Had I been looking to teach Torah for the sake of teaching Torah alone, I would have had plenty of opportunities to do that.
I belonged to the latter category. I was the smartest kid in the class, frankly, and I was also one of the hardest workers, which made for a very productive combination. By sixth grade, I was already polishing off masechtos with ease. I genuinely enjoyed every word of Gemara, and I savored every vort I heard from my rebbi’s mouth. I also liked the way the rebbi looked directly at me any time he explained a particularly difficult concept.
Naturally, I was accepted into a top high school, where I continued to flourish. I used every free second to learn, and I loved it. Some people today would say that it’s detrimental to a kid’s emotional and mental health to learn as many hours a day as I did during my teenage years, but I never found my learning schedule to be too intense. I knew I had to chill out sometimes, and at those times I would play ball and relax with my friends. My friends jokingly called me “the rosh yeshivah,” but at the end of the day I was just one of the guys. Once, I overheard my rebbi telling the menahel that I have the perfect balance of Torah and derech eretz. I felt like a million dollars.
When I was in beis medrash, some of the guys would kibitz about how I was going to marry the rosh yeshivah’s daughter and spend the rest of my life learning. I took this good-naturedly, telling my friends that I’d owe them shadchanus if the shidduch ever came to be. I certainly couldn’t deny wanting to spend the rest of my life inside the four walls of the beis medrash.
By all accounts, it seemed as though I was being groomed for Torah greatness. I was appointed rosh chaburah for my class, and I was asked to speak at any occasion or gathering. Every year, the rosh yeshivah picked me to be the student speaker at the parent orientation evening. I actually enjoyed public speaking; it came very naturally to me.
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