May 19, 2009 Ariella Lightman
Body English
It was Saturday morning, and I was sitting at synagogue as usual. I felt very absent-minded and I wasn't able to concentrate on my prayer book, especially when the curtain separating men and women was a one-way window. I stared in front of me, watching an older man dressed in a white and black suit with a black hat and a salt and pepper beard, he was sitting next to the Torah Ark across from me at the other end of the room. He was talking to someone next to him.
The teenager next to him was wearing a fashionable button down blouse tucked out of his jeans. He had his hair spiked up so I couldn't tell if he was wearing a kipa or not. They were sitting next to each other; the man was in an upright position with a sidur in hand. He was obviously devoted and very serious. The boy had his legs crossed and he covered his mouth with his hand to whisper something in the mans ear, the man looked down concentrating to hear the boy over the congregation's singing. He seemingly had just asked him a question because now the man was slightly crouched over his chair trying to explain or clarify something. The boy listened with his eyebrows furrowed; he seemed to be trying to concentrate. He then spoke for a couple of seconds and sat back in his chair with a confused look. The man spoke with his hands engrossed in conversation; he forgot the entire environment around him. The boy was taken aback at one of the man's words. He sat up in his chair and spoke in an angry matter. The Torah was being taken out of the ark and the man turned away from the boy and right away got up.
The boy was irritated as he exhaled and shook his head; the man raised his hand to him in a demanding way, signalling him to get up. The boy reluctantly got up and was looking around the walls, he was trying to find a clock but it was in the women's' sections. He tapped on the bearded mans shoulder signalling him to continue with his explanation but the man put his finger to his mouth and sat back man changed books, and he brought one for the boy to opened to a specific page. The teenager had his arms crossed, uninterested and shook hid head a the man offering the book. The man shoved it closer insisting, so he took it but looked everywhere around except in the words. The man tried numerous accounts to point out where the reader was holding. Was he just naively supposing the boy lost his place or did he realize, and tried to get him to follow anyways? One thing is for sure it aggravated the boy, he slamed the book closed almost on his finger. He yawned his way throughout the rest of the reading his armed crossed. The man waved himself back and forth like a leaf, trying to concentrate,maybe trying to think of a new approach. His face looked perturbed, sort of hurt. The man soon got up again as it raised the tora to put it away. He looked at the boy then back at the torah, then again hesitantly at the boy, he bent down and whispered something to him and at the same time pulled him up by his hand. He seemed releaved that it worked, he got him to stand. He scratched his head then jumped back into conversation, or whatever it was he was saying previously. The boy was listening now, attentively. Now he was actually looking at him,without avoiding eye contact, he seemed to have caught his attention.