The learning of youth - Shabbat 21b

Abaye, upon learning a teaching about shabbat and chanukah wicks, responds by wishing he had learnt it before hand.

But what's the difference? asks the gemara, hasn't he learnt it now?

The answer given is that the difference is about the learning of one's youth. Abaye wishes he could have learned this teaching when he was still young, so that, as Rashi explains, it would stick in his mind better.

The power of youth
Not only does our learning when young have the potential to stick with us for the rest of our lives, but it also has the power to alter the way we think for the rest of our lives.

I am eternally grateful to my parents that I was raised in a home dominated by Judaism and yiddishkeit, where Torah was spoken around the dinner table, the language of midrash and kabbalah part of every day life - it has made my rabbinical journey far easier.

Yet there are things I wish I had learnt when I was younger - for example more Hebrew and hilchot shabbat - that would now be enmeshed with who I am.

Living with our past
But there's nothing any of us can do to change what we learned when we were young. Short of the invention of time travel, I cannot make it the case that I learned to speak Hebrew fluently at a young age.

All we can do is plan for our future - try to teach our children, and the children under our care, the things we believe they need to learn when young, the ideas that can change the way they think, and help them grow into thoughtful, compassionate human beings and Jews.