Nachas

Yesterday began with oldest child's Siddur party/play at school. Each first-grader is given their very own prayer book to keep, which they will use to learn the prayers as well as Hebrew. It involved a lot of singing, and each child had a short paragraph to say in Hebrew. Not only did I borrow a video camera for the event, but we even managed to get front row seats near where she was, so I had a good view. I have many doubts about my skillz as a videographer, but nobody expects academy award winning cinematography at a first grade performance.

She was wonderful, as were most of the other kids. The most rewarding part for me was watching her after she received her siddur. Like most of the other kids, she was sitting on the floor, poring over the text and reading to herself. It was all unrehearsed - apparently this was built up so well by the teachers the kids couldn't wait to look it over for themselves. Her teacher actually saw us at another school event last week and said she had mentioned something in class in passing and they all picked up on it - I saw it in action as oldest went right to that page to look it over.

My parents even made it, which is tremendously impressive given that it started at 9AM, which is the middle of the night for my dad. I'm glad they did. The whole thing was done so nicely, and it reassures me that we're spending all these gazillions of dollars on yeshiva for a good reason. Mrs. said to me in the car on the way home that she's even more pleased that we decided to send the kids to yeshiva. Yes, we could save money by sending them to public school, but this experience of learning the language and faith of our people is so much richer in this environment. We really like the school a lot, and she is clearly learning to be the Jew we want her to be.

Nice job, kiddo, and may this be the start of a deep and abiding love for Torah, Tefila, and the faith of our ancestors.