Last week, Baltimore was hot. Hot like August hot. It was so hot in Baltimore, that public schools without air conditioning, had to finish at half a day. I left school during my lunch break, ran over and picked up my three littles (10, 8, and just about 7) and brought them back to school with me.
In the car we had the following discussion. "You might see things in my school that you have not seen before or seem unusual to you. Ask me quietly or better wait till we leave the building. We are all going to go to Chapel at the end of the day. You sit when everyone else sits, and stand when everyone else stands, but you do not answer Amen to any prayers or blessings. "
It was great. My kids were so psyched to see the school I keep talking about. My students were funny and gracious, chatting with the kids and asking them for help - even if that was help taking a quiz. My 10 you old blew Shofar (much more successfully than I had been) and all three kids took great pride in sharing there favorite Israeli's children's songs and videos with my Hebrew 2 students.
When we finally left school, my 7 year old asked "How come there are so many statues of Jesus? Why do they make statues showing how he died? Why not statues showing how he lived?"
So my mouth dropped a little. I was proud he did not ask the question out loud in chapel, and I was even more proud about how without realizing it, he hit on a major theological and pragmatic difference between Jewish and Catholic traditions. I tried to explain to him that the narrative of Jesus dying in a very important story because Catholics believe Jesus to be God's son, and that he died to help humanity. ( Not bad for a rabbi explaining to a 7 year old.) My 7 year old answered "He was Jewish right? I want to know more about that..."
Fast forward a few days: I have two lovely young women who arrive at school around the same time I do. Often they hang out in my classroom. On Friday, one of these students had a test on the Hail Mary and Prayer for Peace by St. Francis of Assisi. She was totally freaked out. She had done math homework, English homework and science homework the night before and ran out of time to memorize these prayers. I checked the time on my phone and said "Well we have 45 minutes now, we will learn them."
She looked a bit surprised, and I needed to look at the words. We spent 45 minutes before school working on Hail Mary and the Prayer for Peace. I taught her to look for the cadence in the words and recite them with a rhythm, after all Jewish people pray with a nusach, a melody, that helps us learn and remember words. Soon the Hail Mary was being recited with a distinct rhythm related to rap and memorized. We then took on the Prayer for Peace which has a number of juxtapositions. I showed her how to see the formula within the prayer, and how that knowing the formula meant that as long as she knew the first half of each line she automatically knew how the line ended.
I have spent 25 years or so teaching prayer. Preschool students, day school students, adults, religious school students and students who have learning differences. Never once did I imagine the day that I would be taking all of my teaching techniques that I developed over so many years and apply them to Hail Mary and St. Francis of Assisi's Prayer for Peace.
You know what? It worked.
In one week my own children got to share their Judaism with my students. My children were able to ask questions and compare two faith traditions, and finally I was able to teach the Hail Mary.
It was a good week!
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