what do you believe in?

Monday mornings, when I arrive to Miriam's class of fifth grade boys, I sit silently through their morning prayers. The chanting is the unfamiliar wavering of Sephardic melodies, and the boys are standing at their seats, screaming their prayers at the top of their lungs, shukkling vigorously from the waist, up-and-down, up-and-down. I can see the veins popping out of their necks and their eyes roaming the room throughout the mantras: "Baruch atah adonai el0henu melech ha-olam..." Each word slides down a three-note chord at a deafening volume. There's clearly beauty in the confidence and ease with which they pray. There's also an incredible certainty implicit in this noise-- these kids are pretty sure they'll be repeating these words every morning for the rest of their lives. So, while it might appear disrespectful to an outsider like myself to see these kids pray like American kids hoot and holler at a football game, it seems more likely that they're fulfilling the ideal of doing mitzvot in happiness.

Working at the Ma'agalim School I feel like rugby fullback again. I played for three semesters, and never quite knew the rules. I knew it was my job to catch the ball, book it up the field, and touch it to the ground. But the scramble of the scrum, the yelling, and the grappling of bodies was always chaos, whether I was in the midst of a squashing, or yelling from the sidelines. A similar ruckus ensues as teachers argue in the hallways over who I should take from class for extra English help or in my classroom, when I once answered yes, before I became a vegetarian I did eat milk and meat at the same meal.

While I try to simultaneously keep the peace and instill linking verbs, present progressive and how to pronounce "th" and "ch", these beautiful kids* probe me with questions about whether I'm rich, if I've ever met Eddie Murphy, if I have American pencils, or if I'm good at jacks. It's all in the grappling for communication. Sometimes there's a culture gap, but sometimes they hit the nail right on the head. Yesterday Yonatan told me:

"We believe in G-d.
Americans believe each man in himself."

It actually sounds better in Hebrew, and I kept asking Yonatan to repeat himself because I didn't believe he had actually said that. It's exactly how I feel. Fear of G-d invites a much stronger social cohesion than the spirit of capitalism that pervades social dynamics in America. That's the view from Netivot. Living here is playing a game for which no one knows the rules.

*It is said that no matter how ugly a couple, if they have a baby in Israel, it will be beautiful. This seems accurate.