JKR owns HP

With thanks to always keep your towel for help developing the Patil twins' characters, and to TheWizardsHarry's "Thou Shalt Not Suffer" for inspiring Cedric Diggory's appearance in this chapter.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the characters and not the author. Chapter contains references to the practices of religions other than Judaism. Halachic statements have not been evaluated by a rabbinical authority and are intended for entertainment purposes only. For any practical concerns, as always, CYLOR.


Place our lot with theirs forever, and we will not be ashamed for belief in you ("On the righteous," thirteenth blessing of the Amidah)


Hello, Yehuda. I hope Yom Tov was enjoyable.

He yawned, rubbing his eyes, and tried to focus. The house-elf waited patiently in front of him, hands folded, head bowed.

The problem of bishul akum can be easily solved—see Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 38, se'if 2. The exception is wine and grape derivatives, as in Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, siman 47. He winced. He hadn't even thought about grape juice. However, if your kitchen workers are not able to marry human beings, there is no prohibition at all. See Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah 1, siman 45, and follow his logic there. Where intermarriage is impossible, the restrictions are lifted.

"Remmy?" He scuffed his shoe against the kitchen floor, not daring to make eye contact. "Do house-elves ever marry people?"

The house-elf looked startled, and his huge tennis-ball eyes grew even wider. He broke into a fit of coughing, bent double at the waist, and for a second Yehuda wondered if he was choking on shock. He bent down, just as the house-elf straightened, with a grimace. "No, master Goldstein, they is not."

Yehuda exhaled. He had enough on his plate without throwing twigs into the fire every morning. "Right," he said. "For me to eat the food, there's a lot of rules I have to follow."

"Kosher," the house-elf murmured.

"Right. First of all..." He hesitated. It sounded rude, but Hilliard had said you had to phrase it like a command, so they would have to listen. "You have to make my food separately, and serve it on separate pots and plates and...everything. New ones, that weren't used yet. All right?"

The house-elf nodded.

Yehuda averted his eyes. "And if you use eggs, you have to check them for blood spots and if they have, you can't use them. Please," he added awkwardly. "And you have to check the vegetables for bugs. Lettuce and that sort of thing. If there's bugs you have to wash them off really carefully."

"Yes, master Goldstein."

"One more thing." He winced, knowing this made three-quarters of everything served completely off-limits to whoever was making his food. "You can't serve me meat. Ever. Or pole..." He squinted at the rabbi's handwriting. "Or poultry. Or anything that touched meat or poultry, or cooked in the same pots or the same oven as it. And if you use fish, it has to be fish that have fins and scales. I'm going to come to the kitchen every few days just to make sure of everything."

Remmy repeated the rules back to Yehuda: separate, new dishes; check eggs; check vegetables; no meat or poultry; fins and scales. Then he beckoned to—was it Ezzy? Buckley? He couldn't tell them apart—and whispered in his big batlike ear. Yehuda watched anxiously as the house-elf cracked the egg into a glass and squinted at it, then tipped it into the frying pan. The smell of sweet onions filled the kitchen.

"Remmy! You is needing to fill the bread basket for the Gryffindor table!"

Fill the bread basket? Eight-forty already! He came upstairs just in time to slip unobtrusively into the throng of black school robes pouring through the Great Hall doors. The hall smelled like eggs and butter and fresh bread. Michael was sitting with a couple of other first-years—Stephen, some of the girls—and two second-years were leaning over to listen as well. He took a seat, overhearing snatches of conversation about numbers and math, and took a deep breath. He touched his plate with his wand—Hashem, please let this work

The omelet appeared.

He exhaled—thank You!—and made a very fervent Shehakol. Pouring a glass of juice, he listened to the conversation with half an ear. Stephen had wanted to run back to the Tower for his History of Magic, but the new riddle had something to do with fractions and infinity and he didn't know what that was, and Cho was trying to explain how to divide by zero. The smaller you divided by, the bigger the aswer, so it made sense that dividing by nothing would get you a really, really big number—

"No more holidays, Yehuda?" one of the girls asked. "We haven't seen you in class in awhile."

"It just seems like that. Yesterday was the last one," he said. "No more for two months, and I'm not going to skive off for Chanukah. You're stuck with me…" He couldn't remember her name, and trailed off awkwardly. "Mandy."

"At least now you'll be able to make up all that wor—" Michael dropped his fork. "You're eating!"

Yehuda laughed. "Oh, you're right! I hadn't noticed!"

"Oh, shut it, Goldstein. It's kosher now?"

He hesitated before settling on a simple "Yes."

They went to History of Magic, and he wondered what the class would be like if it were taught by a living person. The history of magic ought to be interesting, but instead he was writing endless scritch-scratch notes with his palm sweaty from leaning his head on it, listening to Professor Binns drone on and on about the witch Morgana who had also been known as Morgan le Fay and was the older half-sister to King Arthur through his mother Lady Igraine and the Duke of Cornwall and although Morgana was a rival to Merlin she had been unfairly maligned in the Muggle version of history due to Arthur's mistrusting her prodigious abilities as did all dull religious people of that which did not fit their narrow definition of the world—

Yehuda jerked awake.

"King Arthur's attitude would, of course, be taken up later in the Middle Ages by many so-called people of faith," Binns continued. "The Council of Trullo in 692 and the Council of Paderborn in 785 exemplified this approach, alternating in the span of a century between penalizing the practice of magic and refusing to acknowledge its existence. With wizardry its prime target, religion engendered narrowmindedness and intolerance of anything its followers could not understand."

No, he hadn't imagined that. He stopped writing, and instead began to trace k'sav Ashuris letters down the margin of his notes, knowing somehow that he should not, could not, let Professor Binns's words travel through his head, down his shoulder, and out his hand into permanence on the parchment. Michael glanced at the sudden Hebrew, then turned his head to look at Yehuda in confusion. Yehuda saw understanding dawn as his eyes widened. He looked back at his notes, his heart pounding. He had to say something. He was keenly aware of Michael looking at him expectantly. He couldn't just sit here and let Professor Binns make a chillul Hashem. He had to say something…

He swallowed hard, feeling sick. He was a coward, the biggest coward, he had to say something—

"It provided a convenient reason to vent frustrations—"

"That's not true."

Heat flamed instantly up the back of Yehuda's neck.

Terry Boot sat straight in his seat, his eyes narrowed. "That's not true," he said. "It could be that some religious people used their beliefs as an excuse to do nasty things, but I don't think it's fair to say that faith is only for dull people who make up stories to feel good. Are we even going to learn what religion says, or are we just going to make fun of it?"

The question hung tense in the air, a challenge flung down between the boy and the professor.

"I believe I am the one teaching this class, Mr. Bugle!" Binns said acidly. Yehuda stared down at his parchment, and the back of his neck burned. "I teach facts, not fairytales and legends. There is nothing to be gained from inventing myths to explain the inexplicable, and nothing to learn from people who do so. This subject is History of Magic, and it is based in nothing but fact. If you don't like it, you can leave."

There was a terrible silence.

And Terry slammed his History of Magic shut and walked out of the room.

Yehuda's knuckles curled white around his quill. "Morgana was an Animagus in the form of a bird, particularly skilled at healing, and, in a rare combination, the Dark Arts as well," Binns went on tonelessly, and the classroom shifted uneasily. "Astute enough to avoid surrendering her critical thinking to the same rigid thinking as Arthur—" That should have been you, Yehuda told himself. Get up. Leave. Get up. His knees felt like jelly. Make a kiddush Hashem, he thought dizzily. Leave. But instead there was a soft rustle behind him, as Padma Patil stood. She looked at the floor as she walked, her shoes clicking on the tiles, and quietly closed the door behind her.

The eyes of Ravenclaw House seared into his back, his yarmulke, expectant, waiting. They wanted him to stand. They wanted him to put his Yiddishkeit on display for everyone to see. Like Terry. Dear Rabbi Zeller, Yehuda thought miserably, is it good or bad to make a fuss over being Jewish?

Mechanically, he listed all the healing draughts Morgana had invented, his whole body shaking. They were watching him, they were thinking about him. He watched his hand write what his ears heard, and the instant Professor Binns shuffled the first page of notes back to the beginning, barely opening his mouth to say "dismi—" Yehuda bolted from the room. He stood shaking in an alcove on the fourth floor, his mind blank of everything but a terrified mixture of embarrassment and guilt, until he heard the Transfiguration classroom door click shut. He slipped inside, earning a disapproving glance from Professor McGonagall and a seat in the back beside a Chinese girl whose name he couldn't remember.

Breathe, all right? Breathe. Nothing had happened. Terry had spoken up, Padma had left the room. The chillul Hashem had been stopped, not by him, but that wasn't important. Nothing had happened. Everything was all right. Breathe. He could do that. Breathe…breathe…in…out…in…out…in…out. He was in the Transfiguration classroom. Breathe…in…out. They were learning the transformation formula. Everything was all right.

A teapot was plunked down in front of him. The Chinese girl flicked her wand and produced whiskers, but not much more. He watched without really looking as her second attempt caused the handle to turn soft and furry. By the third, it had become a real tail. She nudged him, and he flinched away. "Are you going to try at all?"

Right. Transfiguration. He edged his chair a little to the side and pointed his wand, visualizing the rat, but it took him four tries to even turn it grey.

There was a smattering of applause when Terry and Padma came to lunch, mostly from the Hufflepuff table, while Gryffindor and half of Ravenclaw looked on with curiosity. Yehuda watched them with discomfort—envy?—as Terry beamed and Padma ducked her head.

Not everyone was impressed, though. "So, someone's finally interrupted Binns?" Marcus yawned as Yehuda took his seat.

"He does it every year," a second-year girl explained to Michael. "At least I think he does…people fall asleep in his class, so he can say whatever he wants."

An older Hufflepuff boy came over from the nearby table and held out his hand for Terry to shake. "Terry Boot, right? I'm Cedric Diggory. I know McGonagall gave you the rundown, but you never approached any of us, so consider this a formal invitation. Would you like to join us for chapel services on Sunday in the Great Hall before breakfast?"

Terry's face lit up with a grin too big for his mouth. "You mean it?"

"Of course. We'll be going to Hogsmeade village in two weeks, and we sometimes meet at the chapel there for a real service. I'd show you around if you were a bit older—"

"Professor McGonagall's given me permission to go to the chapel," Terry broke in eagerly.

"Well, that's settled, then, I'll see you on the twenty-sixth. Goldstein!" Diggory noticed him as well. Yehuda flinched in surprise, hoping he hadn't been staring. "You're religious, too, aren't you?"

"Oh, no, it wasn't him," Terry said. "It was her." He pointed his chin a few seats down. Padma was talking to her sister, who'd come over from the Gryffindor table to high-five her. They were joined by a third, older girl from the Slytherin table, and all of them were laughing. Yehuda averted his gaze. It wasn't him. It was her.

"Say, Yehuda." Michael jarred him back to reality, looking at him with interest. "You know everyone thought it would be you to make the fuss. You're the one with the kippah, blessing your wine and waving around that lemon thing. Why didn't you walk out?"

He felt hot, trapped. "Because I didn't want to, all right?!"

"Whoa, mate." Michael held his hands up in mock defense. "You don't have to bite my head off."

He wanted to apologize, but Michael was already talking to Stephen. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell anyone why he hadn't walked out, but that he couldn't. How could he answer Michael when he couldn't even explain it to himself?


Over the next week, he slowly, slowly got used to it. He'd wake up at a quarter to eight, daven in the common room or in the dormitory or once in awhile on the front lawn. Then he'd head downstairs to the kitchen to play mashgiach while the house-elves scurried and squealed good mornings. He ate fresh food he hadn't even realized he was missing: vegetable soup, kippers, fish and chips. There wasn't much to do about meat, but the food was warm and good and appeared promptly on his plate at every meal, and all he had to do was pop into the kitchen every few days.

On Monday, when Hallel and Mussaf Rosh Chodesh made him stay in the common room a little later, he returned Hilliard's "Good morning!" with a smile and a wave. He bounced down the stairways to the kitchen, remembering to jump the trick step, waved to the Grey Lady, and swung around the grand staircase. "Good morning, Remmy—"

He froze in the doorway as a girl in a long dark braid stacked packages of noodles, her back to him, and passed them across the counter. It was Padma—or he supposed it was Padma, it could just as easily have been her sister. There was that older Slytherin girl helping them, reading off a card and Summoning little colored spice jars from a nearby rack. They were leaning over steaming pots, the cooktop littered with spices and oil and dried fruit. The kitchen smelled pungent and savory, thick and meaty for so early in the morning: garlic, onions, cinnamon, and something sharp he couldn't identify.

"Oh my God, this is not how it looks at home," Padma or maybe not-Padma said frantically.

"I told you we should stick with shemai," the older girl interjected. "The milk is going to boil, Parvati—"

Not-Padma reached over to dump a handful of noodles into a bubbling pot. She saw him, and the breath caught in his throat. "Hey, what are you doing here?" Now all three of them were staring at him, while pots clattered and house-elves yelped behind them and the pot steamed, unheeded.

"Good morning?" he said. It came out in a squeak. He must look a sight, standing in the doorway of the kitchen at eight in the morning holding a little Hebrew book. Padma and not-Padma stared at him a moment longer before the older girl yelped that the meat was getting burnt and they had to pay attention or they'd be eating sandwiches for the holiday—

The holiday? The next morning he left the dormitory with Michael on their way to breakfast and saw the two girls draped in bright spangled wraps, hair unbraided and clearly in no hurry to get to class. They kept their eyes down and perched uneasily at the edge of their chairs, passing a small book back and forth and reading in low, staccato tones. He didn't know which was Padma, but he smiled vaguely in their direction. He did not see them in class all week.

Days later, he made Friday night kiddush in the common room between a Gobstones game and a fierce debate on the consciousness of moving paintings. No one, he marveled, batted an eyelash. It was a familiar sight already; the cup didn't even spill as he made hagafen, and Michael plunked down next to him as he drank. "Don't you get bored while we're all at supper?"

"I've got enough to do. Look." He opened his Chumash, unfolded his father's list of Rashis, and put a finger on pasuk alef, but before he could get further than, "Bereishis bara," Michael's eyes lit on the translation, on the left side of the page. "Hey! 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth'! I know that one. But what's all this?" He ran his hand down the right side of the page.

"It's the Hebrew. It says the same thing." Yehuda dropped his voice to a murmur, but it was too late. Terry Boot's ears had perked up at the words in the beginning. "You've got a Bible, Goldstein?" he said eagerly.

"No, it's A History of Magic, but for some reason the first sentence is 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth,'" Michael said impatiently. "Shove off, Boot."

"There's no need to be rude," Terry said. "It's my Bible, too—"

Yehuda shut the Chumash, avoiding Terry's gaze. He stood up and walked away, to the other end of the common room, the Chumash tucked protectively under his arm. He waited until Terry had gone up to the dormitory before he opened the Chumash and list of Rashis, but by then it was so late he only got through two before he was yawning too often to make it worthwhile.

October wore on. Wind whistled outside the dormitory windows, you couldn't go outside without a coat, and once they saw a few snow flurries during Herbology. Yehuda had always been aware of some goyish holiday between Sukkos and Chanukah, with the vague impression that it celebrated candy corn, cemeteries, and the color orange, but here bats fluttered in black clouds high above the Great Hall, and every corner in the building had a white cobweb strung ceiling to wall. That, coupled with Terry's excited natterings about Hogsmeade and St. Joan's, conspired to make Yehuda suddenly feel the weight of his yarmulke on his head. Nobody looked at him differently, but he was Jewish, and nobody else was.

In their empty dormitory, he'd davened Shacharis as usual while the others went to breakfast. He held his breath until he was sure they were all gone, particularly Terry. Then he made kiddush, ate potato stew and salmon, and stretched his legs across the bed and opened his Chumash on top.

Vayehi chayei Sara meah shana, v'esrim shana, v'sheva shanim, he hummed to himself, and the life of Sara was one hundred years, and twenty years, and seven years…He moved his finger down to the small print, Rashi's commentary. Therefore it says "years" by eachklal? He'd have to ask the rabbi how to translate that one…to tell you that each can be interpreted to itself. At age one hundred she was like a twenty-year-old in terms of sins, as a twenty-year-old does not sin because she is not the age of liability, so she at one hundred did not sin. And at age twenty she was like a seven-year-old in beauty. He heard feet pounding hurriedly up the stairs, then the door flung open and Terry burst in. The Chumash snapped shut.

"What are you doing here?"

Terry moved hurriedly, pulling on his coat. "I'm not supposed to discuss it with anyone, but I suppose it's all right to tell you because—you know—anyway, I'm going to Hogsmeade with the third-years, to go to Mass at the chapel there." He beamed with this pronouncement. Yehuda's brow furrowed. Was he going to invite him or something?

"Why do you keep telling me that?" he asked.

Terry stiffened, the smile wiped from his face. "Because you also got to leave for your worship. I thought you'd—"

"Why would I care about your Christian things?" he blurted. He felt a tiny stab at Terry's hurt face, and looked back at his Chumash. Shnei chayei Sara—the years of the life of Sara. The dormitory was very quiet. Kulan shavin l'tova—all of them equally good. The door slammed shut. He sighed, and tried to concentrate. He made it all the way to pasuk yud—Efron had just been appointed only that day, Hashem had arranged it so that Avraham would deal with an equal, and you saw that from the missing vav—when Michael came upstairs, with a glass of orange juice in one hand and a muffin in the other.

"They've gone to Hogsmeade," he announced breathlessly, face flushed pink with cold. "Third years and up, all lined up outside after breakfast, and carriages that pulled themselves took them away."

Yehuda smiled. "You mean…cars?"

"No, of course not! I know what a car is, Yehuda! I said carriages that pull themselves." He caught his breath. "Terry went with them. I saw him with that Hufflepuff boy."

He tried not to care. So what if Terry went to—what was it called? Mass. It didn't matter to him.


Terry went to Mass, and came back Christianer than ever. He would sit in the common room and whisper under his breath while feeling his way along a beaded necklace, the sight of which so disturbed Yehuda that he began davening on the grass outside, shivering in the frosty sunrise.

At Herbology, Professor Sprout collected their Bouncing Bulbs in a metal container. He heard the pods battering against the lid as she announced that she would see them next week Monday. He frowned, confused, and nudged a blond Slytherin boy with the unlikely name of Draco. "Why is there no class on Thursday?" he whispered.

"It's Halloween," Draco smirked, in a tone that strongly suggested Yehuda should have known that already.

And sure enough, it was. In the Hall, a thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds. There were pumpkins carved with terrifying gap-toothed smiles that glowed and lit up the room. The feast appeared suddenly on the golden plates, as it had at the start-of-term banquet. A steaming bowl of vegetable soup popped into existence on Yehuda's plate, followed by a mound of rice. Michael piled his plate high with chocolate-dipped sugar cones and brightly-colored sweets, as did most of the others.

"You ought to try these, Yehuda," Morag said, her mouth full of jellybeans.

"I'm all right," Yehuda said. He blew on his vegetable soup before taking a careful sip. He told himself he was lucky to have hot food at all, he didn't need candy. It would probably rot his teeth anyway.

Morag slapped her forehead. "Oh, I forgot, it's not k—"

She was interrupted by a bloodcurdling shriek. Yehuda dropped his fork and turned. He wasn't the only one. Half the table was out of their seats and Hilliard drew his wand as Professor Quirrell bolted down the aisle between tables screaming screaming screaming—terror shot through him, teachers shouldn't scream—"TROLL! In the dungeon! T-T-TROLL IN THE D-D-D-DUNGEON!"

He stopped, staggering at the head table. Dumbledore half-rose, McGonagall looked alarmed. "Thought you ought to know," Quirrell gasped, and collapsed.

No one breathed.

A high-pitched scream emanated from somewhere, but it didn't matter where because soon people were yelling and shrieking and crying all over. Yehuda's head whipped desperately from side to side. A goblet overturned, pumpkin juice spilled across the table. Shoulders jostled him, he couldn't see Michael, a mass of students stampeding toward the door. What was going on—

"SILENCE!"

He froze, and heads turned. Dumbledore stood, palms out, and the force of his gaze was enough to stop a room in its tracks. "Thank you. Everyone will, please, not panic. Prefects, lead your houses back to the dormitories. Teachers will follow me to the dungeons."

"Hufflepuff, this way!" a boy yelled.

"Stay together!" Hilliard barked. "Come on, Ravenclaws. Follow me!"

He tugged Hilliard's sleeve. "What's going on?"

"Troll in the dungeons," Hilliard said brusquely over his shoulder. "They're dangerous. Ravenclaw, this way!" Yehuda was buffeted by pushing black robes and blue-and-bronze school ties as the crowd pushed up the staircase. It thinned a little at the top as the Gryffindor prefect shouted half the students down the corridor. "A first-year's missing," someone whispered, and the words rippled through the moving throng. "Hermione Granger's missing." Yehuda struggled to keep up as they climbed up and up and up the staircase, moving faster and faster. Someone pressed against him and he saw Michael, his face white and pinched, scared.

"What's a troll, Michael?" he asked, as they reached the landing and the pleasant Ravenclaw voice asked what a Patronus was made of.

"Happiness," Hilliard said tensely. "Inside, everyone, let's go—"

"It's big and mean," Michael said. "One of my neighbor's cousins met one in the mountains, at least they think. All they found of him was his boots."

Yehuda shivered. There was a wild animal on the loose, and a girl was missing. What if she died? He didn't even know what she looked like. Shir lama'alos, he whispered, esa einai el heharim, me'ayin yavo ezri… He made a mental note to ask the rabbi. Could you say Tehillim for a goy? The minutes ticked by. A tiny sob escaped Mandy's lips and Morag slung an arm over her shoulder. They huddled in trembling silence as the fire crackled, filling the room with a warmth nobody felt.

Hilliard burst into the common room. "It's over!" he announced. "They've got it."

"And Hermione?" Padma asked anxiously. "Did they find her?"

He wrinkled his nose. "She went after the troll, apparently. In case any of you lot are also mad enough to think you could tackle a full-grown mountain troll, let me just tell you right now that you can't. Oh, she's all right," he added, at Padma's wide-eyed stare. "Harry Potter and the youngest Weasley got her out of there. McGonagall and Snape are moving it out."


Dear Mummy and Tatty, he wrote, and stopped.

He ought to tell his parents that there had been a dangerous—animal?—that the school was dangerous. They would pull him out before you could say pikuach nefesh. He could go home and back to Torah Temima—Yesodey, now. He was sure Professor McGonagall wouldn't object if they said danger—well, she would, but she wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

But they had caught the troll. It had done no harm.

His wrist was starting to hurt, poised midair above the parchment. How are you? he added. I am fine.

He couldn't just lie to his parents. He never had. They'd want to know. It could happen again. They should take him home. He was supposed to want to go home.

But at home, he would be Goldstein who set Meyerson's hair on fire, Yehuda oy-what-are-we-going-to-do-with-you. He stroked his wand, remembering how it felt to cast Lumos, to feel the strange wild power rush from somewhere deep inside him, forced into the narrow channel to burst into light. He was supposed to learn to control it, wasn't he? He couldn't do that at home.

He bit his lip.

I'm learning a lot, he wrote, and Rabbi Zeller is teaching me how to keep the kitchen kosher. The food is good.

He felt uglier and uglier as he wrote, his stomach sick as he signed the letter and folded it over to seal. It was a lie, and he was a liar, if only by omission.


Glossary

P'sak. Halachic ruling.

Amidah. The central nineteen-blessing prayer.

Yom Tov. Holiday.

Bishul akum. Food cooked by a non-Jew.

Hashem, literally "the Name." God.

Shehakol. Blessing on foods that are not grain, fruit, or vegetable.

Chanukah. You oughta know this one.

Kosher. Acceptable under Jewish dietary laws.

K'sav Ashuris, literally "Assyrian script." Hebrew ritual handwriting font.

Chillul Hashem. Profaning God's name through one's actions.

Kiddush Hashem. Making holy God's name through one's actions.

Yiddishkeit. Jewishness.

Kippah. Skullcap.

Daven. Pray.

Mashgiach. Supervisor of kosher food production.

Hallel. Psalms 113 to 118, recited in praise and thanksgiving on Jewish holidays.

Mussaf Rosh Chodesh. Added prayer for the first of the new Jewish month.

Shemai. A traditional Indian dish.

Kiddush. Shabbos blessing over wine.

Chumash. Five Books of Moses.

Rashi. Medieval commentary on the Torah and centerpiece of Jewish study.

Pasuk alef. Verse one.

Bereishis bara. In the beginning [God] created.

Goyish. Non-Jewish.

Yarmulke. Skullcap.

Shacharis. Morning prayers.

Klal. Concept.

Pasuk yud. Verse ten.

Vav. The Hebrew letter U/V/W.

Shir lama'alos, esa einai el heharim, me'ayin yavo ezri. A song of ascents; I raise my eyes to the mountains, from where will my help come? (Psalm 121:1)

Tehillim. Psalms.

Goy. Non-Jew.

Pikuach nefesh. Life-threatening danger.


Note: "He winced. He hadn't even thought about grape juice" applies to your author as well. Good catch.

Another note: Sincere apologies for the delay.