An Aramaic Lightning Round: Ten Texts from Elephantine to Mandaic
Ten Aramaic readings in one sitting: the Yerushalmi felt like home, Arabic cracked a Nabataean curse, and John the Baptist went into the desert to color.
Learning & Languages
Dew of Your Youth
טַל יַלְדֻתֶיךָ Tehillim 110:3
Dew of Your Youth is about thought, memory, matters of faith, and the systems we build to keep our thinking from dissolving.
Jewish texts, personal workflows, family archives, and languages learned along the way.
If you’ve ever tried to organize your soul with Markdown, welcome.
Recent posts
Faith & Practice
Returning to the Test: Tzidkat HaTzaddik 72–73
My father and I learned paragraphs 72–73 of Tzidkat HaTzaddik. We started with miracles. Rav Tzadok says: אפשר לעשות מופתים על־פי התורה. You can work miracles through Torah.1 That was how Moshe did his miracles. He opened a new gate in the words of Torah, and through the light of those words there was an influx of light into the world to do whatever it was he was doing. You can also work miracles through prayer.
Faith & Practice
Your Weakness Is Your Greatness: Tzidkat HaTzaddik 70–71
Rav Tzadok claims a person’s deficiency is his greatness: the fig leaves, the red cow and the Golden Calf, Bruriah’s prayer, and Elisha’s bears.
Learning & Languages
Old Aramaic: A King, a Curse, and Some Familiar Territory
A Hebrew and Gemara reader tries two Old Aramaic inscriptions: a Syrian king saved from a siege, and a treaty curse of seven nurses and one unsatisfied baby.
Faith & Practice
The King Arrives Quietly: Tzidkat HaTzaddik 68
Rav Tzadok on why mastering yourself makes no noise: Eliyahu’s still, small voice, and the king the blind Rav Sheshet knew by its silence.
Categories
Learning & Languages
Language learning as obsession, memory systems, and pedagogy.
20 posts
Faith & Practice
Jewish rituals, Torah journaling, spiritual processing, the Elul Logs.
43 posts
Heritage & Identity
Genealogy deep-dives, travel stories, cultural identity unraveling.
18 posts
Tech & Tools
Obsidian, Hugo tweaks, DevOps rants, scripts that almost worked.
15 posts