Wings of Desire and Daf Yomi

 Today I spoke in shul in honor of our Daf Yomi Siyum of Seder Nashim. Below is the text of the speech. Shortly I will also be publishing, in a separate blogpost, about our trip to the library. 

Good shabbos, everyone. I’ve been wanting for some time to speak a little bit about my experience with Daf Yomi and I want to thank both Kesher and especially our Daf Yomi group for allowing me to do that this Shabbat. 

  To begin, I need to invite you a little bit into my world.

Ours is a family of movie lovers. We have a lot of lists in our household, lists of top favorite movies, favorite movie scores, favorite movie posters and so on. 

Another detail I need to tell you is that my paternal grandfather was a secular German Jew with an exceptional story. He escaped Germany when his uncle had the foresight to leave Germany early and took him to help with a stationery business on the island of Mallorca. He was able to make a life for himself there until the Spanish Civil War broke out and he moved again to the U.S. where he joined the American army. In spite of the Nazis, my grandfather continued to love the Germany he left behind and instilled in both my Dad and me an interest in learning German and other languages.

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