In a rare moment of community spirit, I have agreed to help out with a school visit at our synagogue. But now I am panicking. Should I have told Deborah, the organiser, that I’m a semi-shiksa so probably not the ideal person for the task? What if the visiting children ask me Advanced Level Jewish questions? Difficult stuff about the Torah? I can’t even remember all the reasons why we have challah on Friday night, aside from"‘we really, really like it" – which I’m fairly sure isn’t debated in the Talmud (last time I checked).
The children will be split into small groups to huddle round different tables with Judaic artefacts, such as a Torah scroll, Seder plate, menorah, tallit, and so on, and a helper at each. There will also be a table set nicely as if for Shabbat with a white cloth, challah, Kiddush cup, plus a basket of cut-up challah and tiny glasses of grape juice for the kids. Can I manage the Shabbat table? All I need to do is give a little spiel about Shabbat and the things they see on the table, recite the appropriate blessings in Hebrew, and answer any questions.
Deborah offers to send me some background notes (I think she could hear I was starting to hyperventilate on the phone). Luckily, most of the content is already familiar, so maybe I know more than I realise, but I am intrigued by a comment about the brachot, which states that: “In Judaism we do not bless anyone or anything”. We all refer to ‘the blessing for wine’ because we know what that means but the notes remind me that the intent is to bless and praise God for the grapes from which the wine is made, not to bless the wine itself. Interesting, but maybe a distinction that would be lost on kids still in Year 3 (aged 7-8)?
The children are from a school in south London (ie where the shuls are few and far between). Most have probably never even met anybody Jewish. Does anyone know when the Jewish Sabbath is, I ask? A boy puts his hand up, "Is it Tuesday?" No….well, does anyone know when the Christian Sabbath is? No-one knows that either, it turns out. The teacher, however, was raised as a Seventh Day Adventist so leaps in quickly. After that, every question I ask, she chips in before any of the children can pipe up. I feel she is kind of missing the point, but – as I’m not a teacher – I don’t know what the kindly, constructive way of saying, "Shut up and let them speak"is.
The uniform is the ubiquitous state school choice of dark trousers with a sweatshirt bearing the name of the school. Their sweatshirts are pale yellow, possibly not the best choice as well over half of them are quite...grubby. I am silently shocked. At my own junior school, plenty of kids were from families where money was very tight, but almost no-one ever came in dirty clothes (other than one or two of the more privileged, middle-class kids, whose parents were even more bohemian than mine were so didn’t care). A significant proportion had dads who were ‘away for a bit’ – ie in prison. You’d often hear the girls complain: "Oh no, I’ve got my blouse dirty – my mum’ll kill me". Dirt was associated with poverty so was a source of deep, real shame. The boys wore grey shorts – so that if they fell over, as they frequently did, it would only be their exposed knees that would get ripped to bits on the pebble-dashed steps, not their precious trousers.
I explain that we eat a special meal and ask them what they would choose for a special meal. Pizza, says one. I say that we usually have roast chicken. One of them sticks his hand up. ‘I had that once!’
A friend involved in child protection work once insisted on telling me about a child who had been kept for much of the time in a cage outside by her parents. When I asked her to stop giving me more details, because it was so distressing and because I knew I would have nightmares about it, she accused me of "living in a bubble". My point was that it made me feel powerless – because I knew I couldn’t help whereas my friend was actively involved in helping children like this, so for her it was different.
No doubt she was right and I do live in a bubble and that thought returns to me again with these kids because, as with any kind of learning, it’s a two-way street. I am supposed to be teaching them about Judaism and Shabbat, but I am being reminded that not everyone gets to put on clean clothes every day or eat roast chicken every Friday.
I like to think that I am not spoilt – after all, I grew up in a shabby, rented flat with no central heating or washing–machine, and we had to lug our dirty washing down the road to the launderette – but it is easy, too easy, to become complacent.
So, regardless of belief, or my own sad lack of it, it is with no small degree of feeling that on Friday night I say the brachot and it is I who feel very blessed to have the light of these candles, this fruit of the vine, this bread from the earth.
Zelda Leon is half-Jewish by birth then did half a conversion course as an adult (half-measures in all things….) to affirm her Jewish status before a Rabbinical Board. She is a member of a Reform synagogue. Zelda Leon is a pseudonym.
