Learnin' Yearnin' Burnin'

The Yeshiva Zman is drawing to a close. This is a bittersweet occasion for me. Sweet because it is the beginning of a new and exciting period of my life. Bitter because it marks the end of what I consider to be an unsuccessful learning career. I have been trying to succeed in learning for years. I have made an effort to stay in a Yeshiva environment while I was going for my undergraduate degree. Somehow it just never took. I'm not dumb. I b”h have quite a nice head on my shoulders. I am not lacking the skills either. I can pretty much “make a laining” on Gemara, Rashi and Tosfos unaided. The problem is more one of attention-span and perseverance. I'm a little ADD-ish. I have trouble sticking to one subject for a long period of time. I get frustrated easily. I space out constantly. Learning becomes hell. I can't do Bikiyus (where the emphasis is on breadth) because the tendency is to cover a great deal of ground in one sitting. This guarantees my failure because as soon as I space out, I am lost. The class is already lines further and I have no idea what they are talking about. While B'iyun (emphasis on depth) is somewhat better, it clashes with one of my other bad habits. When dealing with complicated issues, it is easy to get frustrated and give up. Without the necessary perseverance, one is doomed to failure. So the system doesn't work for my unique psyche. I have tried many methods to make it work for me, but none ever worked. Every Zman I think, this is the one. This is when it is all going to start clicking for me. But it doesn't. So I end up whiling my days away. Wasting time. Filling it up with useless junk. Reading a lot. Picking up hobbies that I never would have given a second glance if I had been learning. Doing all the things that Yeshiva guys do when they are not learning. Just with me I was doing those other things more of the time than I was actually learning. And the time passed. I told myself I was here for a reason. I told myself I was enduring this torture, having these experiences to make me a better person. But I'm not even sure that is true. Now it is over and I look back on my long Yeshiva career and sigh. I could have been great. Rebbeim had high hopes for me. Why shouldn't they? I certainly have more aptitude for success in torah than many of my peers. Why should they have success and not I? Do I not deserve it? I don't know how many of you have experienced this, but it is very painful to see someone who you know is less capable than you succeed at something that you keep failing at. Rebbeim have told me that I don't want it enough. But that is not true. I have put in effort for 5+ years (post high school) to make it work. If I don't want it enough, I don't know how to want it any more. Other people have told me that I AM succeeding, that I should look at the small accomplishments. To them I reply, an ant may build an anthill and a beaver may build a dam but neither one is large enough for me to fit in. You could say that I know more than the average working Jew who didn't have the opportunity to sit and learn. But that is not where I placed my yardstick. I placed it next to the image of what I could become, what I had the potential to be. Or at the very least I measured myself up against others in Yeshiva. Even that, I fell short of. I watched as my friends became bnei torah, as they became mentchen. To my dismay, I sorta just stayed where I was.

Now it is over. I am going to graduate school. I'm not going to have time to learn. Every hour of learning is going to take work and sacrifice to arrange. Even if I wanted to learn now, I would never be able to accomplish as much. People don't become talmidei chachamim from learning daf yomi. Don't let anyone tell you any different. It takes years and years of breaking one's head over the gemara for hours at a time. And if I can't do it when it is set before me on a silver platter, what will happen when it becomes harder? Will I learn at all?

So yeah, I'm excited. I really can't wait to go to graduate school and join the “real world”. It feels really good to have a goal to be working towards. But a part of me laments the loss. I could have been a ben torah. I could have had a good couple of years of learning under my belt. Maybe I could have even become a talmid chacham. That didn't happen, though. Success will come from elsewhere. I'm going to graduate with a fancy degree from some hifalutin graduate school. Hopefully, I'll get a good job, a nice house and a wonderful wife. Life will be a whirlwind of responsibilities and goals. There will be work due, bills to pay, dishes to wash and diapers to change. Perhaps, somewhere in the middle I'll find time to learn. Perhaps not. Either way, I will always know that I had a chance to succeed and somehow never managed to. And I'll probably feel bad about it too. But at this point, there is nothing I can do other than feel remorse. The future is coming, and I have to prepare for it.

Goodbye, Yeshiva.

It's been nice knowing you.