Although many of my clients are still in school, seeking help because they are falling behind, I see many adults too. Just a few months ago a gentleman approached me. He is in his mid-70’s and thought perhaps I can help him compensate for the yeshiva education he never had. He graciously agreed to share his story with us – a wonderful reminder that it’s never too late to achieve our learning goals.

My educational background is university rather than yeshiva. So today, 50 years later, despite my academic qualifications, I continue to struggle with Aramaic and unpunctuated gemara. In particular I never had the opportunity to learn dikduk and always relied on Artscroll for translation.

I originally came to Rav Abenson after reading many of his success stories in the Jewish Tribune*. Until then I was resigned to my deficiencies. But after hearing about Rav Abenson’s work, I thought that despite my age (mid 70’s) I might still be able to improve my skills in learning.

I have been learning with Rabbi Abenson for several months now. I find him very personable, always praising, and encouraging. He employs several helpful teaching techniques.

Mistakes are always ”normal” and there is no need to be upset. He has a good sense of humour. He is very patient, allowing me to struggle before giving an answer. He can hold a silence. There is no embarrassment, even if simple things need to be explained. He won’t move on in a piece of text until one has it absolutely clear. He insists that without translating each and every word accurately one will fail to gain a proper understanding.

Faced with a word one does not know, he has developed a process of discrete steps whereby one can derive the meaning of a word. If that process fails, Rabbi Abenson introduced me to a number of resources including online Jastrow, Rabbeinu Chananel, Sefaria and Artscroll, so that I am never stuck. Two clear and engaging books on grammar by Rabbi Marcusen have helped me enormously. These books have regular summaries and a test at the end of each chapter (with fulsome explanatory answers in the appendix). One learns how to find the root of a word and use the prefixes and suffixes to get a precise translation. I have no doubt that mastering grammar, e.g. past and future tenses as well as the “vov hahipuch”, greatly enhances p’shat.

I now find myself examining the structure of words in davening, and in chumash, mishnayos and gemara. My havono is definitely better. I think my davening is improving too, as I give increased attention to the words. Rabbi Abenson’s constant demand is to keep it simple! One should strive to translate a word with just one word and only add new skills once the previous one is mastered.

In learning Chumash, I have learnt to persevere with translating individual words without necessarily understanding the whole posuk. He gives us eight steps to get to a good understanding of a posuk. On the way one will look at Rashi, Targum Unkeles, Yonoson Ben Uzziel, Ibn Ezra, Sifsei Chachomim and perhaps Artscroll, as necessary. A similar stepwise process is applied to Mishnayos.

Rabbi Abenson advocates not starting with the gemara until one is absolutely clear about the preceding Mishna – and even then, to only tackle about 10 lines of text at a time. Here, when stuck, the advice is to go to Rabbenu Chananel for simplicity, Jastrow for best translation, and the Rambam — who always gives the halachic maskana of the gemara.

Despite being an older person, after 10 or 12 weeks – with around three half-hour sessions per week on Zoom – I have been able to remember much of what he has taught, and have thereby improved the quality of my learning.

Now, having developed several of these skills, I’m glad I did not give up. You, who are reading this, are probably younger than me and certainly should not give up – geshmak in your learning is just around the corner!

The step-wise approaches to learning Chumash, Mishnayos and Gemara alluded to here in Yakov’s account are an intrinsic part of my upgrade programme. They will be available to the wider public very soon in my soon-to-be released sefer published by Feldheim “I Can’t Read and Learn ”.  Of course learning from a book can never be as effective as one-on-one training, but since I cannot possibly learn with everyone who might need help, this is the next best thing that I can offer.

There are so many people at all levels of learning who are struggling, not succeeding or even just not finding that “geshmak”. Sadly, like the Yakov of a few months ago, they resign themselves to mediocrity, not realizing that help is available and that with the right guidance and tools they could reach their learning goals regardless of their backgrounds. I have helped many baalei teshuva, yeshiva drop outs or victims of a system that doesn’t always recognize how each person needs to learn at his own pace. As Yakov described above, I never move on to the next stage until mastering the previous one. It is a very simple educational rule but one which almost guarantees lasting progress.

Yakov’s words are humbling. He is an intelligent, educated person, but still he was able to admit his shortcomings and seek help in upgrading his skills. Oftentimes all that holds us back in life is a willingness to seek help where we need it.

We can be very inspired by Yakov’s story. He was able to make tremendous progress in a relatively short period of time and is getting to the point of being able to learn independently and find genuine enjoyment and satisfaction in his learning. At the same time we are saddened by the 50 years of suffering and lost opportunities that could have been avoided had he sought help earlier.  I recently saw an 18 year old young man. He is not succeeding in Yeshiva and needs extra help. I told him about Yakov starting in his mid-70’s. I reminded him of Rabbi Akiva who did not begin until age 40 and went on to become one of the greatest talmidei chachamim of all time. But you are still young, I told this student, why wait?

It truly is never too late to begin a learning journey. No one should let themselves be held back by a sense of despair that they missed their chance or the opportunity. At the same time, however, there really is no time like the present. It makes no sense to procrastinate. If a king offered you a free afternoon in his treasury to help yourself to some precious jewels would you put it off for a few more years? You probably would not even delay by a day. Yakov’s story should encourage anyone struggling. with learning not to wait and suffer for another 50 years, but to get help now and find that geshmak right away. What are you waiting for?

Rabbi Abenson will be in Lakewood this week from Wednesday  March 15th toTuesday  March 21st and will be available for school/yeshiva presentations, private consultations and evaluations.

Call/whatsapp: 5149935300

Email: [email protected]

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The newspaper is published in England by the orthodox Jewish community