The Beauty of Gemara Learning

Recently, I had the privilege of speaking at a Chagigat Gemara for fifth-grade girls. The principal opened the ceremony by describing the school’s deliberate shift in its approach to Gemara learning. After working with a consultant, establishing benchmarks and standards, and ensuring that both girls and boys were receiving an equitable learning experience, the school decided to introduce Mishnah in fourth grade and Gemara for all students in fifth grade. The care, thought, and intentionality behind this decision were evident.

As I listened, I reflected on my own journey. When I was in ninth grade, my school introduced a new Gemara class for girls—a groundbreaking initiative at the time. I was the only ninth grader invited to join, and I was nervous. What if I wasn’t ready? What if I wasn’t smart enough? But my teacher believed in me, and because of him, I fell in love with learning Gemara. He made it feel deep, exciting, and meaningful. Throughout high school, I was fortunate to learn from him, and we remained in touch long after. He changed my life.

In college, I encountered another incredible teacher—Rabbi Moshe Kahn, tz”l—who approached Gemara in a completely different way. While my high school teacher emphasized big ideas, Rabbi Kahn focused on skills. He pushed us to engage with the text independently, ensuring we understood every word. His quizzes were tough—100 words at a time!—but they gave me the tools I needed to truly learn. Today, as a teacher myself, I strive to do for my students what my teachers did for me: inspire a love of learning while equipping them with the skills to succeed.

With these formative experiences shaping my love for learning, it is heartbreaking to see that access to women’s Gemara learning is not expanding, but contracting. When Rabbi Kahn passed away in 2023, while there was an immediate replacement for him, the following semester Yeshiva University had questions about what Gemara courses to offer. After 1,400 current and former students signed a petition calling for the preservation of Talmud study at Stern College for Women the university reconsidered. There are currently five Gemara courses offered at Stern, which are being taught by both faculty and GPATS fellows. Will this continue?

At the elementary and high school levels, a basic survey suggests that Gemara learning is more prevalent in co-ed schools than in single-gender institutions, with Central/YUHSG and Ma’ayanot standing out as notable exceptions.

This trend is not isolated to high schools. In the seminary world, the landscape is also shifting. Programs with strong Gemara components, such as Migdal Oz and Midreshet Lindenbaum, have traditionally had smaller enrollments. Midreshet Lindenbaum launched a Tanach program and saw an increase in student interest, while Nishmat, despite its robust Beit Midrash, has struggled to sustain its Shana Ba’Aretz program, closing it and reopening it before ultimately absorbing the Americans into the Israeli program, with some English courses.

There seems to be a growing hesitancy around encouraging Gemara learning for women.

Paradoxically, even as institutional learning opportunities diminish, independent Torah study is growing stronger than ever. Thousands of women are learning with Hadran. According to Hadran’s statistics, there are over 1,600 people learning Daf Yomi with Rabbanit Michelle Farber in English and Hebrew. The majority are women, with 52 communities of learners and over 880 participants in the U.S., Israel, and worldwide.

This seeming retreat from learning Gemara in high school and post-high school troubles me. Gemara is a profound way to connect with Hashem, engage with pesukim, drashot, halacha, real-life issues, stories, and the complexities of the human experience. It teaches us critical skills—communication, clarity, analytical thinking, and how we interact with others and the world around us.

The message I shared with these girls is one we should take to heart. “Today, as you receive their first Gemara, you are stepping into a lifelong partnership. Your teachers, parents, and community will help guide you, just as my teachers guided me. But in the end, your learning is in their hands. You have the opportunity to take the words of the Gemara, wrestle with them, understand them, and make them a part of your lives.”

We should be intentional about preserving and expanding opportunities for women’s Gemara study. Schools and seminaries have a responsibility to foster environments where women can engage deeply with Torah learning. By investing in high-quality Gemara education, we can ensure that every girl who desires to learn has access to the same transformative experiences that shaped my own journey.