Pirkei Avos

Service Description

We've all learned Pirkei Avos -- repeatedly! -- and we're all familiar with its many holy individual teachings. So what could yet another course on Pirkei Avos hope to add to what you already know?! Avos is, of course, one of the 63 volumes of the Mishnah, and its design -- structure, content, and flow -- is no less rigorous and perfect than any other volume. No responsible student of Torah would ever consider learning any other volume of Mishnah the way we learn Avos -- i.e., as a loose collection of [profound, admittedly] teachings that happened to be thrown together to form a random grouping of chapters. Serious Torah study is built on the realization that the Sages designed each volume with plan and purpose and precision. Unfortunately, most of our learning of Avos involves considering each individual teaching without regard for the larger context within which it appears. The flow of the mishnayos within a chapter is never considered, and the chapter groupings themselves are consistently ignored. As a result, our understanding of each mishnah teaching -- no matter how much we subject the individual mishnah to analysis -- remains superficial and incomplete. In fact, Avos has a very tight structure, and each mishnah teaching -- far from being a stand-alone, independent thought -- contributes to the creation of a magnificent thematic structure within each chapter. In this course, we will, iy"H, identify that thematic structure and consider the themes of the various chapters. A breathtaking new understanding of Pirkei Avos will emerge, and, once you have acquired this understanding of the thematic structure of the Avos, everything you've ever learned -- and will ever learn -- about Pirkei Avos will take on new significance and depth. A popular speaker and teacher, Rav Friedman is the author of eight seforim, including Chanukas HaTorah, Setting a Table for Two, and Marital Intimacy. Rav Friedman has taught diverse audiences, observant and not yet observant, in Eretz Yisrael and the United States, in a variety of settings, formal and informal, conventional and unconventional. In addition to teaching Torah in shuls, yeshivos, college campuses, and kiruv programs, Rav Friedman is a consultant to the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, where he teaches mussar ideals to the law enforcement community. Recordings will be available for this class. This course will be 10 sessions - Jan 28, Feb 4, 11, 18, 25, March 4, 11, 18, 25, April 1