All cylinders

Aaron these days has a quick mind, a sparkling wit, and a heart full of pride for all he is learning. Which is a ton. Between the regular part of school, Hebrew, boychoir, and piano, he is going a mile a minute. The other day as we left boychoir, he was excitedly telling me about some fun accomplishment of his, and we had the following exchange:

Me: Aaron, I would say that you are firing on all cylinders lately. Do you know what that expression means?
Aaron: No.
Me: It's about a car engine.
Aaron: Oh right right I know about that, a car engine has a bunch of cylinders.
Me: Yes, and that is where all the little explosions happen that make the car go. Pow pow pow! So if you say someone is firing on all cylinders, they are going pow pow pow in every one of them, and the car moves forward really fast. I think you are like this right now. Boychoir pow pow pow! Hebrew pow pow pow! Math pow pow pow!
Aaron [giggling]: I guess that is right about me!

It is great news that he is doing so well in Hebrew, because he started out (as a new kid) behind the rest of his class. But his class has two teachers (!), so one of them worked in a small group with all the new kids, and made him very comfortable; and he is now reading Hebrew very skillfully. Last week he learned that the very last letter of the Torah is lamed (an L sound) and the first letter is bet (a b or v sound); the rabbi asked, "What does that spell?" and Aaron almost fell out of his seat to answer, because it is his brother's Hebrew name, Lev. It means "heart." The rabbi said that some people think this is because the Torah is the heart of the Jewish community. She then invited the kids' thoughts on what they think is the heart of the Jewish community. Aaron finally got called on, and said: "The community itself." Now that is an answer worthy of the rabbis. And I couldn't agree more.

Overall Aaron loves all the Jewish content at their new school. He is particularly relieved about the holidays. He says that at his old school "every time there was a holiday we had to watch a movie or see a PowerPoint or something," referring to the fact that his observance would get used as a "teachable moment" to educate the rest of the class about Jewish holidays. He also had kids "making fun of his religion" (his words) at Christmastime. He said, "I understand why it was like that, Mommy, because it was a Christian school." Is that not a bit spooky? It was a plain old public secular school, but to him it felt Christian. Now he feels like he's in the right place. As part of their practicing the value of gratitude, he said that the other day in tefilah (prayer service), he said he was grateful for humor. "And Emanuel cracked up," he added. Another good one.

Related:

Aaron: Mommy sometimes I feel funny singing Christian songs in boychoir.
Me: Aaron, I can understand feeling uncomfortable about that. I have had that feeling myself, and I solved my problem by joining a Jewish choir. Jordan, do you have any advice for Aaron? How do you feel about singing Christian songs in boychoir?
Jordan: It doesn't bother me at all. I never think about it.
Me: That's what I thought.
Jordan: I don't pay any attention to the words. In fact, if I think about the words it takes away from my concentration and makes me sing less well. So to me it is just sounds, and it doesn't bother me one bit.
Me: That is one kind of reaction to have. And it is a good one, because honestly most choirs sing a lot of Christian songs. It's just a fact that a lot of the choir music was written by Christian people. So it helps if you can not mind it.
Aaron: Yeah, well.
Me: You know what helps me sing songs like that and enjoy it?
Aaron: What?
Me: I think that God loves music. All kinds of music. But I think that God especially loves singing, because it is your voice. I think that is the most important thing. What kind of song it is, I think that is less important.

I don't know what God is, but I feel quite sure about the music part.