Making the written text oral by collaborating in argumentation: towards detecting Chavruta process among ultra-Orthodox learners: [from the section: contemporary oral interchange on traditional Jewish texts]

Using tools from ethnography and the learning science, articulate patterns of argumentation and collaboration that emerge from a dyadic framework of text study known as chavruta. Two lifelong learners in an ultra-Orthodox kollel, over the course of more than a thousand recorded interchanges, delve into the issue of what is to be considered "washing" one's clothes on the Sabbath, and examine it from almost every possible angle. The fact that these traditionalist interlocutors are barred from contradicting canonical rabbinic authorities certainly constrains the parameters of their times, line up and take the part of this or that authority, and that this practice actually helps hesitant learners to find their own voice.