Reply To: In Search

First of all, sorry about the typos in the first post. I was typing in a bit of a hurry.

Second of all, thanks so much, SpiceofLife :).

Thirdly:

Thanks so much for all of your advice! So as PAA pointed out (something I hadn’t really thought about) the timing of the session (25 minutes a week) is really not so conducive to a really in-depth study of anything, unfortunately (I’d asked if I could learn Navi but it’s apparently a bit beyond the scope of this type of chavrusa- I now have a Navi chavrusa set up with my friend and I’m also going to try to get one with another teacher). So a lot of my friends are doing mussar seforim, but I tend to find that a bit fluffy and not my style sometimes (maybe I’m seeing R Chaim Brisker’s point :)). TheTroll’s suggestion is something I’d thought of though the 25-minute time limit does sort of make that hard, but one thing I was thinking of was 19 Letters- but then I suggested it to a friend who decided to use it for HER chavrusa so now it’s sort of weird. Is that sefer recommended for a chavrusa? I thought maybe of Chorev but it’s massive.

To give an idea of what I enjoy, I’m doing another chavrusa in Pirkei Avos with Bartenura. Actually, in that case, Shmoneh Perakim may be interesting- will look into.

I have until next Sunday, and am still very very open to suggestions. Just more about me (beyond what people know from my posting style and other stuff from this particular thread)- I’m not sure whether to stick with my comfort zone of Tanach, meforshim, etc or to move into more hashkafa/mussar-based classes even though I’ve been burned in the past from teachers who could very easily have conflated the contents of the seforim with their own personal hashkafos. It just happens to be that I haven’t really enjoyed in the past, but maybe there’s some way for me to get over myself. I also don’t happen to be the kind of person who ust wants to sit there and take things- I like to be an active thinker and participant, which has made some mussar seforim sit wrong with me. I’m not sure whether a) to therefore stick with things I know I’ll enjoy b)to get over myself or c) to try to find a hashkafa/mussar sefer that has a different style that might suit me better.

By the way, if I didn’t mention the sefer that you suggested in this post, it’s not because I’ve neessarily discounted it- I’m making a list that I’m going to be checking out over the week :).

Thanks so much, everybody!