Whose Talmud Is Better?

Once, at a Shabbos retreat of Talmud students, one of them asked professor Saul Lieberman נ"ע what the difference was between the study of Talmud in the yeshivos and the study of Talmud in the departments of Talmud of the universities or Jewish seminaries. His answer came quickly: None! This answer is, in my humble opinion, very profound and requires thought and interpretation. עיון ודרוש, for surely at first glance and maybe second or even third, there is, indeed, much difference between the study of Talmud in the yeshivos and that of the universities, including Bar Ilan, where the question had been asked and answered so definitively. The answer lies in the specific mode of Talmudic scholarship that was the province of both professors Lieberman and Chaim Zalman Dimitrovsky, whom I've introduced to readers in previous columns as my teachers, may the memory of these righteous be a blessing.