Secrets in a Foreign Tongue

Today a co-worker of mine moved to the office outside my cube. The thing is, she speaks Hebrew. ALL THE TIME. I understand weird snatches of her conversations. I feel like I should know more. I took Hebrew in college and also in my early teens for the perpous of being Bat Mitzvah. Most, if not all, people know what a Bar Mitzvah is, but a startling number of people have no clue that there is the female counterpart known as the Bat Mitzvah. Weird, but true.

And now I reveal to you, dear reader one of my most embarassing revelations. My parents were not strict about Hebrew school. In fact they very liberally sought my advice on whether I wanted a Bat Mitzvah. Feeling competitive as many younger siblings do, I figured if my brother did, then I should too. Besides there was delicious food, new clothes, a band, and most important of all to a child, gifts. Also, in my youth, I was a bit of a show-off, a performer, a ham (some would say that I have yet to grow out of this annoying trait).

Now, on to my great secret. Which ironically, is no secret at all to the Rabbi, my father, and many of the participants on that fateful day one month before my 13th birthday. I faked my Haftorah Portion, this is the selection from the Prophets, not from the actual Torah, but it often relates to the Torah portion in some manner. Now, this would not be a big deal except A. I was entering Jewish adulthood on a pretense, B. the Rabbi surely knew that I was faking it, and C. the 2 pages of Hebrew that I never learned still haunts me to this day.

Some might say that I am trying to find things to feel guilty about, but that is not it at all. I am merely chagrined that no one ever spoke with me about this rather evident faux pas. Did no one notice? Were people so polite that they did not want to spoil my day? Were they so taken with my incredible guitar playing and singing (yes, I had a captive audience, so I took advantage of that fact) that they didn't see the evident look of demonic concentration on my face up at the bima (the Jewish equivalent of a holy platform on which the ark that holds the Torah is kept and by ark, I mean cabinet).

So, here I am almost 2 decades later exposing my own fradulence. Why? Because that day meant more to me then just the Haftarah Portion. It meant my whole extended family coming to see ME and it made me feel important and loved. I look back on it with joy and happiness because no one said anything bad, they loved me and that feeling has not been mitigated by anything. It's a good feeling, and it's funny to me how much I worried about it beforehand.