Thank you very much for your letter and good wishes.

The doctor told me to walk a lot and lose weight. So far I managed to lose 15 lb & hope to lose much more eventually. If everything goes well we shall be back on Wednesday, August 23.

As to Psalm 102:8 and the word צפור   in it, here I have no English Bible or Bible with Hebrew commentaries, only a Hebrew Bible without any commentary. You write that the English translation of צפור   is "sparrow" and it is a spring bird. Bialik's first poem was אֶל   הַצִפֹר. The poem seems to confirm that צפור  is a spring bird and Pslam 102:8 uses the word צפור . However, as to "sparrow" I have the following two observations:

1. When I was once in a hospital in Brno (Czechoslovakia) in December 1938, I was together with six other non-Jewish patients. One of them collected the left-over bread, broke them to little pieces and put them on the window outside, and the sparrows came and ate them. Thus the sparrow did not migrate to warm country but stayed with us during the winter looking for food in the homes and especially on famrs where there were chicken, geese and other fowls. It is rather the swallow and stork that are known to return in the spring.
2. On the other hand in the spring, when the farmer was ploughing in the field, you could see many sparrows following the farmer at the time of sowing, and picking the seeds and sometimes the worms as their food. Nevertheless the sparrow was not considered to be a spring bird because it did not migrate. Therefore it would be interesting to find out whether the word צפור   is always translated as sparrow.

Mazal tov to Susan's engagement to Bernie. We were very glad to hear it.

Kindest regards.