During my first year in high school I was reluctantly recruited to sing in the school choir for the Christmas concert. I was fresh out of a religious day school, which I'd attended since the age of four, and was quite weirded out to find myself suddenly in the minority - one of only two Jewish girls (it was an all girls' school in the British style) in my class. But despite my fears of being struck down by a wrathful Jewish god, the pervasive atmosphere of acquiescence to authority was very compelling; I couldn't find the courage to refuse the music teacher's insistence that all junior girls were required to participate in the choir.

Rehearsals were held in a nearby Anglican church that looked like something straight out of the village in which Miss Marple lives. I remember looking timidly at the enormous brass cross in the nave while singing Handel's "Messiah" and feeling a bit nervous about bolts of lightning descending, but evidently God - the Jewish God - was feeling benevolent toward me because no punishment was forthcoming. And I really loved the music. At home it was more of the Bach, Mozart and Beethoven variety; I'd never heard Handel's grand baroque oratorios before.

I started listening to a recording of Handel's "Messiah" at home - especially the thrilling hallelujah chorus - over and over. This would have been fine if the walls of our house hadn't been rather thin. Our next-door neighbours were Lubavitch hasidim, who'd been sent by the rebbe to bring real Brooklyn-style yiddishkeit to the sadly assimilated local Jews. One day their 8 year-old son appeared at our door and told me, "My tateh says you should stop listening to that goyishe music." I got the hint, and turned the volume down.

The day of the Christmas concert arrived. Eighty girls stood in straight rows in front of the altar, shiny faces free of forbidden makeup, hair brushed smooth, school uniforms freshly pressed. We faced the music teacher and, in the pews behind her, rows of parents with fixed, polite smiles on their faces. The music began, Mrs. Babcock raised her arms, and we all opened our mouths to sing.

After awhile, I noticed the teacher staring at me with an expression of mild horror on her face, while she continued to conduct the singing. What was wrong? Was I off key? Was my blackwatch kilt shorter than the regulation limit of three inches above the knee?

It took me awhile to realize what the problem was. I was moving. Actually, I was swaying back and forth. We were in a place of worship, we were singing a song of praise to God, and I did what I'd been doing since the rabbis at school taught me to pray: I shockeled.*

I don't know why, but I just love that story.



*Yiddish word that describes the distinctive swaying back and forth of Ashkenazi Jews at prayer - originally a hasidic custom.