Ezra's Chumash Party

Ezra had his 1st grade Chumash ceremony and received his Chumash Beraishis. The organizers decided that the best way to go about doing this was to make both classes of 50 students and there parents wait around, while each student gets called up from their seat and take 90 seconds to talk to some Rabbi that they have never met, but are told 'he is a great Rabbi'. If you do the math you can see that we were waiting for quite some time. This is all before the children performed their songs, etc.

Then, when your son is called up you are supposed to fight your way through the crowd to the front to take your close up of your son getting his siddur from this Rabbi who is not part of the school but is transported in just to give out these siddurim to these children whom he has no relationship with.

When it was Ezra's turn, I decided to stand up on a chair in the back, lift my camera with one hand over the crowd and point downward, and let my zoom lens do the work, but this is the best picture I got out of 6 tries.

That is Ezra's teacher with the microphone, who called him up and the anonymous Rabbi with Ezra. I'm curious if the administration of this school understands what message they are conveying to the kids when they bring in someone who the kids don't know who is the only individual in a room of 200 people wearing a black jacket and black hat, whom they are told is 'a great rabbi', whereas all the other students, teachers and rebbeim almost without exception are wearing kipah serugah. Anyway, I will keep the rest of the commentary to myself.

Anyway, at least after Ezra received his Chumash, we were able to get a nice shot with Ima and Noam.

Ezra and I are toward the end of Parshas Toldos in our own learning together. We hope IY"H to make a siyum on the Torah by age 10, in accordance with Pirkei Avos 5:25