Chanukah Aroma

At 8:35 p.m. I turned off the classroom light, closed the door and sighed deeply, "another class finished and another class without Sammy participating; I wonder what he says when his mothers asks what he learned in Hebrew School tonight," I thought, "would he say that we had a lively discussion about Judaism and modern law or would he mumble 'nothing' as he slides into the car".

Sammy is a student in an afterschool Jewish studies program for public school students not far from where we live. The class generally is discussion-based and the students often provide the topics for discussion. I enjoy the evening sessions with the teens and understand that for most of them, this is virtually their only chance to have Jewish discussions during their busy week.

He seems particularly disinterested But Sammy is a different story; his parents are active in the community and are strong advocates of the program. However, he seems particularly disinterested in class, and while he does attend regularly, he does not participate in discussions. I have attempted to gear the discussion around issues Sammy might relate to, but no matter the issue, if the answer requires more than a simple yes or no, or better yet, a nod of the head, he does not volunteer any information. I endeavor to cover up the issue by focusing on the students that participate and appear to truly enjoy their Jewish learning, and hope that somehow or another, Sammy will also join the conversation and become an active part of the class. In this way, I will know if he is gaining by his being in class. Part of being an educator is being an eternal optimist I suppose, though the question still lingered in my mind: "Did Sammy hear anything we talked about tonight; did a word penetrate"?

This second-guessing went on for many weeks until something happened that changed my way of thinking.

It was Friday night, the third night of Chanukah, and we were having a communal Shabbat dinner, held at a local Jewish day school. On our way over the afternoon before Shabbat, we stopped at a friend's house to give him a ride to the synagogue. He and his wife have a young baby and they were not planning on attending the dinner. As he closed the car door, adjusted himself in his seat and fastened his seat belt, my husband jokingly asked him "Did you make latkes today? I can smell them from here."

"Are you kidding, me cook?" he responded, "That would really be news! No, I just was enjoying a cup of coffee at the kitchen table while my wife was frying latkes. I guess the oily smell made it to my jacket."

I started to appreciate his presence At that moment a light went off in my head. If this guy, reading a newspaper while sitting in the kitchen, could absorb the undeniable smell of potato latkes frying in hot oil, how much more so someone sitting in a classroom definitely absorbs the material just from sitting there. People process knowledge in a variety of ways; there are auditory learners, visual learners and kinesthetic learners, so maybe it is possible that there may be those learners who absorb knowledge through their pores.

I began to see Sammy as one of these pore-learners and started to appreciate his presence, and believing that the aroma of Torah was definitely clinging to him. In the speech that Sammy prepared for his Hebrew high school graduation, he was able to reminisce about some lessons he had learned throughout the years and as he spoke, for a brief moment, I thought I caught the whiff of fried latkes, but then again, it could have been the pastries set up in the back of the room. I wished Sammy and his classmates the best and when they went off to college, my focus turned to the new students and discovering ways to reach them.

Last spring I saw his mother and she proudly informed me that Sammy was chaperoning a Shabbaton for his synagogue youth group. A few years earlier I would have found that hard to believe, but not anymore, and even though it was only May, I thought I could smell latkes and almost hear them sizzling in the frying pan.