You know those moments you have where you just know you were exactly in the right place? That you shouldn’t have been anywhere else? I had one of those this past weekend.
Occasionally, we have prayer services at our house. It might sound crazy and intrusive to some, but for me, it just feels right. Allow me to give you a little background.
As Orthodox Jews, we walk to synagogue on Shabbat, rather than drive. Because it’s not a hop, skip, and a jump away, we sometimes choose to hold prayer services at our house on Friday nights, since we have a quorum of 10 men in our neighborhood, which allows us to have a group prayer service.
Occasionally, we also have a Saturday afternoon minyan, in which we read the Torah. Most private homes don’t have a Torah, but we do, and that’s because my husband, unlike other men his age that might want a new Tesla or a bigger TV (ok, maybe he wants that too) wanted to purchase a secondhand Torah (new ones are very expensive) once we had saved up enough money. He got me on board with this crazy purchase by dedicating the Torah in memory of my mother, who passed away many years ago. Every time we would take the Torah out and read from it, we would be elevating her soul in the World to Come. Needless to say, he got me to take the bait.
Usually, my husband will read from the Torah himself, which takes a bit of practice on his part each week. This past week, a friend of mine who lives in the neighborhood asked my husband if her son could read from the Torah instead, since his Bar Mitzvah is coming up this Shabbat, and this would give him a good opportunity to practice in front of a much smaller crowd. My husband readily agreed. And so, come 7:30 PM, her son stepped forward to read from the Torah in front of the small group gathered.
She stood with me and we both listened intently as he read, first hesitantly, and then, as he continued, more confidently. It was at that moment that I realized the value of giving these opportunities to our kids. I’ve read about the value of kids making decisions for themselves at a young age, allowing them to exercise that decision-making muscle on small things (like choosing what to wear, or what after-school sport to play) so that they can get better at making decisions when it has a larger and potentially, more serious impact, later in life. But here I was getting a glimpse of that concept in a different arena: Getting the opportunity to practice new skills in a secure space before doing them for real. Helping our kids make low-stakes mistakes – this is an important part of creating confident, independent adults.
And then the realization came full-circle for me. The reason why I am so comfortable having a minyan in our house is because I grew up with one. As the principal of the local high school, my father, with the encouragement of my mother, had a minyan in our home each Shabbat, to give kids from the school the opportunity to lead prayer services, read from the Torah, getting comfortable being a Jewish adult before they had to do it for real.
Here was my friend’s son, reading from the Torah dedicated in memory of my mother, doing just that. I thought about how it was so fitting that he was getting to practice from my mother’s Torah first, and how happy she would be that it was getting used in this way.
She was herself a math teacher, and I have heard many stories about how she made math enjoyable and relatable for her students.
Bringing Jewish life down to our kids level – making it relatable, tangible, and within reach – this is the key to growing people who practice Judaism confidently and with ease. This is exactly what we do when we encourage our kids to set the table, shake the lulav, visit the old age home regularly, and lead prayer services or read from the Torah.
He will do better this weekend because he got a chance to practice first at our home, on our Torah, my mother’s Torah. I may not be a high school principal in a small out-of-town Jewish community, but I just realized that we are continuing my parents’ legacy of empowering the next generation, and that feels right.