Coby Speaks Hebrew

For years, its possibility made my mouth water. Now, it’s the most succulent taste of aliyah.

Coby is speaking Hebrew. Spitting it out rapid-fire. While playing with his friends. And while talking to us.

The self-confident demands of the wise child. Tayn lee et zeh (“Give it to me”).

The rejections of the wicked child. Lo rotzeh (“I don’t want to”). (Or even the more chic Israeli, Lo ba lee.)

The loving affection of the simple child. Aba, anee ohev otcha (Dad, I love you).

The absent-minded non-sequential ramblings of the child who does not know how to ask, which I’d repeat if I could understand them….

It’s an absolute miracle how it happens, though not an overnight one. (The truth about most miracles, huh?) You place a 5-year old who doesn’t know Hebrew in a gan chova (kindergarten), with maybe 3 or 4 other kids who speak English, and then you hope and pray for the next ¾ of a school year.

Every time you walk into his gan, you feel (at least what you imagine is) the pain of your child’s lack of understanding of, his muteness in the language. You wonder whether you could make it one day in that environment, let alone 6 days every week.

And then it happens. The synapses of the fertile brain, the strivings of young enthusiasm. Helped by a little swab of God’s paint brush.

Coby speaks Hebrew. A delightful, independent-minded, mischievous, articulate, Hebrew-speaking little Israeli, well in the making.

Next stop, my guess after the summer, Adina. Following her little brother. Good for him, and her. Her parents? Well, there, a story for a different time.