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Searching for a Reason to Believe by Rafi Sackville
Israel Today In Search of a Reason to Believe
By Rafi Sackville
I’ve encountered some interesting students over the years. Many have left an indelible impression on me, whereas others I’m content to forget. This year I have a student in the eleventh grade who, were I handing out awards for a displaced sense of reality, would take first prize.
Yosef lives in a world of illusion. He believes he is smart, that he is always correct, and he demands his right to everything he fancies. What makes him worthy of citation is the unfortunate fact that he lives behind a facade of poses that he has acquired from watching too much television. He walks like a cowboy, postures with his arms, and attempts to be threatening, which is quite funny because he’s skinny and short.
After convincing himself of his genius, he failed most of his exams only to demand the right to do them again. He has a good head for learning, but cannot see that a little self-honesty and hard work are all he needs to progress through the obstacle of life.
I am always catching him out in lies. How I wish he were telling the truth. How I wish I could believe him.
His last lie backfired on him badly. It was a Wednesday and Yosef told me he couldn’t come to my noon class because he was traveling to Tiberias to the Army Conscription Office. After the class he missed I saw him cruising by me on the street. I flagged him down and asked him why he wasn’t in Tiberias. Without hesitation, he said he’d been there earlier in the day. “But you couldn’t have been there earlier. We spoke. You wouldn’t have had time to get there,” I told him.
“Rafi, don’t worry about a thing. I’m going to ace that test,” he shouted as he drove off.
As I stood on the road watching him drive away, I saw my neighbor David, whom I acknowledged with a wave. David has bright, orange hair which is impossible to miss. Watching Yosef drive away and then seeing David suddenly reminded me of my first job in Israel in Old Beit Shemesh and an encounter with a student called Eli Baruch.
It was my first year of teaching in 1985. At the time, I was holding down two jobs. After my first job in Jerusalem, I’d take a bus down to Beit Shemesh on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to work at a small yeshiva. As a freshman teacher, I found the work difficult but fulfilling.
During the entire month of November, Eli Baruch was conspicuously missing from Tuesday’s classes. Eli was a stocky ninth grader with bright orange hair and a face scattered with freckles. His orange hair made Eli instantly recognizable. Upon seeing him on the subsequent four Wednesdays he gave me a list of excuses that were too good to be true.
On the first Wednesday, he told me he’d been absent because one of his sisters had given birth.
The second week, his parents celebrated their anniversary and there had been a family gathering.
By the third week, I was rolling my eyes in disbelief. Eli’s other sister had celebrated her engagement the previous day.
The icing on the cake came the following week when he claimed his grandparents had, only the day before, celebrated 50 years of marriage.
In each instance, Eli showed nothing less than sincerity and respect. It was too much for me. How could he retain such equanimity? I told him I was prepared to forgive him once, maybe twice, but four weeks in a row! His absence would be marked as unjustified.
The following week – it was Monday, the 2nd of December – we held teacher-parent conferences. I still recall the date and the mad scramble I had to make from my first job in Bayit Vegan to Beit Shemesh. I missed one bus and by the time I
disembarked and was making my way up the hill towards the yeshiva, I was 15 minutes late.
As I passed the school gate, I noticed Eli Baruch and a group of people waiting outside the caravan where I taught.
Apologizing profusely for my tardiness, I made my way to the desk and sat down. Eli Baruch poked his head into the room and asked if he could come in. I nodded. As I was arranging my attendance book before me, nine people walked in. The entire group outside my room as I arrived were now standing before me.
I looked at Eli in confusion. “What’s this?” I asked Eli. He put his hand up to assure me all was okay.
Without an ounce of irony, Eli smiled at me. He said, “I’d like to introduce you firstly to my grandparents, who just celebrated 50 years of marriage. Over here are my parents, who also recently celebrated their anniversary. This is my sister and that’s her new baby boy. And these two are my recently engaged sister and her fiancé.”
I sat there before them like a stunned mullet, my eyes passing from one face to another. This was no party trick. They had come to hear about their Eli’s progress. I had to unscramble my thoughts and give them an updated report.
“We live next door, and my family wanted to hear what all my teachers and rabbis have to say about me,”
Eli explained.
That encounter taught me almost all I know about trust. I have over the years been willing to give my students the benefit of doubt when, like an unfurled roll of toilet paper across the floor, they give me a shaggy dog story. I may seem gullible. Oftentimes, I remain gullible even when I know they are lying, even as their noses grow longer than Pinocchio’s. I can’t help but want them to be telling the truth.
As Yosef drove off behind the wheel, I knew his timeline about being Tiberias was impossible. Even so, I wanted to believe him, not for my sake, but for his. I wanted to see him face up to himself, to take responsibility. Like Eli Baruch, I wanted him to be telling the truth.
I cannot give up the belief that Yosef is going to change before he finishes high school. I believe he can do it.
Rafi Sackville, formerly of Cedarhurst, teaches in Ort Maalot in Western Galil.
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