I grew up in Newport Beach CA which was WASP and very wholesome. It was a great place. For some reason though it has changed. The whole Orange County let in lots of Muslims. I have no idea why. At the time we moved to Newport Beach the property was owned by the John Birch Society and who ever wanted to by property had to be approved by them. Why they let in Muslims is beyond me.
Later we move to Beverly Hills and Beverly Hills High School made a big impression on me. I had great teachers. But Beverly Hills was close in proximity to Los Angeles and a lot of the negative energies seeped in. [We attended Temple Israel in Hollywood and that is where I had my Bar Mitzvah. I think R. Nussbaum was there at the time.
High School was extremely frustrating for me. I did not like to have short 40 minute sessions and then have homework in lots of different subjects. I thought to myself that to do well in anything at all I need to concentrate all my energy on that one thing,
So when I got to authentic Litvak (Lithuanian)Yeshivas in NY [Shar Yashuv and the Mir] you can imagine I was elated. I could spend the whole day and even a few weeks on just one page of Gemara. I did not have to have my attention divided.
Still, after all is said and done, I have come to see the wisdom of short sessions. Nowadays what ever I learn is always in short sessions.
I should mention that on my own when I do not have a learning partner the way I do Tosphot is just to read through the whole page of Gemara word for word in order. And then to move on to something else. Maybe Physics. Or maybe jogging. Then the next day I take up that exact same page of Gemara and do it again. That takes in fact about forty minutes. And so on and so forth for as long as it takes to start scratching the surface of the holy Gemara.
The same goes for Rav Chaim Soloveitchik or Rav Shach. What I would try to do would be to read the whole piece straight through of Reb Chaim. Sometimes I could not get through the whole piece, but I would try. This might have taken a month or two just to barely start to understand what Reb Chaim was saying. But the idea is that if you keep at it, it eventually goes in.
The same goes for Tosphot. Just keeping at it for a long time [a month or two] seems to result in eventually understanding it.
Later we move to Beverly Hills and Beverly Hills High School made a big impression on me. I had great teachers. But Beverly Hills was close in proximity to Los Angeles and a lot of the negative energies seeped in. [We attended Temple Israel in Hollywood and that is where I had my Bar Mitzvah. I think R. Nussbaum was there at the time.
High School was extremely frustrating for me. I did not like to have short 40 minute sessions and then have homework in lots of different subjects. I thought to myself that to do well in anything at all I need to concentrate all my energy on that one thing,
So when I got to authentic Litvak (Lithuanian)Yeshivas in NY [Shar Yashuv and the Mir] you can imagine I was elated. I could spend the whole day and even a few weeks on just one page of Gemara. I did not have to have my attention divided.
Still, after all is said and done, I have come to see the wisdom of short sessions. Nowadays what ever I learn is always in short sessions.
I should mention that on my own when I do not have a learning partner the way I do Tosphot is just to read through the whole page of Gemara word for word in order. And then to move on to something else. Maybe Physics. Or maybe jogging. Then the next day I take up that exact same page of Gemara and do it again. That takes in fact about forty minutes. And so on and so forth for as long as it takes to start scratching the surface of the holy Gemara.
The same goes for Rav Chaim Soloveitchik or Rav Shach. What I would try to do would be to read the whole piece straight through of Reb Chaim. Sometimes I could not get through the whole piece, but I would try. This might have taken a month or two just to barely start to understand what Reb Chaim was saying. But the idea is that if you keep at it, it eventually goes in.
The same goes for Tosphot. Just keeping at it for a long time [a month or two] seems to result in eventually understanding it.
