Kol hakavod

Last Friday night, for the sixth time in my teaching career, my fourth graders led services. Every year, they get better and better at singing the prayers and psalms in front of their parents and the congregation. I’d love to take all the credit for it, but it’s not just me. I’m only a small part of their improvement. It’s the program that was set into place by our former rabbi and education director, who were also responsible for the presence of over twenty-five children and young people at my adult bat mitzvah in November. And by “responsible for the presence,” I mean that the children came up eagerly when called on to assist me during services on Friday and Saturday. The older ones helped out with things like the Ashrey (which I still need to learn fully), and the younger ones came up for Mizmor l’David, fully prepared and able to lead the congregation along with me.

This year, I decided to teach my students the Hatzi Kaddish, which I used to think was too difficult for fourth graders. We also worked on Mizmor l’David, Mi Chamocha, and the Bar’chu. Believe it or not, that last gave them and me a world of trouble. They kept mixing up the melody of the lead and the response. But we finally got it right by the Tuesday before we were due to lead, and I went to services on Friday night feeling confident. The rabbi was out of town for the weekend, so the principal of the religious school and I ran the show. I had my students up for everything but the Amidah. The principal and I sang along sotto voce, but not to help the kids—they didn’t need our help at all. They were letter-perfect on just about everything, and when they sang the Hatzi Kaddish, I was prouder of my students than if they’d been my own kids. They were great.

Instead of a sermon, we played, “Are you smarter than a fourth grader?” and asked their parents and congregants questions about Judaism. If they didn’t know the answer, they picked one of the students, who did. Of course I skewed the questions to ones I knew the children could answer. But it was fun. When one of the congregants got a typical Ms. Yourish holiday question (“Tell me three things about Purim”), he answered, “Haman, Esther, Mordecai.” I had my students follow up after we all stopped laughing. Every year, they learn whether or not a holiday is a three-line holiday (“They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!”). Then they go on to tell me who tried to kill us, and what special foods we eat.

Now here’s the really special thing about learning the Hatzi Kaddish this year. We have only one page in the Siddur with the transliteration, and it’s for the Saturday morning prayer service. My fourth graders are not fluent in Hebrew, and I believe in letting them use transliteration until they learn the words, then move onto the Hebrew. Not only does it help them learn their prayers, but I think it improves their Hebrew skills as well. So I brought in Post-It flags for them to put on the page with the transliteration, because it takes a nine-year-old child a lot longer than it takes you or me to turn to page 324 (and even with the flag, one of the students took a while getting to the page). They read from the transliteration, they did well, and that, I thought was that.

The next day in Sunday school, the third grade teacher asked me to help her students prepare for their turn to lead services at the end of the month. (We have our classes together the last 45 minutes of Sunday for another project, and we’re playing to each other’s strengths during that time.) So I asked them if they’d like to learn the Hatzi Kaddish.

“No! It’s too hard!” was the response.

“Tellya what,” I said. “Let’s just all do it—Daled class will show you how, and you can just listen if you like, you don’t have to sing along—and at the end of the prayer, you decide if you want to try it for your service.” We turned to page 324. My students led, third graders sang along, and by the end of the prayer, they decided yes, they would like to make the Hatzi Kaddish their special prayer for their service (they’ll be with the kindergarten, first and second graders due to a scheduling change).

But we’re still not at the punchline to this story. Third and fourth grade practiced the Hatzi Kaddish on Sunday and again on Tuesday afternoon early. Tuesday near the end of class, we met with the rest of the school (grades five through seven) for T’filah. The principal called for the Hatzi Kaddish. It was on a page without transliteration. I walked around the children, listening intently to the third and fourth graders. They were singing along. With all of it. They were looking at the book, at the Hebrew. All of them.

These are the moments a teacher lives for. The third and fourth grade can chant the Hatzi Kaddish in Hebrew, and they didn’t even know they could do it.

I am so moving on to Mizmor L’David for third grade on Tuesday.