Whatever I asked him, he always responded with a blank “What?” before answering.

From infancy, Efraim’s behavior troubled me, but I couldn’t pinpoint the issue. His eyes seemed blank and it took him longer than usual to process what he heard.

Like the stereotypical Jewish mother, I worried. And worried some more. How would he learn Gemara? How would he get into a decent yeshiva?

Efraim stayed under the radar in class. The rebbeim never complained because he never misbehaved. He just spaced out, scraping by with his tutor’s help.

I was wary of the various treatments for learning issues. Wary of empty promises. Wary of running in circles for a solution. I pushed off going for help.

But last year, when his class started learning Gemara, I realized I could wait no longer

One night, Efraim told me, “Mommy, my Rebbi talks and talks. I try to follow along for the first few minutes, but then I lose track of what he’s saying. I do nothing in yeshiva all day.”

I took him to two highly recommended evaluators. The first one said he had a focusing issue and recommended medication.

The second evaluator diagnosed him with an executive functioning disorder and recommended medication as well.

I contacted the director of a program for children who are academically delayed. He said he wouldn’t give medication unless it was absolutely necessary. He felt my son’s case wasn’t severe enough for his program since the school wasn’t complaining.

But I knew better. My son was struggling — big time. He didn’t participate in class because everyone laughed at his questions. He couldn’t take tests — he was too busy erasing and rewriting everything he wrote.

A friend suggested trying Yitzchok Weiss. I called him and he gave me a reference — someone he’d recently helped with a learning problem. I got a glowing report on his services.

With the brachah of a great tzaddik, we made an appointment. On the morning of the session, I davened a fervent Shacharis and completed sefer Tehillim.

My husband went with Efraim to the session. He too said Tehillim while Yitzchok Weiss spoke to Efraim. From the assessment, it was evident that Efraim had executive functioning issues. He couldn’t use both sides of his brain in tandem and had a hard time thinking critically and activating prior knowledge to make connections and inferences. Over the course of the day, Yitzchok created a custom program for Efraim that treated the root of the issue.

That was last week. Since then, my son has had a few short over-the-phone sessions with Mr. Weiss.

Baruch Hashem, we see an incredible turnaround. Efraim told me, “School is geshmak! Learning is smooth. It’s usually so bumpy.”

“What was bumpy?” I asked. “Talking? Thinking?”

“Both,” he asserted. “But now it’s so much easier. Chumash, Mishnayos, Gemara. Everything.” And I’m hearing these sentiments from his tutor as well.

“In the two years since I started working with Efraim, I never heard him talk like this,” his tutor marveled. “He usually needs lots of prompting, but yesterday, he spoke in full sentences and expressed himself beautifully.”

Efraim is smart and has remarkable drive. With lots of tefillos, and Yitzchok Weiss as the shaliach, Efraim got past the executive functioning challenges that prevented him from being his best self.

*Names and identifying details have been changed.