Bar Mitzvah -- Aliyah LaTorah

My son, God bless him, sometimes slurs his words, talkingnonstopwithoutdifferentiatingbetweenwords.

Sometimes he also speaks quietly.

It can be difficult to understand him.

He is aware of this problem and he works hard to speak clearly.

I wondered (read: worried) if he would be able to enunciate clearly when he read Torah.

It was difficult for me to accept that, once again, my heath situation prevented me from teaching my son on my own.

That said, I admit that I felt relieved that someone else would have the challenge (read: responsibility) of getting him to read loudly and clearly.

It took us a while to find the right teacher to teach him how to read Torah, but we did.

Our neighbor, DS, is a bit older (probably around the same age as my parents) -- he is exacting in his teaching (something that is important to me) and strict (my son was intimidated just the right measure -- enough to go to almost all his lessons and to practice seriously with his teacher).

Periodically we heard my son read a bit here and there.

When he practiced, he read pretty well. But I wondered, would he be the kind of kid who, when it came time to read in shul, would be overwhelmed and read quickly and quietly? Or would he be the kind of kid who would rise to the occasion, and read even stronger.

My son was definitely the latter!!

I heard EVERY WORD, loudly and distinctly.

I could not have been prouder!!



Please daven (or send happy, healing thoughts) for RivkA bat Teirtzel.

With love and optimism,
RivkA