It’s the first day of school, and from my vantage point in front of the bais medrash at Yeshiva K’tana of Waterbury I see close to a hundred Middle School boys ready for their first morning of davening of the year. Neatly dressed, many with new clothes or shoes, they all look ready for a new year. Davening goes by with each and every boy sitting quietly in his seat barely even motioning to a friend. Davening ends, and the Menahel speaks to the boys about davening and breakfast. It is so calm, everything is just working so well.

I walk into the school building and the sounds of davening from the younger grades fill the halls. Happy boys ready and excited to learn. I climb the steps to my classroom on the second floor, line up my class, and bring each boy in as they quietly fill out an index card of Gemara words. It’s peaceful, it's calm. The introduction to my class goes over well, the introduction to Perek Hakones goes well. The boys are so into the learning.

We are all hoping for a great school year. As other years, challenges crop up and sometimes it’s harder to see that sparkling neshama that we saw on the first day of school. He was neatly dressed on the outside and inside he was shining as well. Despite the struggles that our students have, on the first day we see who they really want to be.

Yomim Noraim is in the air. Only a few days to teach about these most important days. Rosh Hashanah we try to dress our best and stand in front of Hashem begging and asking Hashem for the sweetest year. We tell Him, who we want to be, what we could be and what we should be. We take on chumras during the Aseres Yemei Teshuva, showing Hashem the true person we really want to be. We stand Yom Kippur begging and telling Hashem we will change, this is the last year we will sin. We stand by Neilah and we feel that closeness with Hashem, all we want is to live in the house of Hashem our entire life. Our neshama is shining. The true us, is shining.

The year moves on and the challenges sprout up. As part of galus each person has a unique nisayon. But we ask Hashem to remember who we really are. We ask Hashem to remember our closeness with Him during the Yomim Noraim while our neshama was shining. 

As our challenges crop up during the year, we ask Hashem to remember the real us. So too the struggles of our talmidim and children come up, let us remember how they were on day number one, fresh and clean with a shining neshama and to look deeper into the child.

Because deep down everyone wants to be good.

Rabbi Moshe Dov Heber is a Middle School Rebbi in Yeshiva K’tana of Waterbury, Director of Boys Mishmar of Waterbury and a Division Head in Camp Romimu. He could be reached via email at mdheber@ykwaterbury.org