Kvell and Tell

kvell/k(ə)vel/ - Verb: Feel happy and proud.

Today, not only were there services in the main sanctuary, but there were three different kids' services - preschool, younger grades, and grades 3-6. So the boys of course went to the 306, which is held in the chapel, and today was led by the rabbinic interns.

Apparently, Micah was volunteering for just about everything, and Sam was also very involved. But when I stopped in, they were in the middle of the Torah service. Sam had already carried the Torah around the room, and he was at that moment acting as Gabbai, the person who follows along as the reader reads from the Torah. The Torah has no vowels or trope (melody) markings, so the gabbai follows from a book that has both.

So Sam was already proud of himself, and I was pleased to see him participating so happily. But I have seen him do this job before, so it was not a surprise to me that he could do it so well.

The really cool thing was that Micah, when I walked in, was wearing a tallit (prayer shawl), and had a card saying that he would have the second aliyah. The aliyah is the honor of being called to the Torah - not to read, but to say a blessing before and after the reading.

Usually, children under the age of bar/bat mitzvah do not get an aliyah, but since this service was specifically for the kids, they were able to. But Micah's never done this before. And he's never studied the blessing before.

So I was blown away when he read it - in Hebrew - absolutely perfectly! Cool as a cucumber, too.

I am so thrilled that my boys love the big-kid service this year. They are both very comfortable with tefillah (prayer), and really love it. Micah, in school, frets when his classmates are slower to learn a prayer than he is, or when he sees the older kids doing something that his class has not yet learned.

Meanwhile, Sofia and I did spend a bit of time in the preschool service, and she loved marching in the Torah parade (in the preschool service, they used stuffed toy Torahs!). But she was also really happy to be in the main sanctuary, exploring thr large box of childrens' books in the back of the room, or sitting with the Rabbi for the closing prayers.