I Thought Serious Torah Learning Was for Others

For years, I believed that serious Torah learning was for other people – the ones who could open a sefer without panic and read Hebrew without flinching. I didn’t think I could start this journey where I was in life, juggling family, work, and the ordinary demands of adulthood.

My background was fairly typical for an Orthodox woman. I had a solid Jewish education, enjoyed a good shiur, and felt comfortable discussing Torah at the Shabbat table. But my learning felt limited to what I already knew. The books of Tanach I had studied were familiar; the ones I hadn’t remained intimidating. I assumed that this was simply the extent of my Torah education – not because I didn’t care, but because this was the level of engagement my life could realistically sustain at the time.

My earliest attempts at teaching came much earlier, in my late teens and early twenties, and they were not successful. I lacked training, confidence, and the tools to manage a classroom or build a meaningful shiur. Those experiences convinced me that teaching wasn’t for me. Instead, I built a career in Jewish nonprofit leadership, staying close to Torah and educators while focusing on family and community work. Torah learning remained something I loved, but mostly from the sidelines.

That began to change gradually, and in very small ways. It didn’t start with a decision to become a teacher. It started with a much smaller one: committing to a daily Tanakh learning program that took ten or fifteen minutes a day. I listened while driving, folding laundry, or cooking dinner. At first, the goal was, simply, consistency.

Over time, that consistency added up. I began to recognize patterns, remember earlier chapters, and hear echoes across different books of Tanakh. That growing familiarity didn’t make me feel like an expert, but it gave me enough knowledge to begin sharing what I was learning with confidence. First in group discussions and online forums, then by saying yes to small teaching opportunities – answering questions, substituting, and eventually teaching locally and online.  Each step felt slightly uncomfortable but manageable, because it grew directly out of the one before it.

By then, my life looked very different. I was no longer parenting very young children, and while my days were still full, my time had become more flexible – enough to support deeper, more consistent learning. 

Along the way, I absorbed a simple but transformative idea: if you know Aleph, teach Aleph. You don’t need to wait until you know everything to begin sharing. Much of my early teaching involved clarifying and sharing the words of teachers I admired. What changed wasn’t that I stopped doing that, but that I learned how to do it with greater confidence, structure, and intention – and to weave my own insights and approach alongside them. Teaching didn’t come after mastery; it became part of how my learning deepened.

Standing in front of students quickly exposed the limits of my knowledge; instead of stopping me, it clarified what I needed next. I had enough grounding to recognize the gaps, and the recognition pushed me toward more structure, mentorship, and rigor. At the same time, local classrooms gave me a gentle place to grow. I prepared too much, stumbled through explanations, and made plenty of mistakes – but the environment was forgiving, and the encouragement was real. At some point, I even took a basic course in Biblical Hebrew grammar – not to master it, but to stop being afraid of it. 

I also know I could not have done this without the steady support of my husband, who encouraged me from the very beginning to pursue this work and consistently made space for it, often before I was confident enough to claim that space myself. 

Looking back, the shift feels obvious, even though I didn’t recognize it at the time. I didn’t set out to become a teacher, and I certainly didn’t imagine myself pursuing advanced study later in life. I simply made space for Torah to become part of my everyday rhythm and allowed curiosity to deepen over time.

For me, that process eventually led to teaching, because that’s where my interests and strengths naturally pulled me. Years ago, I once wrote about finding meaning in folding laundry, about learning to work inside the rhythms of an ordinary life rather than waiting for ideal conditions. I didn’t realize then how much that same approach would shape the way I learned Torah as well. Serious Torah learning didn’t begin for me in a classroom or a library; it began while driving carpool, folding laundry, and cooking dinner – in the middle of a full, ordinary life.