Chapter Text
Alex nervously climbs off her bike and wheels it up to the rack. She fiddles with the lock for longer than necessary before turning decisively towards the building.
She's doing this.
"This" apparently involves an elderly woman who looks like she wants to hug her holding open the door.
"Shabbat Shalom! It's good to see you! How are you!"
Alex isn't quite certain whether this woman has her confused for someone else or is just like that. It really could go either way.
Regardless, Alex gives her a polite "shabbat shalom" in response and heads into the building (the woman, thankfully, does not try to hug her).
Inside is cool and bright. There are skylights in the hallway that run the length of the building, letting in the soft morning sun. The hallway has several empty tables set up, as well as a corner stuffed with children's books and the usual plaques commemorating people who gave money.
It's achingly familiar and strange and homey all at once. She likes it immediately.
A woman standing near a windowed door turns to her and smiles.
"Shabbat shalom! Is it your first time here?"
Alex nods slowly while her brain helpfully alerts her that she's staring. The woman is just really pretty. And her dress goes very well with her sky blue tallis.
"Well I'm Tirza and I'm one of the rabbis here. Are your parents here too?"
Alex shakes her head.
"Ok. Are you planning on joining our classes here?”
Alex finally manages to convince her mouth to work, but she can't really get her volume up to normal. "Oh um I was just gonna go in the service. … Is that ok?"
She hates a little bit that she sounds so hesitant, but it's hard to sound confident when she's still trying to convince herself this whole thing is a good idea.
"Of course! Are you bnei mitzvah yet?”
“No. I’m twelve.”
“Well, we have a class for seventh and eighth graders if you’re interested, but you’re welcome to go to the service instead.” She looks like she’s going to say more, but decides against it. Alex is glad.
"Ok. I'm just gonna …" She gestures vaguely at the door she assumes is the sanctuary.
Thankfully the Rabbi seems used to awkward tweens who don't know how to talk to people, and gracefully allows her to make her exit.
–
Inside, she darts for the closest open pew and hopes she isn't stealing anyone's seat. An older man is openly reading a book about history or something next to her rather than participating in the service. If this is someone's seat, maybe they're also the chill sort of person who reads during the service, and therefore might be less mad about it.
Maybe not.
She resolves to keep an eye out for anyone who looks like they're going for this seat.
A surreptitious glance around shows a surprisingly broad range of ages present and more total people than she expected. Apparently people do actually go to shul when there's not a holiday.
It's not until Alex feels settled enough to try to follow along with the service that she realizes her next problem. Her dad was teaching her the prayers and everything else she would need for her bat mitzvah, but since he died she hasn’t been to a shul or even opened a siddur. She has no idea what's happening or what part of the service they're in. She wonders if old guy with a book would be mad if she interrupts him to ask.
The siddur is the same red one her dad taught her with, so at least she's not totally lost.
She flips to a random page in the morning service and scans the Hebrew to see if she recognizes anything that might give her a clue. No dice.
The old man looks up from his book like he's just noticing he has company.
"Shabbat shalom! I'm Alan, what's your name?"
"Alex"
"Well it's nice to meet you Alex."
His smile is so soft and he looks genuinely happy to have someone sitting near him. He also notices she's on the totally wrong page.
He grabs another siddur from in front of him and flips through it for a moment, before handing her the book open to the correct spot.
"Here, this is where we are."
He's still smiling like this is a completely normal interaction and he doesn't mind helping clueless kids at all. Maybe he really doesn't.
She takes the book with mumbled thanks and puts hers away.
The service makes a lot more sense when she's looking at the right page. She also discovers she remembers more Hebrew than she thought.
Alex sinks into the half remembered feeling, and something inside that she didn't even know was tense relaxes. This is the best idea she's had in a long time.
—
Afterwards the crowd carries her into the social hall. There's food everywhere and someone hands her a tiny cup of a liquid she is assuming is grape juice just as the blessing finishes. It tastes just as weird as the last time she had Kedem.
Multiple people come up and talk to her and she manages each interaction like she's been shoved onto a stage and told to sing. She never claimed to have social skills.
When she finds a seat at an unoccupied table, she's only alone for a minute or two before a blond child runs up to her. The child's hair looks like someone recently took a weed whacker to it and they're wearing a Cinderella dress covered in dirt.
"Are you new? I've never seen you before."
Ah kids. They make her look like a conversationalist.
"Yes. I'm Alex. What's your name?"
"I'm Shifra. Guess what we did today?"
"What?"
"Guess!"
Alex takes in the general state of the child.
"Did you… look for toads?"
Ok weird guess. But in all fairness there are a lot of toads in this area.
"How'd you know!"
Alex laughs. "That's really what you did? I was just making something up!"
"Well we were reading the parsha and it's about Noah and then I said we should make an ark like him and put all the animals we can find in there and Tauby said how about after we finish reading so then when we finished we went to get toads to put in our ark. But we don't really have an ark it's just the bug catcher box. And the box isn't big enough for toads to be happy so Tauby said we had to put the toads back outside before kiddush."
"Wow, that sounds like a lot of fun."
"Yeah. And also it must have taken a long time and been super hard to get all those animals in there because it took a long time to get two toads, and Noah had way more animals than that."
Alex couldn't help laughing more at the sheer earnest enthusiasm about all of this.
"Well wasn't that part of the story? G-d helps Noach get all the animals and keep them from eating each other."
"Oh yeah."
Shifra doesn’t appear to care at all about G-d helping Noah, because she turns towards the food line and says "Ima I met a new person and they knew about Noah already but I told them about the toads."
Ima turns out to be the pretty rabbi from earlier because nothing in Alex's life can be easy.
Rabbi Tirza laughs a little and says “That’s great honey. Did you get food yet?”
“Yeah we had popcorn and pretzels and m’n’ms and then I had grape juice and challah”
“Ok, that’s not really what I meant. Do you want the whitefish? Mara made it.”
Alex watches the negotiations progress while eating her own whitefish (it’s really good, hopefully whoever Mara is makes the food a lot).
Eventually they must work something out because Rabbi Tirza comes over.
“Is it ok if I sit here?” She asks just as Alex takes a far too large bite. Whoops.
Alex nods and tries to smile around the mouthful.
“Sorry, caught you right at the wrong time.” Tirza laughs out.
After a pause for chewing, Tirza tries conversation again.
“So what brings you here? You said your parents aren’t here?.”
Alex pauses for an awkward amount of time. “... I used to go to Dor Hadash with my family sometimes. But my mom doesn’t really like to go and it’s pretty far from my house. So I thought I would try this and see.”
The Rabbi smiles again. It’s a soft smile, like she’s trying to hug Alex across the table. Alex really needs to get a grip, because she has to reboot her brain to catch the response.
“And how do you like it so far?”
“It’s good. I remembered more than I thought I would. And it’s so … I dunno it’s just nice.”
“I’m glad. Not a lot of people your age would just walk into a shul like this. I’m glad it was a good experience. Think you’ll come back?”
Her smile changes at the end, like they’re sharing a joke.
Alex finds herself smiling back a little bashfully. “Yeah. I uh, maybe I could join the class, if it’s not too late? I was studying for my bat mitzvah but I um… stopped.”
Probably that was a really confusing thing to say, but she doesn’t know how to explain about her dad without bringing the mood way down. You’re supposed to talk about happy stuff on shabbat anyways.
“Of course you can join. It might take a little time to get to know everyone, but new people come pretty often. Is your mom ok with that though? I know you said she doesn't like to come to shul, but I don’t want to do anything behind her back.”
Alex shoves her fork at her cake a little harder than she meant to.
“She doesn’t care what I do. As long as it doesn’t interfere with school or anything.”
The Rabbi looks a little sad while also trying to smile reassuringly and it makes Alex feel bad for upsetting her.
“Well I’d still like to get in touch with her at some point, but it shouldn’t interfere with school at all.”
“I can have her email you or something after shabbat.” Maybe. Probably. If Alex talks to her about it just right.
“That’d be great. I trust you, I just like to talk to parents too and make sure everyone’s on the same page.”
Alex nods and keeps staring at her plate.
She can tell that Rabbi Tirza is about to try to get her to talk more when Shifra comes running back over, this time with a man in tow. The man is holding a baby and has the friendliest face of anyone she’s ever seen. It’s kind of startling, honestly, how kind and sweet he looks.
He sits down next to the Rabbi and hands her the baby.
Shifra says (far too loudly) “Abba this is Alex she’s new and she knew about the toads!”
The man smiles real small but still real friendly and says “Hi Alex, I’m Henry.”
Alex has once again taken a giant bite at just the wrong time (challah this time), and can only nod around her mouthful.
She’s assuming this man is the Rabbi’s husband and one part of her wants to dislike him for no good reason, but the rest of her can’t help liking him on sight.
He turns out to be a quiet man, and conversation is mostly run by Shifra who is just barely not a toddler and therefore hard to understand sometimes. She also switches randomly back and forth between Hebrew and English, which is throwing Alex for a loop even though she does the same thing all the time.
When all her food is gone, Alex decides it’s a great excuse to get out.
She stands and says, “Well um, it was good to meet all of you, shabbat shalom,” and heads towards the door.
They return the sentiment but don’t try to make her stay longer. Baruch haShem for that.
–
Her bike is still in the rack and the air is golden and warm and she loves October so much.
Even though the whole thing was a fantastic idea, she sighs in relief at being outside and slumps against the rack for a minute.
She takes the long way home to enjoy the weather some more. Also so she can think about what to say to her mom.