Shalom Rosner: How Shabbos Entered the Modern World

Transcripts are produced by Sofer.ai and lightly edited—please excuse any imperfections. 

Dovid Bashevkin: It is such a privilege and pleasure to welcome Rav Shalom Rosner, whose Daf Yomi shiur, the class on daily Talmud he has been giving for many, many years is extraordinarily popular on the OU app. Rabbi Rosner, thank you so much for joining us today.

Shalom Rosner: Thank you so much. Great to be here and partnering with you again.

Dovid Bashevkin: I wanted to talk about Tractate Shabbos. You know, we spent a week giving an overview, very, very basic, on the operational definitions of how we keep Shabbos, namely the thirty-nine melachos, the thirty-nine categories of work. And what I wanted to talk to you a little bit about today is the modern observance of Shabbos. How did Shabbos kind of enter the modern era? And the number one question I wanted to kind of understand of how it’s conceptualized is, these thirty-nine categories of work do not really include electricity or a lot of modern phenomena.

And I wanted you to help our listeners and myself really figure out, first and foremost, in the modern era, when electricity was just beginning, how did halacha and the conceptualization of Jewish law approach the use of electricity on Shabbos?

Shalom Rosner: What’s amazing is that, you know, there are many new applications and new realities in our world, as there is in every generation. But the principles of halacha, the principles of Jewish law that govern even what we do today has already been there for thousands of years. Has already been developed, already in the times of the Mishna and expanded a couple hundred years later in the Talmud. We have to just delve into and understand the definitions that our great sages gave us thousands of years ago, and then apply them.

Apply them to new areas of technology, whether it’s laws of Shabbos, whether it’s fertility. There are many new questions and applications, but the fundamentals, that’s for our great rabbis to take those fundamentals and apply them in the new realm. By way of example, as you asked regarding electricity. So, there are a number of the categories of work on Shabbos have to do with creation.

And most creation has to do with physical creation. I build something, I connect a cover to a utensil. You know, there’s building that we’re used to. And the question that the decisors have to deal with in every single generation is, okay, so now there is a new reality called a creation of an electrical current.

So, how do I view that? There’s writing on a computer screen, right? Does that have the same halachic status for Shabbos, for, you know, erasing God’s name, if I have God’s name on the computer, am I not allowed to erase God’s name? So, the decisors, the rabbis take these principles and apply them. And they’re not always, not every great rabbi has the same opinion. You know, just as electricity, as you asked, there were some great rabbis like the Chazon Ish that said, right, he was one of the greats in the 1940s, 1950s, that—

Dovid Bashevkin: Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, for sure.

Shalom Rosner: Yeshaya Karelitz, the posek in Bnei Brak, he felt that that is a biblical infraction.

Creating an electrical current, creation of electricity on the Shabbos could be a biblical infraction of creation. While many others, including Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, a posek of, he died thirty-one years ago in Jerusalem, he did not feel that it was biblical. You know, at most, it would be rabbinic because it’s not physical, and to build, there has to be something, you know, something tangible in that regard. So, there are discussions throughout relating.

But, again, the principles are there. The question is how do we apply those principles. And I’ll just add that it’s not up to me and you to figure out how to apply these principles. You know, it has to be someone who is steeped, someone who we like to call, there are major leaguers and there are minor leaguers, and there are those that are just around in the farm system.

So, these types of questions, you know, that have to be decided, we have to recognize our limitations. ‘Cause it reminds me of just an interesting thought, one of my rabbis mentioned when I was studying for my semicha to get my rabbinic ordination, he says, “Rabbis get three kinds of questions, three kinds of questions. Category number one, there are the cholent questions. What’s the cholent questions? Rabbi, my cholent is burning.

I’m having twenty guests over for Shabbos. What do I do? How do I warm it up?” And those are the questions that you have to have the answer on the spot. It’s like, you have a question about the letter in the Sefer Torah during synagogue time, you have to have that on the spot. Those are the cholent questions.

Then you have the second category of questions, which are most questions that a rabbi are asked, they’re called the overnight questions. “I put a dairy fork into a hamburger, and it was hot, and I cut an onion, and a this.” And many questions having to do with ritual purity, and many of these overnight, I could look it up, I could get back to you in a few hours. And then, which relates to what we’re talking about, the overarching questions, those that most rabbis have to recognize they’re above me, and these have to do with brain death questions, fertility questions, questions that define a new area of halacha, of Jewish law, that we have to look to our great rabbinic leaders to decide, and then we could use their decisions in our everyday cases. So here, when electricity first was coming out, there was a discussion exactly what it was, which has to do with what you’re not allowed to do on Shabbos, but I’ll add, are you allowed to use electricity, let’s say a fire, for Havdalah, for after Shabbos? Does that work in a positive way? So whatever you’re going to say on Shabbos to forbid might help you for, you know, one has to be consistent in areas of halacha.

Dovid Bashevkin: Exactly. And I love that you used the example of a cholent question, because that is actually my next question. You know, cholent is one of the favorite dishes that people have on Shabbos. And especially to people who are new to Shabbos, there is kind of an instinct, or almost like an astonishment, that Shabbos could be an enjoyable time if there are so many rules.

And I wanted you to talk a little bit about somebody who is just getting exposed to the rules of Shabbos, the rhythm of Shabbos, and they say, “It’s too confining. It’s too suffocating. It sounds like the only way that I could get through this day is just lock myself in a room with, I don’t know, I’ll put a book in there. That way, I’ll know for sure that I won’t violate Shabbos.” What do you tell people who are just starting to observe Shabbos, how to get a hang for the rhythm and the rules so they don’t feel like, you know what, I’d be better off stuck in a room? And why is it that foods like cholent have become so synonymous with Shabbos? But I was hoping you could answer these questions together.

You hear so much about Shabbos from people who keep it, and they love it, and it’s enjoyable. But then you start to, like, actually learn tractate Shabbos, and you see all of the categorization and how many restrictions there are. How do you square the circle that Shabbos is both enjoyable, the Shabbos of warm cholent and eating, all this wonderful stuff, but at the same time not to get overwhelmed by all of the categories and different laws that- very serious laws that associate this incredible day?

Shalom Rosner: Excellent questions. A couple of points.

Number one, I think when one is just on the path to Shabbos observance, one has to be careful not to go overboard very quickly. I remember my rebbe, Rav Rosenzweig, I was once talking to him, and we were talking about the concept what’s called of ziyuf haTorah, a misrepresentation of Torah, which comes up in various contexts. And one is not allowed to misrepresent Torah based on a Gemara in tractate Bava Kama. But he once commented, and I was saying that let’s say somebody was just becoming Orthodox and observant, does one have to tell all the- all the- laws of separation and all the laws of grinding? He said if somebody is presented with too many details and laws when they’re not ready for it, that’s a misrepresentation of Torah.

Wow. It’s exactly the opposite. If one is not ready to hear something- again, it doesn’t mean that if somebody is a full Orthodox and they don’t want to hear about a certain detail, “I want to do this, I don’t care,” that’s not what we’re talking about. But if somebody is on a process, is on an odyssey to joining the halachic observance of Shabbos, there’s a process.

And there are biblical laws, there are rabbinic laws, there are laws that are- that are- little by little. If we throw everything at them at once, so then that’s a misrepresentation, ’cause they get a warped sense of what Shabbos is about. As you said, Shabbos is just as much about dos than about don’ts. We do not believe, like maybe some other religions, that religion means separating from this world, and one has to be celibate and not involved in family life, and don’t eat so much, and don’t talk so much.

The greatest rabbis sat at the Shabbos table with their guests for hours, enjoying and shmoozing, because Shabbos is a day of connection. It’s a day of connecting with God, connecting with each other. It’s a day to disconnect, to unplug in order to- to plug in, as they say. So yes, there are laws that- they’re governed to remember- again, there’s for- with every system, whether it’s a game, let’s say you focus, you have the game of baseball.

If you focus on any rule in baseball, like why does that make sense? A balk. You know, what is that- what does that make sense for? You have it’s such- so many details and so many laws, and- but you can’t lose sight of the forest because of focusing on the trees. There’s a system here. The system is remembering that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.

Based on that, all creative types of activities, which the rabbis figure out what that means, and that was given from Sinai. Hashem told Moshe Rabbeinu at Har– at Sinai the oral law along with the written law, all the principles which were then developed. So that’s the system. Yes, and there are details within the system, but the message of Shabbos, that larger message, do we cease our creative activities, which we don’t define what’s creative, but we buy into the system, but then we’re able to be free.

And there is so much about do’s on Shabbos: the messages of making kiddush, the messages of what’s called oneg Shabbos, enjoying Shabbos. One is not allowed to fast on Shabbos. One is not allowed to, because part of the mitzvah of Shabbos is to enjoy it. There is an idea, you asked specifically about cholent, right?

Dovid Bashevkin: Yeah, I wanted you to get to the cholent a little bit, because—

Shalom Rosner: There are those I think that—

Dovid Bashevkin: We don’t cook on Shabbos, and yet in every home, you have warm food.

So help me understand this a little bit.

Shalom Rosner: Correct. There’s a shitah that is quoted of the Rishonim already 800 years ago. Some of the medieval rabbis, the Ba’al HaMaor, one of the great rabbis, is quoted in the is the code of Jewish law quoted by Rav Moshe Isserles in the code of Jewish law, which says if somebody does not have hot food on Shabbos, one has to be nervous that maybe he is a Karaite, maybe he is someone who does not believe in the oral tradition, because it says in the Torah, you know, don’t cook, you’re not allowed to cook.

So what do you mean? How do you have hot food? So the rabbis understand that, that means you can’t cook it from a start on Shabbos, but to have it from before Shabbos and to keep it warm, there is nothing wrong with that, and that’s even a good thing. And that means that we listen to and we observe the oral law, following all the ways of how to cook beforehand and how to keep it warm and how to make sure that there is what to eat. So cholent is something that sits, it’s hot, it could stay, and it could be hot even the next day, because we wrap it up and it stays, you know, there are those that are that are stringent, you know, that have cholent on Thursday night to bring in the Shabbos already, and there are those that maybe even have it at a Friday night at a get-together, but most have it, you know, during the day, because this is a food that could stay hot and stay fresh for Shabbos morning. It’s a special food.

There is an there’s even a Midrash, there’s a Tannaitic discussion, Rebbe and Antoninus. Antoninus was one of the few Roman emperors that was friendly and positive to the Jews. There are many stories in the Talmud about Rebbe and Antoninus. Antoninus went to learn Torah in secret tunnels with Rebbe.

But one time, Rebbe gave him some food. Must have might have been cholent. And he says, “What is in here? It’s delicious!” So Rebbe gives him all of the ingredients, and he goes back to his palace and he makes it, and it doesn’t taste as good. And he says, “I don’t understand!” So Rebbe says, “Oh, you don’t have that ingredient.

There’s one more.” He’s like, “I have every ingredient in the world! I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’ll get it, where it is?” He says, “It’s the ingredient of Shabbos.” Cholent tastes different on Shabbos than it does during the week. It’s just that’s the reality. And that’s what Rebbe was explaining to Antoninus, but that’s that’s Jewish tradition.

Dovid Bashevkin: That’s the The sweetest ingredient.

My final question related to Shabbos is something that you may have experience with. You have children who serve in the Israeli army, and you live in Israel, and we see that there are so many, especially now, there’s been an awakening, so many people who are serving, they want a Shabbos. And I’m curious for you, what questions, if any, you have gotten, like the frequent questions of how do soldiers who are We’re living in such marvelous times, but what are the common questions that come up for Shabbos observance when they’re already deployed and they are serving to protect the State of Israel?

Shalom Rosner: Right. So, obviously, whenever there is a danger to life, whenever there is a serious security issue, then Shabbos laws are set aside, right? We do army patrols, we carry, we do whatever needs to be done in order to be able to do what we can, right? Shabbos is not one of the big cardinal three cardinal sins that one has to give our life for.

So it’s not business as usual, but anything to protect and the general security is obviously needed. But there are many questions that come up. One is allowed to take whatever they need to go do whatever mesimah, whatever job they have. Is one allowed to have a siddur in their pocket? Am I allowed to take that? I know I’m going to be doing guard duty in a certain place.

Am I allowed to carry? One is not allowed to carry four cubits in a place not surrounded by what’s called an eruv, right, an enclosed area. So am I allowed to carry a siddur? That’s not needed for life and death, but can I do that? I remember my son-in-law told me one time, he’s a was a commander in the one of the first the first few months when he was in Azza three years ago. I remember he told me on Shabbos morning, part of, you know, it’s obviously very challenging and difficult to keep the mood and keep the positivity, and he spoke to the rabbi of the group about cooking, boiling up water on the Shabbos morning in order to make coffee, in order to be able to give to the soldiers to start their day, because that made a big difference in how they performed. So is he, as an Orthodox officer in the army, cooking for his soldiers? When it comes to an army, when it comes to a larger group, one has to have decisions that are made that keep the effectiveness and the paredness of the army, and one has to be ro’eh es hanolad, what’s seen, to see the repercussions of every one of our decisions and not look at it in a vacuum, in this moment is this needed right now.

Some of these questions, Rav Asher Weiss has pointed this out, some of these questions have not been asked in thousands of years. Since we have a state of Israel, police patrolling neighborhoods on Shabbos, is there right now a danger? Right? Maybe not. But if our enemies know that there are no patrols in certain neighborhoods, you know, so that could create a certain reality. So when there’s a communal reality, that’s a different kind of question than an individual in one’s home.

And that’s some of the questions that come up on the battlefields in that way.

Dovid Bashevkin: I can’t thank you enough, and really, your classes in Daf Yomi, kind of the path of halachic observance that you model for your audience is so attainable, yet it also has all of the depth and all of the details. I cannot thank you enough. Part of what we do in Talmud Daily is, especially for our Friday guests, we try to go through a Talmud questionnaire to hear more about your relationship with Talmud study in general.

And my first question, because Talmud is such a personal, everybody has their own path, I wanted you to share, who is your primary teacher of Talmud, and what did they teach you?

Shalom Rosner: Depending on which part of Talmud. My rebbe, Rav Rosensweig, was a rebbe in Yeshiva University. I sat in his class for seven years. He taught me how to think in terms of Talmudic concepts.

He taught me methodology, in terms of how to present, what kind of questions to ask when one looks through sources. I don’t give shiur like he does. He gives shiur and he says a lot of his own chiddushim and all of his own ideas. He uses almost exclusively the medieval texts of the Rishonim.

He looks at a few later commentaries, especially if their last name is Soloveitchik, but I’m not on that level, so I need to do a lot of research.

Dovid Bashevkin: He also gives class for like two and a half hours, and you speak You have made it into an art of condensing a tremendous amount of information into a short amount of time, so I don’t want to scare anybody off to think that you give a three-and-a-half-hour daily Daf Yomi shiur.

Shalom Rosner: If I ever have to err, it’s on the side of being too short. I know that’s not a usual rabbinic way, but my drashos are short, and the shiurim are generally the same amount.

So I would say that how to think is in terms of Rav Rosensweig. A lot of the information and the idios, Rabbi Schachter, Rav Yonasan Sacks, a number of the rebbeim that have been zocheh to hear, Rav Asher Weiss later in life, many of his sefarim. But there’s so much out there, and one has to find the way, the presentation that they connect to. There are so many different presentations of the Talmud, of the Talmud page, whether it’s more just focusing on the words of the Talmud, whether it’s the commentaries.

There are so many ways and every heart of every Jew is touched in a different way. And one finds what works with them. You know, there are those that connect to shiurim with a lot of a lot of extras, and there are those that say, “Just give me the daf, give me the Gemara.” Some love the extras that are added in, but there’s so much out there. We live in a generation, we live in an unbelievable generation, and we live in a, you know, so to speak, dangerous generation where we we could ruin our life with the click of a button in our own home, and we could change our life with the click of a button.

We could get a shiur on any topic, on any area. I have the privilege now of giving for the OU, for AllDaf, not just the Babylonian Talmud, but also the Jerusalem Talmud, the Talmud Yerushalmi also has a has a Daf Yomi. So we’re in year four or five for that, so it’s really amazing that, you know, the Jewish people are coming alive through their study of Talmud.

Dovid Bashevkin: Absolutely.

So my next question is, if you were introducing Talmud for the first time to somebody, how would you explain what is the Talmud, and where would you start? What would you show them first?

Shalom Rosner: First, I would describe what the Talmud is, starting with when Torah was first written down, go back 300 years to the Mishna, talking about Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi and how the Gemara is an expansion of that, and to describe how the Gemara is really ground zero of all of oral law. Right, this is where it starts. This is where it develops from. Gemara is is not just also It’s not just a book of laws.

It’s a book of lives. It gives us a window into the personalities, right, the lives of real people, of the great Amoraim. Every word of the Talmud is there for a reason. I remember Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach once had an amazing comment.

Shmuel was a great doctor in the Talmud. My father, zichrono livracha, always used to love He’s not Reb Shmuel, he’s just Shmuel, because he didn’t have time to get rabbinic ordination, semicha. He was busy taking care of everybody and healing them. So Shmuel once said, “I know the pathways of heaven like I know the streets of my town.” That’s a line in the Gemara.

“I know the pathways of heaven like the streets of my town.” Why didn’t he just say, “I know the pathways ways of heaven. Why’d he have to say, “like the streets of my town”? So Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach said he’s telling us a halachic principle. If you’re a doctor, if you work for Hatzalah, emergency medical, you have to know the streets of your town. You have to study.

What if Waze takes you and it’s stuck and there’s a detour? You have to know how to get around. Shmuel is alluding to with that phrase, he’s alluding to us a halachic principle, that you have to be prepared. Every line of the Gemara, it’s a beautiful thought that the Vilna Gaon, the great Gaon from the 1700s, Reb Eliyahu Kramer, he says the word Gemara means to learn. Gomer in Aramaic, it means to learn, like the word Mishna also.

But he said, maybe there’s a deeper idea with the word Gemara, gimmel, mem, reish, aleph. He said when Ravina and Rav Ashi, the great rabbis from the 500s or so were finished with the Gemara, they sent it up to heaven to get God’s stamp of approval, to get His gushpanka on the Gemara. Hashem looked it over, says the Vilna Gaon, says the Gra, and He sent it back down with the malachim, Gavriel, Michael, Refael, and Uriel. Those four great angels brought it back down to heaven, and that’s the acronym, roshei teivos, Gemara: Gavriel, Michael, Refael, and Uriel.

So God gave a stamp of approval that this was going to be the basis of oral law for all time, which is then developed by all the later commentaries.

Dovid Bashevkin: Absolutely incredible. People don’t like answering this question, but I love asking it. What is your favorite tractate of Talmud?

Shalom Rosner: They once said, they quote from Reb Yisroel Salanter, he said, “I think in the next world Gan Eden is a Meseches Nedarim with the Ran, a chair, and a shtender.” That’s I think that would be some people’s Gehinnom, chas v’shalom, but that is Gan Eden.

Every masechta could be made exciting. I look at it as my avodah in giving a the daf shiur, number one, to make it clear, because when something is clear, there’s already an enjoyment. There’s already a acceptance if it’s clear, and then make it fun and interesting. Clear, fun, and interesting.

And anybody who starts learning Gemara, I would say Meseches Berachos is always a great place to start. Meseches Taanis is a great place to start. Right, the third perek of Taanis is all stories. Reb Yehuda HaNasi, who was the great put together the Mishna, he knew the first perek, the first chapter of Mishnayos already has a story.

Right, because he knows that, you know, we have to get eased into it, into the world. But again, I think every masechta has what to offer. There’s a fascinating comment that Rav Hutner, one of the greats, the Pachad Yitzchok, Reb Yitzchok Hutner, from the previous generation, said, he says, “Sometimes we learn Gemara, and if I was writing the Gemara, I could have organized it much better. You know, this this like we’re learning Tractate Shabbos, but you can learn all of Tractate Shabbos, and there are some fundamentals about Shabbos that are not in there.

Most of them are, but some are in a different masechta.” Right, the words melachos machsheves, which is all about defining what the work on Shabbos is, is not found in Meseches Shabbos. It’s in Meseches Chagigah. Right? So why is it? And sometimes you’ll have one rabbi quoted and then you’ll have four statements of his that have nothing to do with each other. Like one after another just because it’s the same rabbi talking.

Like why is this done? So Rav Hutner said that even when the rabbis were able to write down the oral law, they wrote it in a way that you still need a rebbe. They wrote it in a way that you still need that oral transmission to try to explain it, to put it together, and to decode why some things are together and why is this not here. There’s a message for everything. Why Meseches Shvuos is all about the holiday of Shavuos, I’m sorry, is discussed in Meseches Shabbos? Why is it there? What does that have to do with Shabbos? Why there’s certain topics? Chanukah is in Meseches Shabbos.

Yes, we could come up with a reason, but there must be something deeper.

Dovid Bashevkin: A very artful dodge of not having to name your favorite masechta, but I’m going to keep pushing. Do you have a favorite story in the Talmud?

Shalom Rosner: I urge my talmidim often, my students, that before they go to sleep at night, you don’t have to tell your kids or your grandchildren, you know, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, or or Humpty Dumpty. There are so many famous Gemoros.

During Corona, I, some talmidim asked me, but I put out, I think it’s on Spotify, and I did a famous Gemara every day, like two, three minutes. There’s about 400 of them. So one of my I have a talmid in Philadelphia that put out recently, it’s a big English children’s book. You can find it in any Jew It’s called Famous Gemoros, Famous Gemoros.

He took 20 of them and had it illustrated. Aw, that’s so sweet. Yeah, it’s an amazing, amazing book. But I don’t know if there’s one specific.

In camp, I’m in Camp Kaylie in the summers, and when I teach the teen boys, who I have them for 3 and 1/2 weeks, instead of studying, you know, one perek, one chapter, I pick one masechta and I pick famous stories from this masechta. And I do that, that’s what I do with them in the summer. I pick 20. Meseches Shabbos has many wonderful ones.

But because we’re talking about Meseches Shabbos, I’ll mention maybe my favorite page in Meseches Shabbos is 31a, Lamed Alef amud Alef. That’s the story about the convert going to Hillel and Shamai, “Teach me Torah on one foot.” The same page as two people have a bet, could they make Hillel angry, you know, and All on one page, it’s right, it’s right there. The source for six sedarim of of mishnayos, it’s all on that amud.

Dovid Bashevkin: Yes, that’s very important, meaning the theme of all of the six, which we’ve spoken about, the six orders of the Mishnah, each one has a theme that is found on Shabbos, lamed alef, 31, amud alef, on the first side of the page.

Do you have a favorite halachic topic in Talmud?

Shalom Rosner: That’s hard. I could give you at least a reference. There’s a guy in Woodmere, that a talmid of mine that’s been listening to the shiurim for many, many years. A couple of years ago, he invited me to come, he was making a siyum on Shas.

He was finishing the whole Talmud listening to my shiurim. You know, thank God, I get to meet A lot of people listen to me, even though I’m not listening to them. But he invited me, so he arranged it so when I happened to be in America, one of my trips. So I walk in there, and he had published, in a very rudimentary level, now he’s working to revamp it into a real book, Rosnerisms.

Rosnerisms! All the 200 Rosnerisms. Things that I like to say over and over again, I like to repeat certain fundamental ideas throughout the If it comes up every whatever it is. So I guess those 200 are my favorite, but wow—

Dovid Bashevkin: You’re going to be mortified. Could you give me, I’m so curious, an example of a classic Rosnerism?

Shalom Rosner: Classic Rosnerism.

Let’s see. The Gemara says, this is a classic. The Gemara says in four different places. It’s just a story.

The Gemara says that there was one great rabbi named Nechemya HaAmsuni. He did his doctoral thesis on learning from the word es. The word es has no translation. Bereishis bara Elokim es hashamayim.

So he learned something from every time the Torah said the word es, every time, until he got to the middle of Sefer Devarim, it says, “Es Hashem Elokecha tira.” Es, fear God. So he said, “There’s nothing to add to that.” So he threw away his doctoral thesis. He said, “I’m done. It must be that you’re not supposed to learn anything from that word, because this one you can’t learn anything from.” And his students say, “But Rebbi, you spent 30 years!” What does he answer them? “Just like I received reward for studying, I’ll receive reward for stopping to study, because I realize it’s not the truth.” So he stopped.

And the very next line of the Talmud says, until Rabbi Akiva came along and said, “I can learn something from that word es, es Hashem Elokecha tira, to also be in awe of great rabbis, lerabos talmidei chachamim. Es Hashem Elokecha tira.” That’s the Gemara. So I remember I heard once, I think besheim Rav Gifter, one of the great rabbis, Nechemya Amsuni was able to learn something from every single word es, I don’t know, 500 of them, he couldn’t figure this one out? Rabbi Akiva was the only one that could figure it out? What did Rabbi Akiva know, what did he have that Nechemya Amsuni didn’t have? So Rav Gifter says, Rabbi Akiva had a Nechemya HaAmsuni in front of him. Rabbi Akiva saw that there was a rabbi in front of him that was ready to give up his life’s work, because this is intellectual honesty to the Torah, this is fealty to what he feels is truth, he says, “Wow, lerabos talmidei chachamim, to include that.” So whenever that comes up, I’ll mention that.

Dovid Bashevkin: So that’s—I have to say that, absolutely beautiful.

That is a great Rosnerism, and I can’t wait to get the other 199 on that list. Final, final question: When and where do you most enjoy studying Talmud for yourself, not giving over classes? Where do you love enjoying studying Talmud?

Shalom Rosner: My life is preparing. I don’t think I have generally a moment to just like do my own thing. Baruch Hashem, I’m teaching in a yeshiva every day, and giving the daf every single day, and the parsha shiur, in the shul, in Beit Shemesh.

So, I don’t know, my study in my house, in my basement, they they call it my man cave. You know, I’m just surrounded by thousands of volumes, I guess, they’re each double deep, and it doesn’t all fit, some upstairs, but it’s really being in here preparing. Again, there’s different types of personalities. When I’m accomplishing, when I have my list of like six things I have to prepare, going down the list one at a time, getting through, so that’s what gives me sipuk hanefesh.

When I’m prepared, when I can give something over to the the tzibbur, to try to present it. Rav Schechter, Rav Hershel Schechter, shlita, one of my rabbeim, he says, you know, there’s a concept in the Gemara called, oh, it’s also in Maseches Shabbos, hiddur mitzvah, beautifying a mitzvah. So that applies to all mitzvos, including giving a shiur. There’s packaging a shiur in a beautiful way.

There’s making a nice source sheet where you can beautify the mitzvah. So when one could give over and prepare and get through what one has to do, so then that’s my spot, you know, in—

Dovid Bashevkin: My study, or giving shiur, really. That’s absolutely beautiful. And I think the concept of a man cave also appears in Maseches Shabbos.

Shalom Rosner: Yes, exactly, it does! A man in a cave, yes, that’s true.

Dovid Bashevkin: A man in a cave, Rav Shimon bar Yochai. Rav Shalom Rosner, thank you so much for sharing with us, and for being such an incredible example of Talmud study and Talmud scholarship. We can find again your classes are available on the OU has a Daf Yomi app called All Daf, and really so many of your classes are available there.

They’re also available on Yeshiva University’s Torah website, YU Torah.

Shalom Rosner: And OUTorah.org also, OU Torah.

Dovid Bashevkin: OUTorah.org, OU Torah. And the All Parsha app, and…

Thank you. And you have a wonderful book on the parsha and on the Haggadah that is worth, I’ve used both, called Shalom Rav, right?

Shalom Rosner: On Thursday, this past Thursday, a new, a new volume came out. It’s not in the stores yet. There’s a Shalom Rav in English on Moadim, on the holidays.

One volume on all the holidays, so hopefully it’ll hit the stores…

Dovid Bashevkin: Published by Koren also?

Shalom Rosner: By Koren. Yeah, also by Koren.

Dovid Bashevkin: Absolutely fantastic.

Rabbi Rosner, thank you so much for joining today.

Shalom Rosner: Thank you so much. Keep up the amazing work, and everybody get psyched for every day, and get psyched for the siyum coming up. It’s not just about the ending; it’s the beginning.