Biography

I hated Morah Tova for about 12 years. I was proud of how much I hated her. My mother says she was a frustrated artist. I remember telling her she was not invited to my birthday party. She seemed unfazed. I hated going to kindergarten. I would cry, I am...

I used to walk by the cheder at any time of day or night and just hear singing from within. It was magical. At night, the lights would glow from the building. I would tell my mother “Some day I’m going to go there, right?” and she’d say “yes,...

We didn’t have summer vacation at school. We studied every single day of the year. So the transition from one grade to the next was a simple act of gathering up your books one morning and moving over to the next classroom. The transition to 6th grade, I was in...

When I became bar mitzvah, things got intense. I knew that everything until then had been child’s play, just practice for the real thing. Now we were playing for real, and every move I make and every law I break, He’ll be watching me. I remember breaking down and crying...

9th grade came around, which was a whole new level. Yeshiva Ketana is 3 years of “Junior High school”, which meant a different part of the neighborhood, finishing at 9:30 every evening, and studying Gemarah for the first time. If I thought Mishna was difficult, Gemarah was a whole new...

12th grade is the first year of Yeshiva gedola. Literally the big leagues, this is the first year of the rest of your life. You enter a study hall that could literally be the place you sit for the next 50 years. My classmates are still there 12 years...

The summer that was the second half of 12th grade, I finally switched yeshivas. My friend had moved to this place a year before, and my parents “had heard good things”. This was a place that studid “iyun” in depth, but had a respect for breadth.They didn’t want to...

The way you get into yeshiva is the exact opposite of red tape. It is the absolute shitshow of a free for all. You kind of stand around the dean’s office and hope to bump into him. You talk to someone who knows someone who might be able to put...

I went back to Zlibermans for a month. I thought, “if only I stay in their dorm, that’ll give me the structure I need.” So I moved into the overcrowded apartment that was the main dorm, a 5 minute walk from my house. One person was sleeping on the kitchen counter....

I joined the army on my 20th birthday. I desperately wanted a change in scenery. This whole yeshiva thing wasn’t working out. I hoped to take a break from it and come back with new energy. I wanted to experience the broader Israel. Meet new people, go to new parts of...