They say the end is in the beginning and the beginning is in the end. Well, then, let’s continue the story of my education at the Talmudical Academy during its golden age. I ended the last article saying, “Yes, we were fathered.” Now I will go back even further in time to how it all started.

My parents were born in the early 1900s. Little, if any, organized chinuch was available. TA was just a thought in 1911, the year of my father’s birth. Bais Yaakov was 50 years in the future. My father learned with my Zaidy until Zaidy finished two cups of tea, after which Zaidy promptly fell asleep. My mother learned everything about Yiddishkeit from her mother. I remember my mother lighting candles, kashering meat, and preparing for the Seder. She did chesed: visiting the sick, delivering Meals on Wheels, and serving in the TA cafeteria on her day off from my parents’ grocery store on Fayette Street, downtown in West Baltimore. She called her parents every day, even emptying their basement when it flooded; that was after spending a long day in the store.