There were three of us with the promise of two more next time.

The two others knew each other. Switching from evening to afternoon, I expected to be breaking into cliques. It may take some time before they warm up to me. And my questions didn't do much to ease their welcome.

He started with lots of things, but the biggest shock was a page of Talmud ... in Hebrew. He also gave a key, for understanding the sections on the page. I need to work through that on my own because we did not in class.

I need to get comfortable with the variations. Not just editions, Jerusalem vs. Babylonian, but revisions of each.

As a helpful analogy, I thought of the KJV preserving ancient textual variations, especially in its New Testament that other English translations omit. Anyway, the idea is that ours is the Babylonian. After the course, he said we would know as much Talmud as a Reformed Jew. I'm not sure that's saying very much but I can't hope to finish the course. So, it won't be true of me anyway.

There's a saying: When you begin to study the Talmud, you may finish one page per day ( דף יומי ). After you have been at it for a while, you can manage half a page per day. The study of Scripture is the same way and I saw the parallel immediately.

An aquaintance at the YMCA, in my swim class, claims to be Orthodox but I think she's really Conservative. I told her that I was beginning to study the Talmud and she was thrilled and interested in my impression.