Loving Math and Talmud

By Michael Zanger-Tishler

Recently, I was reading a book called “Love and Math” by Edward Frenkel, a famous professor of mathematics at the University of California Berkeley. In the book, Frenkel describes (almost as if describing why he loves his wife) the way in which he fell in love with mathematical theories and with the culture around doing math. Growing up in the Soviet Union, however, learning math was difficult for Jewish students. One of the more poignant scenes that Frenkel describes is climbing over a fence to sneak into Moscow State University’s famous Mekh-Mat, the department of Mechanics and Mathematics, in order to hear seminars by the revered mathematicians who taught there. This University, which Frenkel was forbidden from studying in because he was Jewish, was the center of pure mathematics in Russia.

When reading this story, I could not help but reflect on the behavior of Hillel Hazaken. We learn (יומא דף לה, עמוד ב) that Hillel used to work every day to earn money for his family. He would then use half of his money to support his family, and half of his money to pay the guard of the Beit Midrash so he could enter and learn. However, one day Hillel did not make any money and was not allowed by the guard to enter the Beit Midrash. Instead of sulking, Hillel was so committed to learning Torah that he went up on the roof of the Beit Midrash and listened through the sky light. So distracted was he by learning Torah, that three amot of snow fell on him without him noticing. The sages learning in the Beit Midrash needed to revive him the following morning.

These two characters share a similar love of learning, and the topics they enjoy learning are more similar than one might think (Rav Soloveitchik was a student of pure math and physics and would often compare the study of those subjects to the study of Halacha). Throughout my life, I have been full of Frenkel’s insatiable desire to learn math. As a child I would read through math textbooks on my own and participate in math competitions even when they weren’t offered through my school. For two years, I was even fortunate enough to take part in math research supervised by the professor who convinced Professor Frenkel to sneak into Moscow State University when they were college students. During these years, I was surrounded by brilliant mathematicians. These mentors and peers, however, were also people who, if given the option between doing math and something else, would almost certainly choose math. These people rubbed off on me and during the last two years of high school I would often stay up late scribbling down math equations in the cliché way people often imagine mathematicians working.

Now that I am at Yeshivat Maale Gilboa and find myself contemplating masechet Sanhedrin long after night seder has finished at 10 pm, I wonder why this type of dedication to Torah learning was not something I could have imagined in myself before yeshiva. I had access to all of the resources to do so and also access to a plethora of rabbis at school, camp, and in my community who would have loved to guide me in my Torah study. My answer ultimately comes from the different ways I was introduced to Torah and to math. Being around people who love math (fellow students and teachers), I have noticed that when they try to explain what they find magical about studying math, it is always through examples of problems or theorems that initially enamored them. Whether it involves showing a pattern in Fibonacci numbers or demonstrating the way a theory beautifully describes a certain phenomenon, individual examples, when explained by someone knowledgeable and invested in the topic, can give a lay person insight into why mathematics is an amazing endeavor. Sadly, it has often been my experience that in the Jewish institutions I have been part of, the education process is different. Instead of studying l’shem shamayim (for the sake of heaven), the emphasis is on making students study just so they can be literate Jews. Then, instead of giving examples of how fascinating a specific sugya of Talmud can be, students are relegated to sitting through classes on controversial topics in Judaism or modern “issues” in halacha. These classes are meant to pique student interest and, while provoking discussion, they often make those who already do not feel an obligation towards Jewish learning angrier at the tradition. Ultimately we are taught to learn not because it is fun, but because it is simply something we have to do if we are Jewish.

One of the experiences that Frenkel describes most glowingly in his book is that of sitting in on Israel Gelfand’s shiur while an undergraduate (I’m pretty sure that they called it a seminar but for my purposes it helps me imagine it as a shiur). Gelfand was, as Frenkel describes, “the patriarch of the Soviet mathematical school” and one of the most brilliant and charismatic mathematicians of the 20th century. However, Gelfand’s brilliance was not the only thing that made his seminar so attractive. Gelfand created a lively (if not slightly scary environment) where he would tell jokes, call up different speakers, and have different people participate (often without advance warning ) in his upbeat and engaging seminar. This famous seminar seems a lot like many of our shiurim at Maaleh Gilboa. If this were the type of environment that surrounded Torah learning for me before this year, I have no doubt I would have been inspired to learn Torah with a fervor I was not inspired to before this year. I do not know that I have a way to improve the atmosphere at American Jewish schools, but a place to start is by trying to emphasize learning about Judaism in an exciting way and not an apologetic way.