Torah World-Wide

I formally apologize for ranting in my last post, but I'm still stupefied by people's chosen ignorance and outright bias. Moving forward, I have one of the most interesting topics in the world to discuss: Torah.

Torah has been copied and transmitted for two thousand years and not a letter has been written in error (the Dead Sea Scrolls help historically collaborate that fact). From Israel to China and Europe to Africa,  Torah is the same world-wide. But one thing I have been noticing in seminary, is that it is not taught and learned the same world-wide.

I have been having trouble in seminary this year and not in the typical way. When learning Torah in Israel, I breathed it in. I absorbed it through the air, through the land, through classes, teachers, and friends. I absorbed it at an exorbitant pace. But here in America, it is not the same. It feels like it has become a book. Not a way of life. And I have been having trouble adjusting to the differences in learning.

I love my classes and teachers, but in no way is it comparable to the learning in Eretz Yisroel (Jerusalem, nonetheless). Before coming to America, people had warned me that an hour of Torah learning in Israel is equivalent to studying a day in America; that a day of studying Torah in Israel is equivalent to a week; that a week of studying in Israel is a month of study in America. And how right they were!

Luckily, I feel that I am in the best seminary in America (Ateres Naava). The students are incredible (and incredibly diverse), the teachers are phenomenal, and the classes are engaging. While the learning is not as easy and as encompassing, I'm happy with the choice to continue my Jewish education and bizrat Hashem it will never end.