. "Give me your mind for
learning and I shall let you have my handwriting."
"Pshaw! Yours is a better mind than mine, too."
"No, it is not," he returned, and resumed his reading. "Besides, you
are ahead of me in piety and conduct." He shook his head
deprecatingly and went on reading. He was one of the noted "men
of diligence" at the seminary. With his near-sighted eyes close to
the book he would read all day and far into the night in ringing,
ardent singsongs that I thought fascinating. The other reticent
Talmudists I knew usually read in an undertone, humming their
recitatives quietly. He seldom did. Sparing as he was of his voice
in conversation, he would use it extravagantly when intoning his
Talmud
It is with a peculiar sense of duality one reads this ancient work.
While your mind is absorbed in the meaning of the words you
utter, the melody in which you utter them tells your heart a tale of
its own. You live in two distinct worlds at once. Naphtali had
little to say to other people, but he seemed to have much to say to
himself.
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