I went to my downstair neighbors for Friday night dinner. Not having to leave my building almost made me wish I had a shabbos robe to celebrate the occasion, but I settled for going in slippers. (i know, these details are inconsequential...)
anyhow... On their table was a page, "brisk al ha-daf," with a little paragraph for each daily daf this week. This reminded me of one of the absolute collest things about Brooklyn, of which I rarely take advantage due to my gender as well as the hectic-ness of the rest of my life, which is the profusion of Torah (more on this later...).
Anyway, one of the vortlach (?) on the page had to do with "yihiyu leratson imrei fi ve-hegyon libi lefanecha haShem tsuri ve-goali." (if you teach me how to write in Hebrew here I will be happy...) Someone whose name I don't remember/didn't recognize pointed out that "lefanecha" in ambiguous - it may modify "heygon libi" (and, probably, "imrei fi") or it may modify "le-ratson." ie, either "may the musings (better translations gladly accepted) of my heart and the utterances of my mouth be leratson (favored?) before you" or "may the musings of my ehart and utterances of my mouth before you be favored." This ambiguity, it said, explains a minhag of the GRI"Z to say this pasuk twice - once for each meaning.
Now, I feel funny differing with lofty people, but this really struck me.* I mean, I tend to think that one of the cool things about language, particularly canonized langugage, is the possibility for ambiguity, and the realization that both/all meanings are contained in the same words. so saying the verse twice seems to defeat the purpose. that is, saying things twice presupposes a level of clarity about the true Order of Things that doesn't really exist. as if you can list all the possible meanings (ways of thinking) out there and take them into account, one by one. but that was just my intuition. (call it binah yeseirah, and say that's why i don't learn gemara so much anymore?) thoughts are appreciated.

*so much so that i smiled, causing my roomate to ask, "this is funny?" to which i replied "it's just very brisk," to which she replied "i don't know what that is. i never dated a guy from brisk."


so anyway, about the profusion of torah. my neighbor's first-grade son goes to chaim berlin and was singing zemiros (mah yedidus) with absolute gusto, as well as really good pronunciation of all those complicated words. and i thought, wow, could i do that at that age? and then i thought, it might almost be worth having yeshivish children [ok, granted, sons, b/c girls don't really sing - or learn to read ;) ...] if they would do that. though perhaps non-yeshivish children can do it to, if appropriately chinuch-ed? well, that's what i had to say about that.