Regular, long-time leiners have a special relationship with every sedra of the year. Some trade secrets from veterans of the klaf  

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Every baal korei has his own path to the bimah — the mentors, encouragement, and opportunities that led him from tentative leining to confident mastery.

How did you start out?

Rabbi Zvi Moshe Lasker

My father arrived in America as a seven-year-old in the early 1920s. I don’t know how he learned to lein, but by age 20, he was a skilled baal korei, and he taught me and my three younger brothers to lein for our bar mitzvahs.

Leining was actually the catalyst for our family’s close connection to Rav Yitzchak Hutner and the Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin family. When Rav Hutner arrived in America, he looked for a place to daven. When he heard my father lein in a small shul in East New York, he went over to him and said, “I have found a place to daven.”

When I was young, we lived in East New York, and my family davened in the local Young Israel of New Lots. Rav Avraham Pam davened there and said shiur once a week. The shul’s first official rav was Rav Shlomo Freifeld. Later, Rav Yisrael Perkowski, rosh yeshivah of Beis Hatalmud, was the rav. I don’t think the younger generation appreciates how instrumental the Young Israel movement was in keeping Yiddishkeit going in America in the 1930s and 1940s.

Back then we didn’t have a regular baal korei, so we’d split the parshah among some of us boys, which gave us a chance to practice leining without having to master an entire parshah.

Rabbi Yitzchak Mohadeb

My father a”h was a rabbi in Argentina. I learned to lein when I was very young, both from my father and in cheder — you don’t forget what you learn when you are young. I started to lein at my bar mitzvah. There was no yeshivah for me to attend in Argentina, so when I was around 14 years old, my father sent me to Porat Yosef in Yerushalayim, where I also used my leining skills. The boys were encouraged to lein there, and I was the baal korei every few Shabbatot.

Rabbi Dr. Avraham Isenberg

I grew up in Chicago, and my bar mitzvah parshah fell out the week of parshas Eikev, but since everybody went out of town for the summer, my parents postponed my bar mitzvah celebration until Tishrei, and I leined parshas Vayeilech, the shortest parshah.

A great chazzan taught me the trop. He was not so well versed in dikduk, though, and for the last 58 years of leining I’ve been doing teshuvah for all those mistakes I made then.

As a bochur, I would lein until sheini at Minchah on Shabbos afternoon, which is a great way to start. In 1964, my parents took a summer road trip to the Catskills, and there I was asked to lein parshas Re’eh. I prepared and leined the entire sedra. Then, while learning in Skokie Yeshiva, I got my first regular leining job.

I used the Koren Tanach when preparing. It was written by a trio of real experts, but my father, Rav Zvi Isenberg a”h, was the dikduk expert in Chicago, and he taught me a lot. In 1971, I noticed that the first edition of the Koren Tanach had a mistake in Megillas Esther. The trop in the word “argaman” was printed on the second to last syllable instead of the last. I wrote a letter to the editors asking about it. About three months later, they wrote me back that the mistake had been corrected.

Today, you’d have a hard time finding an old edition of the Koren Tanach with that mistake, although I did find one in Capitol Seforim in Lakewood. There’s still another typo, in Tehillim 69, but no one is leining that.

Mr. Moshe Metzger

My father, who came over from Europe in 1948, started davening here in Shomrei Shabbos in 1957. He was the baal korei, and I taught myself how to lein for my bar mitzvah in 1964. Since 1980, I haven’t missed a parshah. I actually don’t lein Megillas Esther, but I do lein Shir Hashirim.

Rabbi Mordechai Genuth:

When I was six or seven, I got my first Tanach as a present, and I was so excited that I’d read it until I fell asleep at night. Later, my father taught me the trop of each parshah while he was ma’avir sedra.

I was an only child, and my father pushed me to get over my shyness, to be able to speak up in public, and to lein. We lived in Bnei Brak, and when it was time to go to yeshivah gedolah, I thought I would attend Ponevezh or Slobodka, but my parents wanted me to be independent, and they sent me to Tchebin in Yerushalayim. Only now, as an adult, can I appreciate what they gave up.

While learning in Yerushalayim, I had the zechus to become close to Reb Yiddele Djikover (Horwitz), who had a shul in his home. I spent many Shabbosos with him, and I leined the Megillah for him.

Rabbi Feivish Kaye

I was a 17-year-old bochur in the Manchester Yeshiva when the bochur who used to lein regularly left to Eretz Yisrael. The rosh yeshivah, Rav Yehuda Zev Segal, came over to me and said, “Feivish, I’ll give you a job. I want you to find a baal korei every week.”

I tried, but it was so hard to find someone. Everyone had excuses, and soon I realized it was easier just to do it myself. I practiced every evening, and I started leining every week.