Claiming the Gift of Learning

I was given a gift at birth, an inheritance that became mine by listening to stories when I was a child, by talking with friends when I was a teen, by learning and teaching as an adult. It was the same gift given to people smarter, more wealthy, more religious, more ambitious than I. It was the same gift given to presidents, soldiers, shopkeepers, business owners and farmers.

Actually, according to one of the stories my father told me, I was given this gift before I was born. Sometime, somewhere before I began, angels taught me all there was to know. Just before I was born one of them tapped me on my upper lip. I looked in a mirror, and I could see the angel's fingerprint right under my nose.
Because of that, my Jewish learning has been a matter of remembering what I already had known, reclaiming facts, insights and wisdom that were already mine. Every time I learn something new from Torah, Tanach, Talmud, or their commentaries, I feel more complete.