I wanted to do the right thing and serve Hashem in the best way possible — I just couldn’t. And the more I tried, the more my body rebelled.

M

y problem began about 30 years ago, when I was 15 and learning in a yeshivah high school. At the time, there was little public awareness of this issue, and I myself had never heard of it. I assumed it was no big deal, and tried my best to ignore it.

When I reached beis medrash age, the issue began to bother me more and more. At that point, I decided to go speak to an adam gadol about it. He gave me some advice for how to deal with this nisayon, and I tried to implement it, but it didn’t seem to help. I continued to soldier on and attempt to ignore the problem, but at this point it was already affecting my learning and davening, tormenting me most while I was in the beis medrash and in shul.

Faltering as I was in my learning and avodas Hashem, several caring rebbeim and maggidei shiur gave me pep talks encouraging me to power myself past my nisyonos, although most of them had no idea what the nature of my particular challenge was — and even I didn’t really understand it.

Over time, the mussar shmuessen continued, both in shiur and in one-on-one settings, with a similar message every time. On one occasion, a distant relative of mine who is a rosh yeshivah shared his own experience with me. “In my youth, I suffered from dyslexia,” he confided. “Learning was so, so hard for me. But I persevered, and with siyata d’Shmaya, I overcame the difficulties. So can you! If you work hard enough, you can become a maggid shiur, or even a rosh yeshivah.”

His words made me feel very agitated, but I couldn’t verbalize why his experience and mine were different. All I could think was, I know I can’t learn full-time. Although I dreamed of devoting myself to learning and teaching Torah, I realized already as a bochur that this would not be practical, considering that my condition was most pronounced in shul and the beis medrash.

At one point, I developed a connection with a rebbi who was a huge talmid chacham; to this day I’m convinced that he was one of the lamed-vav hidden tzaddikim of the previous generation. After spending some time in his presence, I began to suspect that he suffered from the same condition I did, and I decided to bare my soul to him.

When I unburdened myself, he gave me a look that said, “There’s so much I wish I could tell you, but I can’t.” Instead, he gave me a practical suggestion, one that unfortunately didn’t work for me. (I suspect it didn’t work for him, either.)

At that young age, I wasn’t able to put things into a clear perspective, but a long-term pattern was emerging. I would constantly hear the message that I could overcome anything that is an obstacle to success in Torah and avodah, but when it came down to concrete solutions, there were none to be found.

Going into shidduchim, I wanted to establish myself as a serious learner and ben Torah — which is really what I aspired to be. So I resolved to start my married life in kollel, despite the difficulty I knew it would involve.

Still, I knew very well, and made it clear in shidduchim, that full-time learning wasn’t something I could do long term. As for my personal challenge, I didn’t really understand it, and it didn’t even occur to me that my future wife would need to make some adjustments in order to deal with it. It was a challenge, I assumed, that I would eventually overcome somehow, with hard work and siyata d’Shmaya. Everyone had told me that — and everyone couldn’t be wrong.

At the beginning, I don’t think my wife noticed anything unusual about me. I hid my struggle well for a while, doing everything I was supposed to do, even though the stress was really getting to me.

Desperate for relief, I combed through seforim, searching for some advice on how to deal with this issue, but found nothing. I turned to several rabbanim for guidance, and while they were duly sympathetic, they had only pat solutions to offer — solutions that I had long ago thought of and tried, without success.

During this time, I still refused to give in to my challenges. Instead, I put in my utmost efforts and waited for the siyata d’Shmaya that was sure to come my way. In the process, I became a nervous wreck, beset with anxiety and suffering from acute stomachaches. It was the hardest time of my life, and I realized that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

About a year into our marriage, I told my wife I was stressed out and wanted to get some professional help. She took my words at face value and supported me without asking too many questions.

Professional help, in the form of cognitive behavioral therapy and prescription medications, provided some relief, enough to get me through the rest of my time in kollel — but just barely.

Until this point, I had believed that I wasn’t the one with the problem — the people around me were the ones with the problem. But now, I finally realized that there was definitely something wrong with me, and I confided to my wife that I had a problem. She was kind enough not to judge me for it. While she didn’t fully understand it, she was (and continues to be) consistently supportive.

After a year and a half in kollel, I reluctantly acknowledged what I myself had known for years — that my problem made it impossible for me to spend a significant amount of time in the beis medrash — even though my rebbeim had urged me to propel myself past the difficulties. I’ve given full-time learning my best shot, I thought sadly. Now it’s time to move on.

I began training for a professional career, while doing my best to maintain my identity as a ben Torah. School provided something of a reprieve from my struggle, as it kept me away from the situations that I found most challenging. Still, I fully expected that once I finished my schooling, I would become the quintessential ben Torah balabos who consistently attended minyan and put in daily sedorim in the beis medrash.

After graduating, I dove headlong into my career and my new life as the ideal ben Torah balabos, complete with regular minyanim and sedorim in kollel. After five years of doing this, I found myself stressed and miserable, having made no significant progress in overcoming my challenge, even though I was learning a substantial amount.

While my condition, thankfully, did not lead me to violate outright Torah prohibitions, it did bring me into direct conflict with halachah on a daily basis, as I walked the tightrope between figuring out what my basic halachic obligations were as an adult Jewish male and what practices I might be exempt from due to my condition. No rav could satisfactorily answer my question of “How much suffering am I obligated to endure in order to fulfill mitzvos that are difficult for me?” Yet even the thought of entertaining these types of sh’eilos triggered tremendous guilt feelings in me. How could a ben Torah settle for less-than-optimal fulfillment of halachah? Doesn’t ironclad commitment to fulfilling every word of Torah automatically bring with it siyata d’Shmaya to overcome anything?

Over the years, I continued to talk to rabbanim about my condition, and they tried to gently prod me to fulfill my obligations as a frum man in a more optimal way. But I found that their well-meaning mussar and chizuk had the opposite effect of what they intended, serving to make me feel more guilty, frustrated, and helpless. I wanted to do the right thing and serve Hashem in the best way possible — I just couldn’t. And the more I tried, the more my body rebelled.