Hebrew School at Disney Hall

Some weeks ago I raced over to the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The Minimal Jukebox series of concerts and lectures was in full swing, and there was an all Steven Reich program with the LA Phil. This I HAD to see. Tehillim, my favorite piece of music written in the last 50 years and one of Reich's best, was the last item on the program.

I found myself, with my single ticket, sitting alongside two older couples. Naturally we started to talk. They were subscribers and knew nothing about Reich or Minimalist music. I was pumped! I rattled on and on, that they were in for an incredible treat, that Reich's music was rarely performed and difficult to play, and that the last piece was one of my favorite pieces of music of all time, up there with the Mozart Requium..... And then I sang a few bars.

Hashamayim m'saperet k'vod [k]el
Uma'asei yadav magid larakiyah....

One of the women suddenly sat up straight, looked me in the eye, and began the interrogation (in a clear Israeli accent). "You know Hebrew?" "How do you know Hebrew?" "Where are you from?" "How old are you?" "Oh, my son is two years younger." "Where did you go to school?" "So did my son." "What synagogue did you go to?"

[I love Israelis.]

Anyway, we discovered that she, Adina Bender, had been my Hebrew School teacher at Valley Beth Shalom Hebrew School in the 1960s. And we established that I went to high school with her son.

Now came new questions. "What year?" "Who was in your Hebrew School class?" Names and memories from my distant past came cascading out.

Janet Bain, writer, editor, and Jewish educator.
Sarah Braun, child psychiatrist.
Julie Rosenfeld, violinist.
And on.
And on.

Mrs. Bender's husband said proudly, "My wife has been teaching at VBS for forty years."
{!!!!!!!!!!!!!}

It was my turn now.

"Mrs. Bender," I said, "Here I am, 47 years old, and able to conduct myself in Hebrew. I pretty much have you and my other Hebrew School teachers to thank. But my classmates and I were AWFUL to you! We TORTURED you!!! We ran wild. We were very very VERY bad. And still, you managed, somehow, to give us a Jewish education. So on behalf of all my classmates, I apologize for our horrible behavior, and I thank you for putting up with us, and teaching us despite ourselves, and devoting your career to OUR Jewish education. It was a tough job, and you did it so well, week after week, year after year. Thank you."

Next blog, more on the concert.