I believe there are two things that get in the way of learning Torah for myself. One is lack of appreciation and the other is קושיות (questions). The way to understand this is something that Reb Nachman said concerning tzadikim (saints). That is saints emulate their Creator. [That is a commandment in to the Torah to walk in God's ways. Just as he is compassionate, so we must be compassionate. That counts as one of the 613 commandments. ] So just as there are questions on God and the way he interacts with the world,- so there must be questions on saints.
You can extend this idea to Torah also. Since the Torah is God's wisdom concerning how people ought to live and concerning the deeper meaning of life,-- so there must be questions on Torah also. Otherwise our wisdom would be equal to God's wisdom (Heaven forbid.)
I also noticed that Rav Shach says two things are important for Torah--תמידות and מרץ. [That is: time and energy.] But I see the time factor is difficult. When I was in yeshiva in Shar Yashuv and later in the Mir in NY the time factor was not so hard because the system was set up in such a way that it was fairly easy to spend lots of time on Torah each day. But now I am outside of a yeshiva environment and that makes the time factor infinitely more difficult. I am sure lots of people understand what I am saying because even among kollel people I saw the same problem. The solution that I found that works best for me is "small sessions." That is to spend around an hour on one thing and then to go on to some other subject.
[The time factor is hard also in terms of concentration. Thus you find people that have to be in kollel because their social environment requires it, and yet have a hard time concentrating on Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot all day (who won't?) and thus learn false and fake Torah which is easy and fun, but not Torah.]
One thing I found about learning Torah- it helps to have a wife who wants one to learn Torah. Without that there is a kind of drag or friction on one's momentum. If you think about it you will realize that most great Roshei Yeshiva in the Litvak world have wives that appreciate their learning Torah. I mean to the degree of the daughter of [wife of R. Akiva]to give up everything just so she would have a husband who learns Torah. You might think that that is too much. Who requires that? But that is exactly the point I started out with. If one does not appreciate Torah then it is hard to merit to it. I can not really explain what it is about Torah that is so special. Even when the Torah grabbed me I do not think I could have explained to anyone what it was that I found so amazing about it. One time my Dad went to visit his brother Alex in NJ and I went along. Just one or two days away from the yeshiva environment I told my Dad I felt like I was drowning. I desperately needed to get back to an environment of learning Torah. It is things like that I find hard to explain.
You can extend this idea to Torah also. Since the Torah is God's wisdom concerning how people ought to live and concerning the deeper meaning of life,-- so there must be questions on Torah also. Otherwise our wisdom would be equal to God's wisdom (Heaven forbid.)
I also noticed that Rav Shach says two things are important for Torah--תמידות and מרץ. [That is: time and energy.] But I see the time factor is difficult. When I was in yeshiva in Shar Yashuv and later in the Mir in NY the time factor was not so hard because the system was set up in such a way that it was fairly easy to spend lots of time on Torah each day. But now I am outside of a yeshiva environment and that makes the time factor infinitely more difficult. I am sure lots of people understand what I am saying because even among kollel people I saw the same problem. The solution that I found that works best for me is "small sessions." That is to spend around an hour on one thing and then to go on to some other subject.
[The time factor is hard also in terms of concentration. Thus you find people that have to be in kollel because their social environment requires it, and yet have a hard time concentrating on Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot all day (who won't?) and thus learn false and fake Torah which is easy and fun, but not Torah.]
One thing I found about learning Torah- it helps to have a wife who wants one to learn Torah. Without that there is a kind of drag or friction on one's momentum. If you think about it you will realize that most great Roshei Yeshiva in the Litvak world have wives that appreciate their learning Torah. I mean to the degree of the daughter of [wife of R. Akiva]to give up everything just so she would have a husband who learns Torah. You might think that that is too much. Who requires that? But that is exactly the point I started out with. If one does not appreciate Torah then it is hard to merit to it. I can not really explain what it is about Torah that is so special. Even when the Torah grabbed me I do not think I could have explained to anyone what it was that I found so amazing about it. One time my Dad went to visit his brother Alex in NJ and I went along. Just one or two days away from the yeshiva environment I told my Dad I felt like I was drowning. I desperately needed to get back to an environment of learning Torah. It is things like that I find hard to explain.
