OU TORAH “The Many Lessons of ‘Half'” By Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

(L"N my zadie Asher Zelig Ben Shmuel whose yortzeit is this Shabbos) I was never very good at math. It all goes back to the fourth grade. I came down with a case of some ordinary childhood disease, probably chicken pox, at just the time that Mrs. Levine was teaching the class about the concept of percentages. I must’ve missed about a week of school, and when I returned to class, it seemed as if everyone was speaking Greek. Phrases like “50%” and “75%” and “a half” and “three-quarters” cut the air, and I simply did not know what these strange words meant. Mrs. Levine probably tried to catch me up with the rest of the class, but all I remember are feelings of frustration.