They showed their mutual affection, which remained palpable till late in their lives, by using pet names. My father called my mother "Mutti"(from the German word for mother--Mutter) and my mother always called him "Schatzi" (from the German word for treasure--Schatz). As my father aged, he developed the habit of saying "Mutti" to himself audibly and often, without ever intending to attract her attention. Alone in his study, he would emit the sound of her name when he rose from his desk to get another book or just reclined to rest for a moment. She was clearly the anchor of his life.

It was only when I came to the Seminary as a student in 1957 that I realized that "Schatzi" was a common name of endearment among Jews from Germany. Adele Ginzberg (affectionately known to students as Mamma Ginzberg) had never called her late renowned husband, Professor Louis Ginzberg, anything but "Schatzi". Seminary lore recounted that whenever she attended his class in Talmud and interrupted with a comment, as was her wont, she would address him unselfconsciously as "Schatzi" much to the students' delight.

This is the manner in which the rabbis handle an evident redundancy in the first verse of our parashah. The book of Leviticus opens with God instructing Moses on the nature of the sacrificial system to be used in the just finished tabernacle: "The Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of Meeting, saying...(Leviticus 1:1)."