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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
Years of Talmud and Targum gave me a strong reading knowledge of Aramaic. Then I listened to people who actually speak it.
