The gemara (Rosh HaShannah 18a) wonders what was the z'chus that allowed Rabba and Abaya (descendants of Eli haCohein and subject to a decree of early death) to have such long lives. Rabba, Chazal tell us, lived to 40 because he was constantly involved with Torah; Abaya lived to 60 because he was constantly involved with Torah and G'mulus Chasadim. I heard from R' Chaim Dov Keller, shlita, that the Chafeitz Chaim said on this chazal that one does not lose from doing chesed. Our life is not a fixed pool out of which we need to take away from one thing to give to another. As Jews we don't live b'derech ha'teva, we live (literally) -- both spiritually and physically -- b'derech ha'Torah.
My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class. It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner. I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her. She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver. When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find. (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it. Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא. It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק
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