HOW TO GET DEEPER INTO TORAH WITHOUTGOING OFF THE DEEP END

A Tutor's Suggestions for Maintaining Your Sanity WhileStudying in a Baal Teshuva Yeshiva

By: Friedman the Tutor

These suggestions are not requirements. They are friendly hints about well-known, frequently-tripped-over obstacles which litter the road ahead of you.Forewarned is forearmed. May you have an enjoyable and satisfying journey.

Go Slow

If you take on too much, too quickly, you can cause an inner backlash. You couldwake up one day sick of Torah, sick of yourself, or just physically sick. Or allthree.

Find a Mentor

One human connection is worth more than ten perfect institutions. Torah isinherited through personal relationships more than class curriculum. You’ll needyour yeshiva classes to provide a balanced range of information, but the melodybehind all those details comes through human bonding. Look for a teacher whohas what you want, or whose teaching is inspiring or, in an intuitive sense,familiar. If you find more than one person, use them all, but find at least onementor. Then be brave and ask for times to talk and invitations for Shabbos.

Don’t Abandon Your Old Identity

Don’t get so excited over your new script that you destroy all your old props andscenery. Don’t suddenly give away your old books or throw out your favoritemusic. (Please use earphones if you live with others.) Keep contact with your oldfriends. Continue to use your own name. Don’t hurry to declare that you are tooreligious now for your library, your family, your profession, your artistic life, oryour old hobbies. Such radical changes will only become appropriate for you toconsider several years down the line. Racing into those decisions now won’t helpyou purify your soul more quickly. Instead, such changes could unravel you byremoving all your familiar coordinates. Amputating your past undermines yourcreativity and authenticity. It could leave you spiritually limp instead of spirituallymore vigorous.It’s great that you want to explore who you might become, but don’t do it bylosing touch with who you are.

Take Your Inadequacy Lightly

Six months ago, you had a certain amount of self-confidence, skill, expertise, andaccomplishment. Now you are back to square one. The second grader down theblock knows more Hebrew and Torah than you. Every hour you make betweenfive and sixty mistakes. Every week you discover yet another subject about whichyou know nothing whatsoever. You fill your notebooks with information that yourepeatedly forget. I promise you that if you continue struggling with theseimpenetrable texts, eventually you will understand them. Meanwhile, you feelboth stupid and ignorant. That’s one of the most difficult parts of being abeginner. You can’t avoid it. But don’t let it redefine how you see yourself. You’restill the same adult with the same intelligence and accomplishments you hadbefore. Try to remember that you could talk most of your teachers under the tablein your own area of expertise.Consider making a list of your achievements and skills to help you keepperspective. You might mention awards, grades, salaries, leadership roles, andall your creative work. Include all the pots you threw at the wheel, all the articlesyou wrote, all the classes you taught, etc. You could put the list in your notebookamong all those other lists of what you don’t know yet. Look at it wheneveryou’ve misplaced your adulthood.

Honor All Your Failures

“A person cannot stand in words of Torah until he has stumbled in them.” (Gittin43a) Some of us were trained by our families or our universities to get it rightinstead of getting it wrong, but that approach to learning prevents any deepunderstanding. Your failures bring depth and grace to your knowledge. Onepainter used to tell his beginning drawing classes, “You will have to make at least5000 mistakes in drawing in order to learn how to draw well, so you might as wellstart making some of those mistakes immediately.” If you aim to become wise inTorah someday, one basic secret is to fail frequently.

Make Friends with Families

Torah is essentially a human endeavor, not an academic one. In a family home,you can see how people live Torah, rather than how they talk Torah. This may bethe most powerful single move you can make to integrate your spirituality into“real life”. If all goes well, one of those families could become your supportiverefuge, your cheering team, and a place to give caring.

Being A Guest

You would have to make Shabbos for a family to believe how much work it is.Shopping, cooking, cleaning, keeping the kids from tearing the house oreachother apart, getting everyone bathed and dressed. Keep this in mind whenyou go to someone’s house for Shabbos. Bring a gift. If you’re short of funds, you

can make something or come early and share in preparations. One family I knowstill has a papercut from a guest who came eight years ago. Help with the servingand cleaning up. Pay attention to the children, not just the parents.

Please don’t correct the Halacha of your hosts.

(See Three Favorite Halachic Follies #3). Trynot to keep anyone up until 1 AM talking to you unless you are 100% positive theother person is as eager to talk late into the night as you are. Say thank you.Men, take note. This applies especially to you. As one householder explained,“The women help clean the table. They do dishes. They take the kids to the park.The men are oblivious. When they finish benching, they’ll yawn and say, ‘Well, Iguess I’ll take a nap now.’ ”. Try not to fulfill this stereotype.

Exercise

Yeshiva schedules keep you bent over books for many long hours. Considerbalancing your week (as much as you can) with exercise. Try walking to school.Or join an exercise class. Or go swimming sometimes. (Be forewarned thatswimming in Israel is expensive.) Regular exercise is not Bittul Torah (a waste ofTorah study time). On the contrary, it gives you more energy to learn. It’s also aneffective way to prevent getting depressed. It can balance your appetite and keepyour body in shape. Above all, exercise will help you take your body along as youmove forward in your spiritual and intellectual life. It reminds you that you aremore than a floating head.

Go Slow

There is the intellectual and emotional commitment to a life of Torah. There isalso the practical realignment of a thousand details in your daily life. Yourcommitment may happen in months or even in an hour. The nitty-grittyrearrangements of how you live should be grown into gradually over severalyears. It is enough to know you are

heading

towards total observance. Don’tlose sight of your goal, but pace yourself as you travel towards it.

This pacing varies from person to person.

If mitzvot are becoming a guilty burden, you havegone forward too fast. If you are depressed, cranky, or anxious about yourreligious life, or just unbelievably unenthusiastic, you have probably taken on toomuch too quickly.A possible suggestion: Women: just growing into kashrus, growing into Shabbosobservance, continuing to learn, dressing more or less modestly, and finding yourway around the prayers may be more than enough the first two years.Men: Just growing into kashrus, growing into Shabbos observance, putting ontefillin, praying three times a day, and daily learning may be more than enoughfor the first two years.It’s not necessary to pressure yourself now to say all the prayers in theprayerbook, to dress and speak like a tenth-generation Ben or Bat Torah, to learnevery Rashi in Tanach, to become the school expert in checking bugs invegetables, to study until midnight, to be especially stringent about which kosherlabels you accept, to say psalms every day, etc. etc. It’s true that you should