I recently wrote about a 19-year-old boy we called Simon (Simon’s Story: How a Little Dikduk got a Bachur Back from the Brink). I described in the article how a caring Maggid Shiur finally noticed this struggling teen and sent him to a private rebbi for extra help. I asked that rebbi to share his experiences working with Simon. His letter provides an interesting perspective on the story and highlights systemic issues with how struggling students are viewed by their mechanchim.

Dear Rabbi Abenson

I have put pen to paper as per your request to describe an experience I had in the last few months.

I was employed by Yeshiva to learn with a bochur 19 years of age, who was having difficulty finding chavrusas.

The first month I learnt with him we were learning very lomdishe sugyos. This involved mostly learning “outside “ and speaking things out as opposed to reading. He did very well, in fact, excelled in some points.

Out of curiosity I approached his previous rebbeim in mesifta and asked them what was their diagnosis of his problem. Why was he unable to find chavrusa the entire three years in mesifta? One rebbi told me it was because he was “stupid”, at a really low academic level. That was clearly nonsense. The next rebbi told me he had serious issues. That was also clearly nonsense.

The second month that I learnt with him, we were learning sugyas that required a tremendous amount of reading just to achieve basic clarity.

At that point something became immediately apparent: My talmid had no grasp of basic translation neither of Hebrew or Aramaic. I would endeavour to tell him the translation of a word and the next day he would not remember it, nor could he adapt the word if it was written in a different sense. As a result, he was unable to work out a gemara or a Rashi or even a pasuk in Chumash.

I was extremely puzzled. This boy can clearly read. He is clearly intelligent. So how could he not pick up on the basic translations and the basic grammar just the same way as everyone else?

I referred these issues back to the rebbi who employed me. Without hesitation, he said this boy has to be assessed by Rabbi Dovid Abenson.

In his initial assessment, Rabbi Abenson picked up on this issue in about two minutes flat. To rectify the issue he embarked on a six-week intensive course of teaching the foundation skills of grammar.

After some research, I gained some understanding of the issue. To explain it I compared learning to read to learning to drive. When we first learn to drive, we invest tremendous energy to train ourselves how to check mirrors and blind spots, etc. After 10 years of driving, we could be involved in conversation and eating and doing all types of things and still check the mirrors and the blind spots because we have trained ourselves to do it automatically. However, were we to cross the Atlantic and land in a different country where they drive on the other side of the road and the traffic lights are at the side of the road as opposed to being in the middle of the road we would have to retrain our automation. Failing to do so can result in a life-threatening situation. Some readers will have experienced this firsthand!

Learning to read is the same. After many years of learning, our brains do many things automatically and subconsciously. We analyze each word we know what it means and in which sense it has been written at lightning speed. But if, in our early years, these “automatic processes” were trained wrongly, or not at all, then in later years the process just does not work. Reading is a struggle, the way driving would be if all the various maneuvers never had become habitual.

As a result, people can find themselves up against a brick wall when trying to read a page of gemara. Although they can read fluently, they have a total inability to analyze and decipher individual words. They end up guessing and blustering their way through a Rashi or a gemara often saying absolute nonsense. They often leave it to their chavrusa or rebbi to read and just nod along.

After further research, I discovered this issue is extremely common. The only way back is to take a course in foundation skills and relearn the basics.

Thanks to Rabbi Abenson’s professionalism and expertise, my talmid is back on track to being an accomplished Torah scholar.

My talmid went through three years of hell. He was told, “if you would only try a bit harder you would enjoy learning. If you could only come on time you would have with whom to learn”. He was considered “stupid “ by both rebbeim and friends.

All the while he had this learning issue which made it impossible for him to enjoy learning because he never knew what he was saying. It made it impossible for him to find chavrusas and made him constantly wonder: “what is wrong with me? Why is everyone else managing and I’m not? Maybe there is something seriously wrong.”

The point of this writing Is to publicise this issue so that rebbeim can be informed And educated about this issue. If only someone could’ve picked up on this problem right at the beginning of his yeshiva career my talmid would not have suffered.

The problem was not a kriah issue per se. Simon was able to read the words of the text fluently, he just had no idea what he was saying. The problem was more at the level of translation and grammar. As the rebbi mentioned, this is more common than you might think. Perhaps in Simon’s case, it was the discrepancy between his intelligence and his skill level that made the problem so acute and caused so much suffering. Others may have dropped out much sooner, never even realising there was a relatively easy solution to their problem. I have also come across supposedly successful guys in full-time learning who eventually become disaffected because of lacking these fundamental skills.

I find it particularly tragic in this letter how this rebbi describes the reactions of the other rebbeim to Simon’s problems. They labelled him as “stupid” and “having issues”. No wonder Simon ended up so depressed. And yet, as the writer describes, during the initial evaluation I was able to diagnose his difficulty in “two minutes flat” and resolve it in a matter of weeks. Just as many bachurim are missing fundamental learning skills, it would seem many rebbeim are missing fundamental chinuch skills. They know how to learn and to give an inspiring shiur but they do not know how to address the specific learning needs of their students. They do not know how to identify the deficits that hold each student back from reaching his potential or how to rectify them.

It is my ultimate dream that all yeshivas would focus more on teaching skills for learning and that all rebbeim would receive training on how to identify and rectify skill deficiencies in their talmidim. I believe that this way we could reach and inspire more students, even the ones who struggle and drop out. Having skills means any bachur can open a sefer or a gemara, even one he didn’t learn in class, and engage with it. Having skills means being motivated to learn and deriving true satisfaction from his learning. Having skills means a lifelong connection to learning well beyond the walls of yeshiva.

Rabbi Abenson is the founder and director of ShaarHatalmud, a unique yeshivah-based online program, which incorporates learning all Kodesh subjects, from Kriah up to learning Gemara, Rishonim, and Shulchan Aruch. He also conducts evaluations, remediation, and training, and consults with school principals to improve students’ underdeveloped skills