Commitment

I was 'link surfing' during some downtime and came across this great post by Pscho Toddler who writes about his completion and impending siyum (I assume the siyum already happened by now) of Bava Kama. He writes about the dedication and commitment needed and his attempts at various different topics before landing with Bava Kama. His description of learning mussar brought some chuckles:

...if you’ve spent time reading these types of books, you know that despite being in a language that is readily translatable, the structure is such that it seems to be a series of really long run-on sentences, with large subordinate clauses, and you really can’t get from the subject to the predicate for a good half a page or so, and by the time you do finally reach the end of the sentence (all the while translating in your mind (and verbally) from Hebrew to English, maybe with breaks to look up the occasional esoteric word) you have forgotten what the beginning of the sentence was about, and, to be honest once again, you no longer care, because you’re so glad to have finally found a period.

I speak for myself (though most probably for many others too) when I say that I know I really need to learn more. While I was schooled in mainstream yeshiva's, I never really enjoyed learning and as time passed by I've reached the point where I can't 'make a leining' on my own any more. It's sad and will hit me even harder when my son begins to learn gemara. I better get cracking. Mazel Tov Psycho for finishing and inspiring!

Hat Tip Heimish