Klutz Kashas

I have been attending a morning halacha shiur for the past seven years. For the first five years we studied Choshen Mishpat (mostly commerce related laws) b'iyun. Since then, we have been studying Rambam's Sefer Hamitvos in order. After almost two years we are up to number ten, Krias Shemah.

It is important to note that I said this was a halacha shiur, not a machshavah shiur. My Rebbe also gives plenty of those.

Nevertheless, this has not stopped a few of the chevra from continuously asking machshava-based questions. The questioners are almost all ba'alei teshuvah and the questions are almost all halacha-related issues that they are having trouble processing personally. It has gotten much worse since we left Choshen Mishpat for Mitzvos Hamelech, especially since the first few mitvos are very machshava'ish to begin with (Yichud Hashem, Kiddush Hashem, Yiras Hashem, Ahavas Hashem, Krias Shema, etc.)

It is not hard to figure out why these questions come almost exclusively from ba'alei teshuvah (of course there are a number of ba'aleu teshuvah in the shiur that don't ask these questions). Ba'alei teshuvah tend to think much more about things while FFBs just take things for granted. We aren't thinking about the "whys" of halacha so much as we are thinking of the "hows". In other words, FFBs think, how do we reach this halachic conclusion rather than why is this so?

Of course, as you can imagine, given my great amount of ahavas Yisrael and abundance of patience, these questions drive me batty. Often, I want to tear my hair out (but, sadly, this is no longer possible). The good news is that my Rebbe is very adept at handling these questions and bringing the shiur back to where it's supposed to be. (My Rebbe is also happy to discuss these hashkafic questions privately and at length).

I often wonder whether I would be better off being like one of the guys who comes to shiur who has been sleeping through it every single day (I do not exaggerate) for seven years.