My Rav Aharon Shechter ztz"l Story

In the year תשנ"א [the year '91 למנין הנוצרים], I decided that I wanted to attend Mesivta d'Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin. In order to be accepted, one had to meet the Rosh Yeshiva, HaGaon R' Aharon Shechter [then "Shlita"] ztz"l, and say a "Shtikel Torah" [a chiddush in a sugya in the gemara]. Now, it is exceedingly clear to the very small number of people who have ever listened to any of my shiurim, that I don't know how to learn. [I only partially blame myself. The other part of the blame goes on my upbringing. I was a תינוק שנשבה בין הכלבים on the Upper West Side]. And that is today decades later. Imagine how pathetic I was then!!! So I didn't feel comfortable saying Torah to the RY and I shared this with someone I knew, an old time Chaim Berliner. He told me to tell the Rosh Yeshiva that I am embarrassed and that would get me out of it. But I prepared something just in case.

Well, I go to Brooklyn with my father שליט"א, tell the RY ztz"l that I am embarrassed to say anything and he told me not to worry and to say something anyway. So I told him a Torah I had tried to read from the מקראי קודש of R' Tzvi Pesach Frank ztz"l. He quoted an אדר"ת. The RY asked me if I knew who the אדר"ת was. I told him to google it. Google didn't yet exist so he couldn't do that. He told me who he was. When I finished the Shtikel Torah, he said that it can't be. He opened up a gemara Psachim and showed me I think a Tosfos in ערבי פסחים disproving what I had clearly not understood. 

So there went that. 

REMARKABLY, despite my limited intelligence, shady background [not only the תינוק שנשבה בין הכלבים but many summers in Camp Lavi רח"ל and being a diehard Mets fan when they languished in the cellar when I could have just as easily have chosen the Yankees and been a World Series Champ!!!] and drab personality - he accepted me!!!! 😊😊😊👍💙💚💛💜 . 

I was proud to say ala JFK - "Ich bin ein Chaim Berliner"!! 

Thank you Rav Aharon ztz"l for accepting me!!! Thank you to my father zol zein gezunt and shtark he should have a refuah shleima [ר' יצחק יונה בן חנה] for taking me that day and paying tuition. Thank you to both my parents for allowing me to go [even though I didn't exactly do the college thing, which for whatever reason seemed to have been the thing to do] and for granting me a Jewish education [and of course everything else they have done for me which is כחול אשר על שפת הים]. 

And thank you Hashem ששמת חלקי מיושבי בית המדרש and not מיושבי people who are immersed in the shtusim of this world.