2. OLUTIONARY SYSTEM
Rabbi Yeshayahu Weber
Reuven had been an exemplary student
throughout his elementary school career.
When it was time to apply to yeshivah
gedolah, the yeshivos vied for his enrollment.
He accepted the offer of a prestigious yeshivah
and was soon known as the top bachur of the shiur.
When he took written tests, he amazed his maggidei
shiur. Each test was a four-hour marathon, as he
wrote volumes for each answer.
Then, one day, he simply couldn’t do it anymore. He
couldn’t walk into the beis medrash; he couldn’t open
a gemara. He was an emotional wreck. Not only
were his parents distraught, but his Rosh Yeshivah
was alarmed. He advised Reuven’s parents that
before they spoke to a psychologist or therapist,
Reuven should be seen by Rabbi Yeshayahu Weber,
the founder of a unique system for learning Gemara.
BY TZIYONA KANTOR
1923 Shevat 5776
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3. R
abbi Weber spoke to Reuven for a while as
Reuven’s mother waited anxiously in a side
room. After the evaluation, Rabbi Weber invited
her into his office. “You don’t need to go further;
the problem is really quite simple. Your son,”
he smiled at Reuven, who was digesting the
information that Rabbi Weber had discussed
with him, “as you probably know, is brilliant.
He has a phenomenal memory; he doesn’t forget a thing. The
problem is that he has never really comprehended the Gemara
beyond the level of an eight-year-old.
“When he takes a test, he doesn’t know how to build the
answers because he doesn’t have a real grasp of what the
Gemara is saying. He doesn’t know how to approach a sugya,
so he writes every detail that he remembers related to the
subject. But without any filters or direction, he writes too
much. And since his answers are so huge, the teachers don’t
botherreadingthem—theyjustassumetheymustbebrilliant!
“Reuven knows this subconsciously, and he simply can no
longer keep up the smokescreen. He knows he’s not really
learning Gemara. He needs to go back to the beginning and
understand how Gemara works. He needs to use his amazing
memory to delve into the Gemara and make the connections
in order for it to really come alive.”
Reuven’s mother started to cry. “You are the first one to tell
the truth. I suspected this for a long time. I would always ask
the rebbeim, ‘Does Reuven understand the Gemara?’ and they
would speak about his brilliant memory and nod their heads.
Thank you, Rabbi Weber!”
How It All Began
Rabbi Weber was born in Yerushalayim over 65 years ago
and moved to the United States with his family in the ’60s.
After he got married, he brought his young family back to
Yerushalayim. After being involved in chinuch for a long time,
he started building his new method of teaching students
how to successfully learn Gemara. This method has now
received approval from leading rabbanim and roshei yeshivah,
including, shlita: Harav Aharon Leib Steinman, Harav Tuvia
Weiss, Harav Shmuel Auerbach, the Tolna Rebbe, Harav
Noach Orlowek, and lbcl”c Harav Ovadiah Yosef, zt”l.
Rabbi Weber took time out from his schedule to explain
his “new” method to teach boys how to learn and understand
Gemara,andtrainrebbeiminproperlyteachingit.“First,letus
understandthehistoryoftoday’schedersystem,”RabbiWeber
begins. “Before World War I, a father would hire someone to
teach his son(s), or a few families would join together for this
purpose. At most, a cheder would have 10 to 12 boys learning
together.
“There weren’t separate classes to divide the boys by levels
or ages. Not all the teachers were good, but the Gemara was
taught in the same way to everyone, regardless of level. Those
boys who excelled would then find a bench in a nearby shul
where the town’s talmidei chachamim who learned all day
would guide them in their learning. The rest of the boys went
off to work. A few of the boys from the shuls would eventually
make it into the larger yeshivos. Since this was a natural
weeding process, the few boys who ended up in yeshivah
definitely knew how to learn properly and excelled at it.”
RABBI WEBER’S REVOLUTIONARY SYSTEM
The ceremony at which certificates were presented
to 60 people who concluded a special “Rav Weber
Method” course in Bnei Brak, attended by Harav
Aharon Leib Steinman, shlita, Harav Gershon
Edelstein, shlita, and prominent chinuch personalities.
20 February 3, 2016
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4. The Problem
“Nowadays, all boys attend cheder. On one hand, it is great
that every boy is given the chance to learn. Yet the chadarim
have large classes and even larger expectations. The large
class sizes are an indication of how Klal Yisrael is growing and
flourishing, baruch Hashem, but they have nothing to do with
the success of the cheder system. In addition, the schools have
competitive curricula with demanding standards and extreme
social pressures. Teachers need to prove their worth to stay in
thesystem,yettheirsuccessisdeterminedbythefewstudents
who are able to excel on a high level (often at the expense of
the other students’ learning). In truth, all students need to feel
a sense of accomplishment in their learning.”
According to Rabbi Weber: “It is halachah l’maaseh — an
important practical consideration: A class for Gemara should
not be larger than 10-12 students!”
The Solution
NotonlyisthereamitzvahtolearnGemara,buttheGemara
is a tool, a keli, that can be used to understand and process the
world by putting together concepts that run throughout the
many masechtos. Therefore, through learning Gemara, a boy’s
personality is developed. He will grow into a mentch, a thinker,
a person who understands consequences; it is a tool for life.
In an ideal system, every rebbi would be taught by a
chinuch expert how to properly teach Gemara and build his
talmidim using the tools of the Gemara. These teachers would
then teach Gemara to small groups of boys, with the aid of
apprentices who would, by observing and assisting the rebbi,
get on-the-job training using the proper methods. In this way,
the system would grow and produce master educators and
builders of the next generation of successful talmidim.
Since implementing this program is not practical at this
point, Rabbi Weber has developed a system where students
learn one on one with tutors who are trained to give them the
tools to learn Gemara successfully and develop skills for life.
Five Tools
Assuming a student knows how to read the Gemara
reasonably well, he must then properly study it using five tools
that need to be adapted for his own personality, strengths and
character traits.
1. Understanding
2. Thinking (logical analysis)
3. Organization in short-term memory
4. Reading comprehension
5. Expressing independently
Understanding
Rabbi Weber explains, “I see a desk. It is larger than
a student’s desk; it has drawers and holes on the top to
accommodate wires. I understand that it is an office desk. That
is ‘understanding.’ I have taken the known facts and come up
with a logical conclusion.
“If a person who is not Jewish or does not know any Jewish
concepts would see a pushka, he would not understand what
it was for. Yet a person who knows the concept of tzedakah
and has seen a pushka before will recognize it and realize it is
there to be used for the mitzvah of tzedakah. It is the product
of putting two ideas together to develop a new idea.”
Thinking
It is not sufficient to just understand. One has to be able
to take the next step and give the idea a judgment, or value,
in order to be able to apply it to other cases. Going back to
the desk analogy, once a person understands that the desk
is an office desk, he can now begin applying this knowledge
to decide how he will use it. For example, he will realize that
he can thread the wires for his computer through the holes
on top so that he can set up a functional workstation. He
can decide which office supplies and documents should be
kept in each drawer.
Thinking is recognizing the similarities and distinctions,
the connections and the relationships, between different
ideas. It makes the understanding of an idea broader, wider
and deeper, so it can be applied to yet other areas.
Organization
The Gemara is vast, yet many parts are interconnected;
organizing is connecting the dots and creating a complete
picture; it is the use of short-term memory to grasp the full
picture. It is recognizing similar ideas, even though they come
from different, seemingly unrelated, places. For example, at a
garage sale, a person might see another desk that is similar
in structure to the first one that he recognized as an office
desk. Although it is out of the office setting, he will note the
similarities between them and realize that it is also a desk that
is intended for office use.
Reading Comprehension
The Gemara’s words convey the meaning of the concepts
and straightforward ideas. The student needs to understand
Rabbi Yeshayahu Weber visiting
Harav Ovadia Yosef, zt"l.
2123 Shevat 5776
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5. the Gemara using textual skills such as punctuation, accurate
translation and “reading between the lines” through
context clues and comprehension.
Expression
Once a student can express the meaning of the
Gemara in his own words — once he can clearly explain
the concept, showing that he understands it and can
apply it to other situations and connect it to other ideas
— he becomes part of the eternal chain that connects all
lomdei Torah.
What prevents real learning?
A problem that has developed in the cheder system
is that all too often teachers expect their students to
jump into the thinking process without first giving
them the tools to understand. Only after establishing
basic understanding can a teacher build concepts
into a thinking process. Teachers often relate to the
children on their own adult level of understanding and
don’t appreciate all the steps that go into developing
understanding in students. To the teacher it is already
automatic and obvious. But that is not how the child
views the Gemara’s questions, because he doesn’t have
the teacher’s vast learning experience or life experience.
Another challenge in learning is that the Gemara is
not always sequential. The Amora’im would compare
different ideas from various places, which on the surface
do not seem related, using a unique thinking process. A
child needs to grow with these new concepts to develop
a deeper way of thinking. He needs to learn that each
part can affect, and be connected to, many others. The
seder of Nezikin can be connected to Kodashim. On the
surface, they seem like two totally different topics, but
after delving deeper — or better yet, after a qualified
rebbi explains it — a student can start to see the
connections and discover more new concepts.
Rabbi Weber’s System
Each child has his own personality, his own strengths
and weakness, his own likes and dislikes, his own
emotional intelligence and behavioral challenges.
Rabbi Weber interviews each child to understand his
personality and nature. Then, together with a tutor,
he builds a method to help bring the child to properly
understand the Gemara and think effectively. This can
be a lengthy process; in some cases the tutor and student
may not even open a gemara for a long time.
Rabbi Yitzchak Weiss, superintendent coordinator
for Rabbi Weber’s tutors around the world, explains the
process:
“It is a step-by-step program of building the child’s
personality and mental abilities, in order for him to
begin to love learning Gemara and the thinking process
involved.”
Step 1: A connection is made between the child and
Gemara. By understanding the child’s personality, his
preferences and his strengths, the tutor is able to show
him that he is really connected to Torah learning.
For example, if a child loves drawing, his artwork can
be used to connect to ideas within the Gemara and show
him that he can see things differently using his skill.
Step 2: Once the talmid is bolstered using his natural
strengths, the tutor can being to work on his weaknesses.
Step 3: Finally, the tutor steps back and lets the student
create his own connections to the Gemara.
Rabbi Weber’s method is not to spoon-feed the
information, but to build the student’s tools so that he
can use them independently. He doesn’t even encourage
his tutors to reward students with prizes or treats. The
goal is for the student to develop a love of learning for
its own sake.
Using this method, the student’s whole personality
can change; his thinking can become organized, he can
develop a depth of understanding. If there are other issues
that need to be dealt with, Rabbi Weber is a proponent
of using all the help available for emotional, mental and
neurological issues. He recommends therapists and
doctors who can help a student reach a point where he is
able to grow in learning; whether he requires language,
music or art therapy, special education or any other
extra assistance. It is important that the student feels
good about himself, in order for him to be successful in
his Gemara learning.
How It Actually Works
“Once,” Rabbi Weiss relates, “I had an eight-year-old
student who had ADHD. He was not following in class.
Since he couldn’t sit still, he never caught on to the
basics. I needed to start by introducing very concrete
RABBI WEBER’S REVOLUTIONARY SYSTEM
Harav Yeshayahu Weber visiting
Harav Nissim Karelitz, shlita
22 February 3, 2016
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6. ideas so that he could begin to grasp the concepts of learning.
For two months, we would go outside every day and learn
hilchos Shabbos in a very tangible way. We would break
branches off of trees, dig holes, and drag tables across a grassy
field. We demonstrated the concepts of hilchos Shabbos in
the most physical ways possible. By understanding that these
concrete concepts connected to the Mishnayos, he was able
to start building his connection to higher learning. At that
point, we were able to start exploring the abstract. This step
was important because children can’t be given only concrete
examples in the Gemara. Even at a young age, they need to
start understanding more theoretical concepts.”
Rabbi Weber gives another example of building concepts
with young students. “We teach the halachos and different
concepts that involve Erev Pesach. There is so much involved
with Erev Pesach. All the different facets of chametz: eating
it, owning it, turning it to dust, how does it all change if it is
Shabbos.... These concepts, which can be experienced, are also
abstract ideas that need to be learned and drawn out.”
Rabbi Weiss tells another story of utilizing strengths to
work on weaknesses. “We once had a 19-year-old bachur who
seemed to be a masmid. He knew 1,000 pages of Gemara
by heart, but then he suddenly stopped learning. He simply
didn’t enjoy it. He didn’t connect the Gemara to anything
— he really hadn’t developed an understanding and thus
had no gratification from learning. Everything to him was
unconnected; just pages to memorize with no substance.
“I started learning with him for two hours a day. Every day
we worked on understanding the consequences of each detail
he had previously memorized. I asked specific questions that
would stimulate his thinking process. In the beginning, he
couldn’t understand the difference between a found wallet
that had a siman (a unique sign) and one that didn’t. We had
to build mental pictures so he could “see” the differences. We
asked questions that helped him slowly make the transition
from viewing the Gemara as random facts to recognizing
cause and effect. It became a new way for him to think, skills
he could use in his everyday life.
“I had another bachur from Boro Park who wasn’t doing
too much with his life. He never opened a gemara; he was just
hanging around. He was going to be starting shidduchim and
decided to clean up his act. Someone sent him to Rabbi Weber.
“We started from the beginning, with Chumash, then we
moved on to Mishnayos and basic Gemara. He put in a lot of
effort; he was motivated to suceed, and soon started making
the connections. It’s been a year and a half, and he is still
progressing in his learning.
“AnotherstudenthadmovedfromAustraliatoIsraelatage12.
The father, a Chassid, sent his son to a Yiddish-speaking school.
The boy, who really only understood English, was lost. He wasn’t
able to learn in so many new languages (Yiddish, Aramaic and
Hebrew) at once. For four years he sat in class and never really
understood anything. His father was a baal teshuvah and didn’t
feel confident helping him with Gemara either.
“We started to work with a computer program that helps the
students understand the Gemara using pictures and charts.
Questions are presented using different colors, shapes and
graphs.Hestartedtoenjoythelearning.HeswitchedtoaHebrew-
speaking school where he would only need to understand
Hebrew and the language of the Gemara. It has been two years,
and, though we still meet occasionally, he has mastered the
language and can learn the concepts independently.”
WorldwideRevolution
Rabbi Weiss relates that Rabbi Weber travels around the
world to evaluate struggling students who are seeking help.
He has trained tutors in England, the United States, Canada,
Russia, Europe and South Africa. If there isn’t a tutor available
at a student’s location and the student can speak Hebrew or
English, he can be helped via Skype.
A revolution is taking place. There is help available. This
system of learning Gemara — innovative and new, yet with
roots in the past — can transform every boy into a successful
talmid.
Additional approbations available from the Inyan office.
Harav Gershon Edelstein, shlita, perusing
Harav Weber’s sefer during his visit
Harav Yeshayahu Weber visiting Harav
Chaim Kanievsky, shlita
2323 Shevat 5776
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