I said these words for twenty-five years before I understood them.

Hi, I'm Zoli.

I grew up in yeshiva. I daven in a Chabad shul. I can get through Shacharit by heart, with the tune, the standing, the bowing, all of it. And somewhere along the way I became the person in shul who explains davening to people doing it for the first time: which page, what this bracha is for, why we say this here.

Doing that is what caught me off guard. Someone would ask a simple question about a line I had said every morning for twenty-five years, and I would realise I did not actually know. I knew the words. I did not know what I was saying. And once I admitted that to myself, I could not stop noticing how much of the siddur I had memorised without ever opening.

So I wanted a way for all of us to learn what we have been saying, in a way that is actually fun to keep up with. Not a class you fall behind in. Not a sefer that sits on the shelf. Something you can use as your siddur, not just study from. Five minutes, six mornings a week, and by the end of the year every line of weekday Shacharit is yours.

We are starting with Shacharit. I am fairly sure we will not stop there.

If you use it, I would love to hear from you. What landed, what did not, what you wish it did, where I got something wrong. Write to me at support@learntodaven.app. I read everything, and I appreciate it more than you know.

See you on Day One.