Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0421: Memorizing the Shulkhan Aruch

Episode Date: October 19, 2015

Yisrael asks about memorizing Hebrew law using the Shulkhan Aruch. I present organization and mnemonic strategies for making this a fun and easy project. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Master of Memory 421. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Yisrael wrote in an email, I'm a Jewish student learning in a post-high school program where we study our religion. One thing we learn is Jewish law, which is complex and has loads of details. Basically, I learn from a Hebrew book called the Shulchan Aruk with a commentary on it.

The Shulchan Aruk is broken down by chapters by letter, and each chapter is broken into subchapters also by letter. The commentary elaborates on the Shulchan Aruk in comments that are broken up also by letter. For example, chapter A would be about praying. It would start with subchapter A, which would be about one part of prayer, and then B would be about a second type of prayer, and so on until the end of the chapter. The commentary is also by letter. Here's an illustration of how it's structured. A, prayer. A, A, text, and then a little note with a small A. More text, and then a little note that says B. A, B, and then text, and then a little note that says C. And then more text, and then a little note that says D. All of that is in this illustration,

it's within the A and within the AB sections. The little letters in the illustrations are notations to look at commentary, which I did not show in the illustration. The commentary is by letters, which reset every chapter, not every subchapter. So what would be the best way for me to memorize this so that I would know what each chapter is about and remember what each chapter says and which one says it, and the same with all the commentaries? I was wondering if a good way to do this would be a peg system. If I reuse a peg system several times, will my mind naturally separate between all the different things, or will I just get confused? On the other hand, creating many different peg systems might also get confusing, and either way, I'm still not exactly sure how to use the pegs in such a complicated way.

So what all that is saying is that the Shulkan Aruk is sorted by letter. So we have chapters by letter, subchapters by a further letter, and then also commentaries on those that are of a different letter. And so it's actually very common for me to talk to people about how to organize a book or the way that they remember different sections and chapters and so on by number, but it looks like we're dealing with letters here. So what I would suggest, Yisrael, is that you do use a peg system, but for letters rather than for numbers. But you should also use a memory palace so that you can store things in separate locations. So you actually will be reusing a lot of your pegs, but what you won't be reusing are locations in your palace, and it should work perfectly fine without you mixing anything up. Now, I would use no more than two different peg systems, as in you have the 26 letters one time of one category, and then the

26 letters of another category, But I do recommend those two. So do have two systems, one for capital letters, which would be for the chapters and the subchapters, and then a different one for the small letters, which indicate the commentary interspersed throughout the chapters. Now you're going to organize a large memory palace, maybe a different building that you're familiar with for each chapter, with a different room for each subchapter. Within those, you'll have your letter pegs doing things. So they're imagery. Maybe your letters are animals or maybe each different letter is a different type of food.

But you'll have them doing things that are related to the prayers, the commentaries, and all of that stuff that you're memorizing. So do turn these letters into pegs as I talk about in other episodes where you turn numbers into pegs, but then use a memory palace to keep everything straight so that you don't get anything mixed up, so that you're reusing pegs, but you're not reusing locations. So those are my suggestions, Yusrael, and I'll be happy to help continue with this project by email. For everyone listening, what do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com slash question, and I'll talk to you again soon.