Grievous expectations
From an era of grievous relations
To the places I once thought were the devil’s creations
Made to torture children
Ruin their sunday mornings and sleep
Tuesday or Wednesday afternoons
Causing children to weep
A cruel hell school
Hebrew school

6 and a half years
Was spent in this hell
Waking up so early on Sundays
I wanted to yell
And straight from school on Tuesdays or Wednesdays
I went
So fast I didn’t even have time to rest a cell
Twenty percent
The end half of my 7th year
Didn’t feel like a complete hell
Because the students that ensued my past peers
Were somewhat cool and well

Though Hebrew School is not the hell I recall
I am still loath to climb the stairs
Leading up to the classroom
When I walk in to the hall
But I’m glad that I’ve had to go through
Hebrew school
Because my bar mitzvah party will rule
And I know that I can get through
anything
Except maybe extremely horrible mental or physical torture
Because if I can endure Hebrew school
I can survive any thing that life throws at me
Good or cruel

This poem was written/submitted by Ben Green.