“Tatty. After Pesach we are starting to learn Mishnayos!” my seven year old son tells me excitedly, before both his feet were even through the front door.

“Really? What Masechta?

[“What’s Masechta”?

“Uhh trac- did your Rebbi tell you what part you are going to learn”?]

“Yes. The first one. Here I have a paper in my bag.

Fifteen papers, three empty bags of potato chips, and five water bottles later, the “Tzetel” comes out of his bag.

Yes, he is correct. He will be learning Masechta Brochos after Pesach.

“Can we start learning it at home?

“Sure! In fact I am going to take you now to the book shop and we are going to buy you a Mishnayos with pictures for home.

With each passing day the excitement grew. Countdown charts went up, Nosh for a “Mesibos Haschola” was bought, and we counted yet again how many sets of Mishnayos we have at home… in Shul… and in every other home and Shul we went to…

In my heart of hearts though I felt a bit bad. I knew that after a few weeks, when the challenges of translation, comprehension, and simple “Zitz Fleish” overtake the “newness”, this excitement would wear off…

Especially once it would become a ‘subject’ rather than an ‘exploration’… a ‘yoke’ rather than a ‘love’.

Upon reflection however, my feelings changed.

Because when I focussed on the end result, I knew that with Siatta Dishemaya, with enough love, care, and support from his parents and teachers, and with enough motivation during those times of grit, he will get to the stage where it once again becomes the excitement of his life.

And so I Davened.

I davened that he have the personal strength and good mentors, to make it through this stage of development in learning, that he recognise and appreciate his successes, and that it shouldn’t take long before the “first-day” excitement be replaced with the more mature excitement, that of comfort and Geshmak in learning.

But most importantly I davened that he have the personal strength to keep growing, keep pushing every day, because that is the quickest (and perhaps only) way that the mature excitement, love and passion will ignite.

***

This post was supposed to have been with you on Sunday… Yet, as I have been reminded by a number of messages, today is already Tuesday… (Thank you to those who wrote by the way …)

The reason it has been delayed is simply because there is just a lot going on, add to that the lack of sleep, and some serious decisions that have to be made… my mind and heart are just otherwise preoccupied.

Block off the time necessary? Be in the right frame of mind? Where do I even begin? What do I write about? What should we take on?

So I pushed it off…

I mean if it can’t be done properly…

But thanks to those (mostly from the original group) who wrote asking what it is that we are going to do, I was reminded that we don’t have the luxury of inaction…

I don’t have Koach to write fully? No problem, I won’t and this writing will perhaps not be as good as previous messages… but that is no excuse for not writing at all.

It is certainly no excuse for not taking on something new for the next two weeks… (or ten days by now…)

So let’s just try it this way.

For the next two weeks, let’s be ready to begin Hodu with the Minyan.

(Unless, of course, your Mashpia has told you that you may/should Daven B’arichus, and begin after the Minyan when doing so).

That is it.

Nothing further.

On that note, it is interesting that now that I have begun writing, my motivation has somewhat reappeared…

And so I Daven that we all have the Koach to keep doing what we should even when our minds and hearts are preoccupied, even on “those days”… for doing so is the only way to ensure our continued growth… and parenthetically it is the best way to get back into “the mood”…