My name is Aharon.
I was in shul. Don’t ask me what exactly I was learning and with whom; the beis midrash was simply my home. You are home, even if you’re not exactly learning. It’s the natural place for every Yid, and it was for me as well.
While I was in the beis midrash, the people there were celebrating a siyum masechta. The siyum aroused in me shades of kinas sofrim, because it wasn’t a siyum made by great talmidei chachamim or by some elite group of people who had committed to learn this masechta. It was a siyum made by many friends in the community who had committed themselves to learn following a specific schedule. I know this is standard practice in many places. There are communities where the members are instructed to learn an amud or a daf of Gemara every day, or an amud in Mishnah Berurah. There are all kinds of tracks and all kinds of subjects, and anyone, if he only wants to, can learn what his heart desires.
And I desired. I really, truly desired, but until that siyum, my desire hadn’t ripened into a decision.
I found myself sitting among the excited chassanim of the siyum and enjoying some of the food they were giving out for the kavod of Torah, and the sweet taste of the cake was a bit sour for me, because in the depths of my heart I knew that I too could have made such a siyum. And then I met an acquaintance – a Yid on my own level, who keeps busy earning a living; exactly my type. I asked him with much more than a bit of jealousy, “Are you making a siyum too?”
“No,” he told me. “I just happened to be here; I really don’t know what I’m doing here.” And I could hear his pain, which mirrored my own pain. “I don’t know either,” I answered him, “but the truth is, there’s no reason why the next time, we should not be part of this event as well. What do you think of the idea of arranging a shiur and starting to learn the next masechta?”
We’re both busy with parnassah, both of us have a hard time setting aside the time, but with siyata diShmaya, we gave each other the strength and made the decision, this time for real. “Who will give over the shiur?” my friend asked me.
“One of us,” he answered, “and maybe we’ll meet more Yidden who want to join.”
Hashem helped, and when we left the beis midrash we met an avreich who is a talmid chacham, and we suggested that he become our maggid shiur. He agreed, and at that moment a new shiur was set to begin, right in the middle of the day, at 2 p.m. Every day at that hour I leave my workplace and go to my friend’s workplace, where we meet our maggid shiur and learn together for about forty minutes. Forty minutes of Gan Eden in this world.
This story could conclude right here, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu showed us how much he loves our new shiur. It’s not that I wasn’t koveia ittim before; I learned every day in the evening. But learning in middle of the day – that was the chiddush. Until a short while ago, I used to work hard, and the salary wasn’t enough for me. And now, in the short time since I started the shiur, I got a call from a Yid who was interested in my work, and he wanted me to do something much easier, with a significantly higher salary!
I thought that I would be limiting my means of parnassah for the sake of learning Torah, but what actually happened was exactly the opposite. In the zechus of learning Torah, the brachah came.