We’re raising David to understand his Jewish culture. Like there’s an alphabet song for the English ABCs, there’s also one for the Hebrew alphabet. For those who don’t know much about the Hebrew language, there are two pronunciations in the Hebrew language: Sepharadi and Ashkenazi (depending on where you were born and raised). We’re Askhenazi but many of the schools and communities teach the Sepharadi language pronunciation, mostly because when you go to Israel, they don’t use Ashkenazi pronunciation. What this means is that the first three letters in the Hebrew alphabet have different pronunciations. In Sepharad, the letters are “alef, bet, vet,” and in Ashkenaz, the letters are “alef, bays, vays.”
David has been learning the Alef Bet song in Sepharad. We actually sing it that way in our synagogue’s toddler group. But David goes to a school not affiliated with the synagogue, and they’re learning the pronunciation in Ashkenaz.
So today, I heard that he learned “Alef Bet Vet” and was so excited to sing it along with him. Little did I know that he learned it differently. He spent the entire rest of our car ride home from school trying to tell me that I was doing it wrong since I didn’t use “bays” and “vays.”
Bonus: Today, Daddy wore a suit to a business trip in Philadelphia. When he got home, he was still wearing the suit. David saw him at the door and asked, “go [to] shul?” (Daddy usually only wears suits when we go to shul, or the synagogue.)