There are different kinds of Torah teachers

Shavuos is one of the best times of the year to think about teachers and ways of teaching Torah. This year, I was not too tired, so I spent the whole night taking part to different shiurim, focused on catching up with the style of the teacher as well. 

First, it was the rebbetzen, speaking passionately about the story of Ruth, discussing, asking and answering questions, using her notes for bringing more ideas, but generally enjoying the dialogue rather than the monologue, translating the story of Ruth into our daily life. As I always had serious struggles to really go into the deep sense of this megillah, I had enough food for thought for the next days. And energy to keep up with the learning for the rest of the night.

After, I moved into a more complicated register, keeping up with the discussion about Shavuos and its signification, but through the reading of texts in Hebrew with translation, discussion line by line in a systematic way. After a while, around 2 o'clock, one might feel tired and exhausted, but between trying to read the proper Hebrew and investigating the sense of a word, the time passed very fast and didn't acknowledged that it's already 4 o'clock. I did learn a lot of new things here as well, even though I cannot openly say that I fully enjoy the intellectual discussion, as it was rather a monologue, with a couple of questions and different short observations from the participants. 

And there are always the very interesting shiurim of the rav, whose style took me a while to understand. He starts explaining a word, and the context, and goes further on with clear analysis looking for the hidden meaning. Everything told with a quiet voice, like counting the seconds before telling something new. We should be cautious yet respectful when talking about Torah.

Three different styles of teaching Torah the same learning. As for me, I never have enough of learning more and discovering new teachers helping me to find more meanings. 

Learning Torah

How much I envy the men sometimes, that can put aside their time for Torah and organize their entire daily schedule around the real priorities in life. A man may need to work a lot to bring money home and when possible, to take a break when learning with a chevruta and davening.

As a woman, there are always priorities that need to be fixed, children getting sick over night, unexpected guests for Shabbos, shopping and domestic chores. Maybe your chavruta is going through the some problems and at the end of the week, you might discover that besides the name of the parasha - that is written in the calendar anyway - and some vague memories from the old school time, you don't know too much and you skipped again the proper learning. 

I am trying to constantly learn more or less regularly for years. I am also working, but from home and taking care of a complex household and even dare sometimes to have a limited social life. Recently, I decided to offer help to my shul, because I felt compelled to help people that did so much for me and my family in the last years and especially months. A couple of weeks ago I realized how my Torah learning is decreasing and started to feel not only embarrassed, but equally scared that my already superficial knowledge will soon dissipate without constant new fresh learning.

On fasting days, the lack of water makes me suffer physically. Torah is considered our spiritual water.

While struggling with my lack of strength to continue with at least one serious hour of learning per day, I realized how different is this learning from all the others. In the case of history, or literature or even for a foreign language, there will always be a limit beyond which one can consider him or herself an 'expert', after spending a considerable amount of time immersed in study. In the case of Torah, there is a permanent duty to keep ourself busy with its learning because the immensity of knowledge is infinite for the human mind and the lack of continuity leads to a considerable diminishing of the learning itself. 

And G-d knows how much I need this water!