Greatness Is Built Through Review

The Yeshuos Moshe taught that the Maharsham, the Berzhoner Rav, was not born great, and that he had to work at it. His father, Rav Moshe, was a talmid of Rav Meir of Premishlan, and the Maharsham himself received semichah from the author of Shoel UMeishiv and from Rav Shlomo Kluger of Brod. He also traveled to many tzaddikim, including Belz, Stretin, Zidichov and Tchortkov. When the Ahavas Yisrael sent his son Rav Chaim Meir, the Imrei Chaim, to be tested for semichah by the Maharsham, the Gaon of Berzhon, the Yeshuos Moshe observed that the Berzhoner Rav had not been born as such. Every Shabbos he completed the entire Maseches Shabbos in review, and the very fact that he reviewed it weekly made him know it by heart, the way we know Ashrei. The Yeshuos Moshe said that this is how one must accustom oneself from the younger years to study and review: the greatness of the Maharsham lay in using his time wisely and every opportunity to serve his Creator. In his old age, on his sickbed, the Maharsham told the talmidei chachamim who stood outside his room debating the mitzvah of matnos kehunah, including Rav Meir Shapira, that the Darchei Moshe in Hilchos Mezuzah answers the question explicitly. They feared that his wisdom had dimmed, but when they looked it up, he was correct. Then his own Shulchan Aruch was brought, and they saw written in it that he had reviewed the entire Shulchan Aruch four hundred times, noting when each cycle began and ended.