Chavruta of the Week: Yehuda Bessner and Yitzhak Weiss

Yehuda Bessner

Since the school year has started I've been learning about various concepts on tefillah. This includes the importance of having cavanah during davening vs saying the words without any meaning. The book I’ve been learning emphasizes the importance of praying with Kavanah especially in times of need in order to become closer to hashem and create an everlasting relationship with him. It is great to learn about this since I feel a personal connection to a lot of these lessons and it is helping me improve in my own davening significantly

Yitzhak Weiss

When I got to Montreal, on the first day of school Yehuda Bessner came to me and asked me to learn with him for several minutes during breakfast. I agreed, thinking surely it will pass after a few days. Little did i know that Yehuda holds his own, every morning after prayers he amazed me, Every time coming ready with a book “Pniney Halacha” on prayer and opening right where we left off the day before. What is even more amazing that he decided he won’t give up any moment of the day and this study, unlike regular studies we start the learning standing up because Yehuda does not want to waste the time of folding tefillin. Then he begins to read from this special book.. What’s special about “Pniney Halacha” is its clear and understandable language to all readers and before descending to the details of the commandments and grammar laws Rabbi Melamed explains the principles and the concept and the matter of Jewish law and only after we have an idea of faith behind the halacha he gets to the details of the laws, for example now we are learning the importance of prayer, how it relates to our lives, and how it affects us privately and the world in general. in a few days when we understand deeply the importance of prayer we will begin to learn the laws Themselves. I must say that Yehuda teaches me a lot about perseverance and desire to deeply understand the meaning of how a person runs his life, and of course, I am impressed with his Hebrew skills!