[Dean's World] Naftali: Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Laws of Torah Study. A Translated Excerpt

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Posted by Naftali:
Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Laws of Torah Study.  A Translated Excerpt  
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1199339363.shtml


   Then the father teaches him to read the [1]Tanach, little by little
   and at home, until the boy reaches the age of six or seven years.
   Prior to that, in the forth year, the father had to have taught him
   the letters of the Torah, in order that the boy be prepared to read in
   the Torah the fifth year.

   When the boy reaches the age of six or seven complete years--it
   depends on the health and strength of the boy--he [the father] brings
   the boy to a teacher to read in the Torah the entire day. The boy
   would do this until he was ten years old, by which point he would have
   read the entire Tanach many, many, times.

   In those days, people spoke Hebrew, and, [of course,] when a child
   would begin to speak his father would talk with him in Hebrew.
   Therefore, there was no need to teach the children the meaning of the
   words. They had only to teach them how to read the letters with proper
   pronunciation and with the proper tune, and also how to read those
   verses that are to be read differently than how they are to be
   written; for, in those days, the vowels and notes were not written;
   [the text of the whole Tanach looked] like our Torah scrolls; they,
   therefore, needed to work five years learning the entire scriptures
   many times, in order to learn the pronunciations and incantations by
   heart.

   Afterwards--five years learning the [2]Mishnah--a body of work
   comprising the laws without reasoning--by heart.

   Afterwards--five years in Talmud--[related but not identical to the
   [3]Talmud]--which is [learning] to concisely know the reasoning behind
   the laws, as well as their, [respective], sources; is it derived from
   the written Torah through one of the thirteen rules of Biblical
   exegesis [given to Moshe at Sinai] or through other methods; or is it
   a tradition going back to Moshe from Sinai; or is it from logic; or is
   it mandated from the Sages as a fence and a wall preventing us from
   transgressing the words of the Torah?

   Then, a man spends his entire life--each man according to his
   intellect and ability--in talmudic dialectic, pointing out
   contradictions and coming to resolutions, descending deeper and deeper
   into the depths of the reasons and exegesis, understanding one thing
   from another and innovating new halachot and exegesis [...]

References

   1. http://www.artscroll.com/stonetanach.html
   2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishnah
   3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemara