I Did Not Believe in Myself

            How is it that nobody thought of this earlier?  Why did this simple concept not enter anyone’s mind before? Were the technological and financial means not in existence all along? These questions were aired publicly by Hagaon Harav Meir Chadash, shlita, Rosh Yeshivas Ohr Elchanan. 

By the conclusion of the latest Elul term in yeshiva, hundreds of students had completed learning an additional twenty blatt of Gemara… and were successfully tested on the material – and all that above and beyond the regular course of study in the yeshiva.  For those who had organized the undertaking, there was but one shared purpose – to strengthen the mood of talmud Torah during that crucial and dramatic month.

One young participant in the program, Yosef Vikselbaum, remarked, “The tests were not easy.  We had to know the text extremely well.  There were forty questions on the twenty blatt, that is, one question per side. But as testimony to how seriously the matter was taken, it is important to note that of the approximately 700 individuals registered in the program, a mere few dozen dropped out when they saw the exam sheets and realized that they had not devoted enough time for adequate preparation.”

            “I didn’t believe in myself,” relates Menachem Kahanov of Yeshivas Chevron.  “I didn’t think that I could stand up to he learning challenge - to learn and know twenty extra blatt in a month, in addition to keeping the three daily sedarim of the yeshiva’s routine. In the end I discovered within myself strengths and abilities which I never even knew existed. That fact alone gives me encouragement and a good feeling… but more importantly it compels me to use these abilities in the future.”