How to Begin?

Jews analyze every aspect of the Torah. It is an obsession so pervasive that I could almost infer that it is a genetic trait rather than learned behavior. The Jews have dissected every word, every letter, even every blank space thousands upon thousands of times - and then each succeeding generation began anew at bereshith and incorporated and parsed the analyses of the previous generations.

If this people, whose lives are thoroughly steeped in the traditions and ideas of their near and distant forbears, can yet find room for dissent and dispute, how am I, uneducated and untrained, lacking the most basic tools to search for these truths in the manner of the Jews, ever to hope to glean the simplest precept with any clarity or certainty?

Near as I can tell, this immersion in the study of the Torah and the oral traditions did not begin with the destruction of the Temple and the Diaspora, but dates back to at least the Babylonian Exile, and probably began at the base of Sinai, where the written and oral Laws are believed to have been given.

If I am grafted into the tree and am adopted as an heir - having equal standing - would I not share equal responsibility for study? We are told to study, to meditate, that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word.

But where do I begin?

Do I start as a Jewish child would? What am I to study? How am I to study? Are there parts of the Jewish tradition, writings, teachings which I should not study? How do I meld the old and the new?

This is exciting and intimidating simultaneously.