way they do their translations (not word-by-word).

Yeshivas still use Jastrow, by the way. 21st century bochrim are not all magically born fluent in Hebrew and Aramaic.

To learn on your own, get a program gemara tutor, a multiple choice on the idioms of the gemora or a sefer onumber it. Once you learn them, it will help you set the words by recognizing these common expressions.

“the point is to be able to properly learn gemara without having to use the orgignal text”
Then why do they bother printing the original text on the other page (several times over)?

Satmar, you have a point, it’s still torah,but you still have to make sure that the learning you do is in the best possible way, which for many ppl is without artscroll.
Nevillechaimberlin, the point of artscroll is to have the whole gemara in a way that you can learn it without having to use the original text, but they still put the regular daf so that people who want to can use the regular daf and the english only for specific times when they need it

The effort in artscroll is to find a page.

“If you want to learn … do what’s best for you and don’t listen to any of those comments above”
Except if you don’t listen to others, you’ll assume that what’s easier is better, and of course Artscroll is easier.

R’ Art Scroll is the worlds best and most sought after chavrusa.

The OP specifically mentions “bekiyus seder”, because the goal of a bekiyus seder NOT to learn the sugya in depth with every chdidush from Rav Baruch Ber or Rav Shimon Shkop. The point is, surprise, bekiyus. The faster one can get through a daf, the more “bekiyus” one will have, so that when learning beiyun and a concept off the daf being learned is brought up by the gemara, tosfoas or anyone else, one will have some context to the question being asked or the point being made. In short, if the point is gaining a bekiyus of a lot of gemara, why not go as quickly as possible.

When Meshiah will become, we will pasken like the Beis Shamai because currently we don’t understand their stringencies so we pasken like the Beis Hilel, but when he will come, we will acquire a new understanding ומלאה הארץ דעה and the majority will follow the Beis Shamai.

Most of the participants at my daf yomi shiur prepare beforehand with a Hebrew or English Art scroll, and use it during the shiur. Accordingly, as part of my preparation, I will look at the art scroll’s footnotes to look for questions they raise but don’t answer(which is quite common)and then try to address those questions during the shiur , perhaps s by learning a tosfos inside or by explaining consensus the rishonim or achronim”s approach to the issue. .Overall, I believe their use of the art scroll in advance has increased their understanding exponentially.

Since my preparation time is limited to a few hours Most of the ‘reid” that I speak out is coming from the “oitzer meforshim ” in back of the Mesifta gemora and its footnotes. In my “free time” I try to learn a sugya a week… with my starting point being the ” oitzer inyanim”thusfar in the last 3 weeks Tmurah, iv’e gone through , lav shain bo maasa, lav hanitik l’asai, and iy avid mahani..( I’m kind of surprised no one has been debating the merits of the Mesifta gemora here.)

Nevertheless, I fully recognize that none of this is a substitute for real yegia. Systematically going through a sugya from rasih to tosfos, rishonim achronim , and limitless effort is what makes a bnai torah. It scares me when I see someone whe”did the daf” by reading through the art scroll for 45 minuets and really believe that they have done all that is required of them.

dafbiyun, Look ar the Sefer Kesef Nivchar with a haskoma of the Chasam Sofer containing 160 sugyos with all the gemora references folkowed by the psak halacha.