As an ex-Orthodox Jew, I do miss the beis medrash atmoshpere.
Also the concept of "high-involvement cooperative overlapping" is something that was recently pointed out to me by my brother, and honestly once it was named, solved a lot of marital issues between my wife and I. I would constantly interrupt her as a way of communicating that I was ardently listening and sympathizing and she'd get offended. On the flip-side, I'd be emoting to her and she would just sit and listen to me without interrupting and I would feel like she wasn't paying attention.
Once we realized this was a real cultural difference, it was something we're able understand about each other.
Pair programming reminds me slightly of chavrusa, the switching off of who's driving, and the intense discussions when stuck.
They also both serve as a very powerful learning experiences, sharing the struggle, and then learning how the other person solves problem.
Another characteristic pair programming and learning in chavrusa share is you can't do a threesome. If you are in a conversation with one person and they say something you know its for you. Some how this makes it easier to track a conversation while tackling an intellectually challenging task.
I am particularly appreciative of the blog author's transliteration of the phrase, respecting the Hebrew (technically Aramaic in this case) pronunciation of his yeshivish background and not choosing to "modernize" for a broader audience.
I am curious how common the "ay" is these days as opposed to "oy" - I don't know if I've heard it in a long time. Which part of Europe does it come from, and which yeshivos and communities are still doing it? Anyone know? In general, I'm fascinated by the different ways the language evolved before Ben Yehuda's revival and standardization and I find it frustrating that in some corners of the Jewish world a conscious decision was made to abandon this natural fragmentation in favor of a standard.
hello! im the author- the word is actually in the talmud itself,in the story of choni hamagel. spelled with an aleph and yud, so yes the pronunciation is 'ay' given that it is aramaic the A sound is the dufault, iirc (been a long time since i was in yeshivah)
in yiddish, ay and oy are used for different things, tho it occurs to me i cant quite articulate the difference. i believe ay is older.
I used to go sit on the roof of my yeshiva with my chavrusa instead of studying. We were in the old city of Jerusalem so we could watch the Palestinians rioting and getting tear gassed on the Temple Mount. Then he got kicked out of yeshiva, and I got paired with another guy who would read secular philosophy with me.
My yeshiva experience was a lot less exciting because we were based in middle of nowhere with nothing to do (by design). That didn't stop me from spending a lot of time in the beis medrash talking with my chavrusa about philosophy, theology, religion, or just nonsense. Anything but actually learning what I was supposed to. Eventually I lost all my chavrusas as they broke up with me for being a deadbeat. This is the yeshiva equivalent of being a terrible romantic partner and eventually running out of people in town to date.
Also, I don't know why people make yeshivos in the old city. It's a terrible place to be if you want the young men to actually focus on learning.
This resonated surprisingly well for a secular guy like myself. Have I unknowingly been influenced by Jewish culture (likely enough)? Or has engineering school culture perhaps found a similar style of casual argumentation by convergent evolution?
My colleagues and I discuss, off and on, what it would be like to introduce chavruta learning to other domains. We dream of an environment like that for chemistry, physics, etc.
I think I've seen it develop in Math circles (two folks going at it on a blackboard for hours on end), but there's something really powerful about the format which doesn't seem prevalent elsewhere.
As many social systems evolve and optimize over time, Jewish Beit Midrash learning has evolved over millenia to be an effective educational tool, and I think (/hope/suspect) there's a lot which can be extracted from it and applied to other learning contexts.
Also the concept of "high-involvement cooperative overlapping" is something that was recently pointed out to me by my brother, and honestly once it was named, solved a lot of marital issues between my wife and I. I would constantly interrupt her as a way of communicating that I was ardently listening and sympathizing and she'd get offended. On the flip-side, I'd be emoting to her and she would just sit and listen to me without interrupting and I would feel like she wasn't paying attention.
Once we realized this was a real cultural difference, it was something we're able understand about each other.