Rambam Bekius

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (10/5/21) we went over everything we did yesterday in an attempt to sharpen our questions and start to explore ways to answer them. I think we got as far as we can get for now. The next step is to read on, and to at least finish the next few halachos about the obligation to teach - if not the full first perek. Once we do tha...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Since today (10/4/21) was our first REAL session of Rambam Bekius in the 2021-2022 academic year (now that the moadim are over), I decided it would be a good idea to review what the Mishneh Torah is and what approach we will be taking in our Rambam Bekius chavurah. We reviewed the essential excerpts from the Rambam's statements about...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (10/4/21) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we began Hilchos Talmud Torah. As is our custom, we started by comparing the Rambam's formulation of the mitzvah in the Sefer ha'Mitzvos, the Reshimos at the beginning of the Mishneh Torah, the Koseres, and the first halachos. Not surprisingly, we already have a plateful of q...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (9/14/21) we attempted to answer the questions we raised yesterday. Using a combination of our own minds and the sources provided by R' Qafih in his digest, we were able to arrive at a decent understanding of two ways to learn the Rambam. We had a nice tangential discussion about the tension between the notion that our...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (9/13/21) we took up the question: Which sins should a person publicize his teshuvah on and which sins should he keep private? After reviewing the Rambam on the basic mitzvah of vidui, and going over a few "side ideas," we learned Hilchos Teshuvah 2:5, raising all the major questions and starting to develop an appr...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (9/6/21) we had a special edition of Rambam Bekius in which we examined the three places where the Rambam utilizes the metaphor of "waking up." The three are (1) in Hilchos Teshuvah 3:4, when he explains the "message" of shofar, (2) in Hilchos Mezuzah 6:13, in his explanation of the purpose and importance...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (8/4/21 at YBT), in our last Rambam Bekius chavurah of the 2020-2021 year, we completed Hilchos Deios. After reviewing the Rambam's treatment of nekimah (taking revenge) and netirah (bearing a grudge) in the Sefer ha'Mitzvos, we did the "hidden" source on revenge in the Sefer ha'Mitzvos, in the Ramba...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (8/2/21 at YBT), in our Rambam Bekius chavurah, we finished the topic of lashon ha'ra, explaining the last couple of halachos in Deios Chapter 7 and then attempting to understand as much as we could of the end of Tumas Tzaraas, where the Rambam discusses another dimension of the harm of lashon ha'ra. We concluded b...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (7/29/21 at YBT) we focused on two topics: avak lashon ha'ra (the "dust" of lashon ha'ra , i.e. the four categories of partial lashon ha'ra , which is still prohibited) and the halachos about other forms of lashon ha'ra , including the wide misconception that "if it's public, then it&a...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (7/28/21 at YBT) we revisited the question we spent yesterday working on, namely, "What is rechilus?" Thanks to some non-Rambam sources, we were able to come up with a clear definition of rechilus according to the Rambam and explain how lashon ha'ra is a subcategory. We then analyzed the statements the Rambam...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (7/27/21 at YBT) we resumed our Rambam Bekius chavurah with the seventh and final perek of Hilchos Deios! Our plan is to finish by the end of next week so that we can start Hilchos Talmud Torah at the beginning of the 2020-2021 academic year. Today we focused on the surprisingly-difficult-to-define activity of rechilus (&quo...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (6/17/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we concluded the sixth chapter of Hilchos Deios, which is about the treatment of widows and orphans. In the remaining time we took up a question that was raised yesterday: According to the Rambam, if yedias Hashem (knowledge of God) is the ultimate perfection, then where do mitz...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (6/16/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we continued on in the sixth chapter of Hilchos Deios with the mitzvos of tochachah (rebuke) and she'lo le'halbin panim (not to embarrass). In addition to learning what the Rambam wrote, we also mused about the current state of the mitzvah of tochachah in Klal Yisroel...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (6/15/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we continued on in the sixth chapter of Hilchos Deios, which covers a variety of bein adam l'chaveiro mitzvos. Today we learned about three: loving your fellow Jew, loving the convert, and not hating your brother in your heart, which also touched upon the mitzvah to rebuke...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (6/14/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we began the sixth and penultimate chapter of Hilchos Deios, in which the Rambam writes about the importance of associating with chachamim and their talmidim. Will we finish the 6th perek before the summer? We shall see! Let's plan to do what we always try to do: let the mo...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (6/10/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we (miraculously?) finished Hilchos Deios Chapter 5 today, which covered several other areas of chachamim conduct: perception of their speech, walking, dress, management of personal finances, and business conduct. Our goal is to try to finish Hilchos Deios Chapter 6 next week, w...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (6/9/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we continued the chapter about how talmidei chachamim should conduct themselves in the particulars of their lives, which covered the topics listed in the title. The most interesting thing (to me, anyway) was how the Rambam classified the many statements of Chazal on these topics....

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (6/8/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we began the chapter about how chachamim (or talmidei chachamim) should conduct themselves in the particulars of their lives. Today's topic focused on how chachamim should and shouldn't eat. We contrasted this with some similar statements at the end of Hilchos Tumas Och...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (6/7/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we decided to take a brief break from Hilchos Deios to learn some Rambams about Bris Milah, since there will be a bris in yeshiva tomorrow - the first one I've been to since pre-COVID! We began with the Rambam's four initial presentations of the mitzvah, then we read hi...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (6/3/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we finished the chapter in Hilchos Deios comprised of the Rambam's health guidelines. Although we encountered far more outdated statements this time compared to last time, we also encountered more enduring truths and insights into the Torah's approach to health. All in...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (6/1/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we began learning a chapter that some would have preferred to skip. Although we acknowledged that there are many outdated elements of the Rambam's health guidelines, our goal was to see how much is still relevant, and what insight these principles have to offer for our avoda...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (5/31/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we started and finished Hilchos Deios Chapter 3 - arguably the most important chapter in all of Hilchos Deios, insofar as it outlines what the Torah holds ought to be the purpose of all of our actions. Tomorrow we'll attempt to get through as much of Chapter 4 as possible....

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (5/27/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we finally finished Hilchos Deios Chapter 2! The penultimate halacha followed the pattern of the previous paragraphs in that it clarified what would otherwise be a difficult deah to understand, but the final paragraph seemed to just be miscellaneous deios guidelines. We understo...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Yesterday we learned the Rambam's strict view that "even a single word of pitui (seduction) and geneivas daas (trickery) is prohibited." We wondered what the Rambam would say about the classic cases when one is permitted to lie, and were puzzled by the omission of such cases from these halachos, and from Hilchos Deios in gen...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This afternoon (5/24/21 at YBT) in our Rambam Bekius chavurah we had yet another workout trying to work out what the Rambam was saying in his halachos about divrei chalakos u'pitui (words of smoothtalking and seduction), achas ba'peh v'achas ba'leiv (duplicity), and geneivas daas (trickery). This proved to be quite the...