“Yanky, come over here,” said the teacher with a serious look on his face. Yanky looked down. He got up and went over to the teacher’s desk.
“What are you holding?” asked the teacher.
Yanky held out a crumpled paper. The teacher did not say anything. He just gazed into Yanky’s eyes and motioned that he should sit back down.
Yanky walked slowly back to his seat. “Why is this happening to me again?” he wondered. He kept promising himself that during class he would listen to the teacher and do nothing else, but it wasn’t working.
The bell rang and the children happily ran out to the school yard. Yanky tried to quickly arrange his things and go out to play. “Tell me Yanky,” said Avrohom, who was sitting in the front desk, “what did the teacher want this time?”
“Yeah, Avrohom is right. Why does the teacher only pick on you?” added Yitzchok with a smirk.
“Is it true that your parents are going to be called down to the school?” asked Zalman, joining the group.
Yanky felt his hands form into fists. He didn’t want to get into another argument with all the boys. He hated these altercations that came up again and again without his understanding why. He tried to be strong and not respond to them. He looked for the new ball he had gotten the week before as a gift. It was a bright, colorful super ball. He wanted to take the ball and go outside to play alone but the small compartment of his briefcase was empty.
“Hey! Where is it?” Yanky couldn’t believe it.
“Hey, where is it,” Yanky heard Yitzchok imitating him in a mocking voice. Yanky couldn’t take it anymore. He left the classroom hurriedly and ran to a corner of the yard. Under the huge eucalyptus tree, without anyone seeing him, he burst into tears.
“Oy, I can’t take it anymore!” said Yanky to himself. “I can’t handle these problems with the teacher, with classmates, with my parents… I want to be a good boy, a happy boy! I want a good life! How is this possible?”
***
A week and a half later.
“Yanky, come over here,” said the teacher.
Yanky got up and went over to the teacher’s desk.
“Dear students, pay attention! I want to give Yanky the prize for ‘Excellent Student of the Week,’ for effort in learning and Ahavas Yisrael!”
Yanky could not believe his ears.
At the beginning of recess:
“Do you want some chips?” Avrohom asked Yanky, and he quickly gave him a bunch of chips from his snack.
“Yanky, we are going out to play. Are you joining us?” asked Zalmy.
“Yanky,” said Yitzchok, “Come over after school today and we’ll study together for the test.”
First, Yanky went to the teachers’ room as his teacher had told him to do.
“I want to talk to you during recess,” he said.
Yanky knocked on the door and the teacher let him in. They sat together in a corner so nobody would overhear them.
“Yanky, you must tell me. What happened?” asked the teacher. He wanted to know, how was it possible that in such a short amount of time, Yanky had become a successful, popular student.
Yanky hesitated and then shyly related:
“A week and a half ago, I had a particularly hard day. I felt I couldn’t take it anymore and that is just when the miracle happened. That day, in shul, between mincha and maariv, I met Yossi, my counselor from camp. He asked me whether I remembered my good hachlata, to learn about Geula and Moshiach every day.
“I told him the truth, that I had completely forgotten about it and for a long time I hadn’t been keeping my hachlata. Yossi immediately came up with a great idea. ‘Every day, I will call you from yeshiva during the evening break and we will learn a little bit together.’ I couldn’t refuse and our chavrusa began the next day.
“We learned pieces from sichos in the Dvar Malchus, really amazing things. The Rebbe explains how we are in the time of Geula. The Rebbe shows and proves which amazing era we are living in. I learned that Ahavas Yisrael is a taste of the Geula. I saw that learning Torah is a particularly excellent thing at this time; it’s a preparation for the new Torah we will get in the Geula. I suddenly realized that it is even allowed and necessary today to be happy, much more than in the past.
“I’ll tell you the truth. I didn’t do anything special but within a few days I felt how my behavior was changing. I saw how my life became better and I began to love learning and all the kids. I felt happy all day. I even suddenly found my missing ball.”
The teacher listened to every word and said, “That’s amazing, how learning about Moshiach and Geula can affect us … You know what? I have an idea for a contest for our class …”
Yanky knew just what the teacher had in mind but he didn’t need a contest; he had already received his prize. ■