Growing up, I always dreaded going to Hebrew School. Sunday mornings meant waking up early while my public school friends got to sleep in, and Wednesday evenings meant committing to additional classes after an already tiring school day.

If someone had told me then that I would emotionally struggle with the thought of leaving it all behind as I graduate from high school and move away for college, I never, ever, would have believed them.

Somewhere along the way, without me fully realizing it, the synagogue felt less like an obligation and became one of the places where I felt the most understood and valued. The classrooms stayed mostly the same, the people who filled the hallways remained, but I had changed. As I sat in my chair at our recent Senior Sendoff event at our synagogue, I truly had a chance to reflect: the people I sat beside for years were not only classmates, but they slowly became the people who watched me grow up. The people who watched me blossom from a quiet, extremely shy first-grader to an ambitious student journalist. Together, we moved through childhood, graduated from Hebrew elementary school, and “went to” each other’s Bar and Bat Mitzvahs during the COVID pandemic, high school, confirmation, and eventually junior college. There is something strange and emotional about looking around the chapel during our Senior Sendoff and realizing the faces around me are the same ones I have known since I was six years old – I just never truly valued them until we got older. 

The biggest turning point in my relationship with Hebrew school was in seventh grade when I took on the role of a madricha, a teaching assistant, for a first-grade class at my synagogue. At first, I saw this as an opportunity to become more involved and give back to the community that had taught me for so many years. That said, I quickly realized it was far more personal than that.

Each week, I walked into a classroom filled with students who reminded me so much of my younger self: quiet, easily distracted, energetic, and sometimes counting down the minutes until class ended (and yes, sometimes I am asked every five minutes to give them an update on how much longer they have until their early dismissals for the weekly sports games and birthday parties).  Somehow, working alongside the teacher who taught me when I was a first-grader to teach the students the Hebrew alphabet, traditions, stories, and music changed the way I viewed my own Jewish identity.

My presence in their class allowed me to fully grasp the depth of the concept of L’dor V’dor, a powerful phrase in Judaism that translates to “from generation to generation.” I learned this expression when I was younger, but I never took a minute to fully comprehend how it applied to me. Standing in front of my classes year after year allowed me to take a step back and recognize that the same teachers and mentors who once guided me trusted me to step into that role for someone else, to carry it forward and pass it on. Without even realizing it, those students became a significant part of my growth and my discovery of my Jewish identity, something I take great pride in, cherish, and love sharing with others.

At the same time, my classmates and I grew closer during our confirmation year. The people I once just considered ‘the people I went to Hebrew school with’ became some of my closest friends, and together we chose to continue our Jewish education through our synagogue’s junior college program during our junior and senior years of high school. While many people in our grade stopped attending Hebrew school after their Bar or Bat Mitzvah, and another handful left once they were confirmed, none of us felt ready to leave one another. By then, it was no longer about the class or the fact that we were friends because we went to Hebrew school together. It was about community, a sense of familiarity. It was about walking into a building knowing that the people inside knew every version of you: the shy elementary schooler, the middle schooler forced into online classes during the pandemic, the teenager trying to navigate through high school, and eventually, the senior preparing to leave home and go to D.C. in the fall to study journalism at American University.

With high school graduation only a few weeks away, and college only a few months after that, I find myself reflecting on my childhood, looking at Hebrew school differently than ever before. Of all of the senior year ‘good-byes,’ this one hits the hardest. Leaving feels strange in a way that leaving anywhere else from my childhood can’t compare to. This community has been there through every stage in my life, even when I didn’t fully appreciate it. Hebrew school and the synagogue as a whole now feel like home, and the people inside are family. The place I once dreaded became the place where I feel most connected to my identity and to the people who helped shape me into the person I am today.