Hebrew School and Beyond

Hebrew School and Beyond - 1996 was a great year to be a 12 year old in Ridgewood, NJ. The Yankees won the World Series, and weekends were flooded with Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebrations. Taiwan had its first ever election, Major League soccer had its first season, it was a leap year, and the average cost of a new car was 16,000 dollars. Those were days when we had barely immersed ourselves into video games, there was no Netflix, and we found our days and time passed through face to face interaction and sport.

My mom gave me the option of going to Hebrew School at Temple Beth Or in Washington Township a few years prior, and I immediately took her up on it after the mentioning of “becoming a man” in our religion sometimes entailed a big party that even included presents. I never expected to make lifelong friends there but many friends I did make there are still in one way or another still intertwined in my life. There weren’t a ton of Jewish kids at the public schools, and the noticeable curve in the understanding of what a Bar and Bat Mitzvah was to my peers as the year went on was evident. This was the necessary training we all needed to be ready a few years later when ‘sweet-sixteens’ came along. I met and made Jewish friends through Hebrew School that I otherwise would not have. Puffing our chests out at each of our Bar Mitzvahs because we “knew what was going on” compared to other guests from our respective towns who didn’t practice Judaism is an entertaining memory.

 Sports were my life. Baseball, soccer, basketball were played all year round. So many different minivans and SUVs were driven around the metropolitan area within our groups of friends!  Knowing which town had the best snack bar at their baseball field was always a hot topic of conversation and inevitably led us to look forward to our games in New Milford. Actually knowing someone from a different town through Hebrew School granted endless ‘street cred’, and gave us something to talk about which made learning my Torah portion on locusts more bearable. I, Evan, and Austin would exchange jokes floating around or that one picked up at a sleepover and then pass it off as our own at our school was an original joy. Our twice a week meetings at Temple Beth Or would prove as the perfect meeting of the minds to share from our different cultures that existed only a few miles apart from each other. It was always a wild experience turning friends into foes when a baseball or soccer game would come around when our towns were on opposite sides, but I think we all wanted each other to do pretty well as long as the other didn’t come out victorious.

After all the Seders, graduations, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs I attended years later these are still incredibly fond memories. We had the privilege of learning the history of our people together while co-existing in separate worlds at least an eight minute drive away. We had the unique bond of Judaism bring us together and it was an incredible experience. Even though intensive recreational nights at the YMHA where we played basketball for 3 hours breaking only for candy or the impossibility that one of us might interact with someone from the opposite sex are a thing of the past; they are remembered with a smile. I do think the focus that learning a language/history/culture as a young man helped shape a lot of us including and especially me into the adults we are today. Although I initially resisted my mother’s urging for me to learn and participate in the history of our people, I will be forever grateful that she and my dad had a few extra hours a week to vacation away from my sister and I. We are better people because of it and are grateful to her for that.

Growing up Jewish could mean you are looked upon differently in a lot of places. Hebrew School and a unique group of people from random walks of life becoming friends helped temper that feeling of being different in form from our peers at the time. As I went on in later walks of life to play highly competitive golf, I think that the confidence brewed from the idea that becoming a man might mean a few presents or even dollars played a tremendous role. I hope that these somewhat lighthearted, yet significant memories of my life brought a slight smile to any of your faces in a time where smiling seems harder to come by.

Todd Shagin, Friend of the JHSNJ
todd.shagin@gladstonewealth.com
Portfolio Manager, Private Wealth Advisor

Photo:

That's yours truly holding a golf trophy after achieving the title of the Men’s Second Time Golf Champion at the White Beeches Country Club.