I was thinking about my son's [Izhak (also known as Nahman)] emphasis on learning in depth. It occurred to me that in the Gemara there is the mention of four hundred times review of every lesson. [That is in the story of one teacher who used to learn every lesson 400 times with his student. One time the student was distracted, so the teacher taught him the same lesson again another 400 times.] [A voice rang out from Heaven, Because of that merit, he can have either one of two things: (1) all of his generation will merit to the world to come or (2) he will live for 400 years. In the end he got both.] And there is another place where it is mentioned that one person used to learn for himself every lesson 40 times. And in fact I recall that lots of review helped me in many cases--e.g. when I was learning the book of Rav Chaim of Brisk and in physics [Joos's famous book Theoretical Physics]. [In that physics book, there were for me two sessions--one chapter I did forty days in a row. But most of the book, I did the approach of ''saying the words in order and going on''. ]
[However, there is also value of "bekiut" (fast learning) as done in Litvak Yeshivot in the afternoon and evening. You can see this in one of the great Musar books Ways of the Righteous. אורחות צדיקים
I might mention that Izhak was making preparations to come to Israel, but died before his plans were realized. To me it seems that coming and settling in Israel is important, as you can see in parshat hayira [chap on fear of God in Deuteronomy. Plus the State of Israel is important. Rav Moshe Feinstein and Reb Aaron Kotler said about Israel דינא דמלכותא דינא the law of the state is the law.[Bava Batra 35]
