I was seventeen the first time I remember engaging with Hebrew. I’d gone to my first, ever, High Holiday services just weeks before. I’d gone to Friday night Shabbat services enough times that I could sing along with some of the prayers - which I thought of as songs - reading along with the transliteration. That Friday night as we sang Shalom Rav I remember I touched the Hebrew letters. I touched that first one, that “sh” one, all round on the bottom and reaching up with three fingers. I touched the last one, the one that sounded like “mmm” that was a squared-off circle. I didn’t know their names, and I didn’t know that the last one was in its final form. My eyes scurried mouse-like around the page hungry for the morsels of “sh” and “m.” My hand shook. I wanted these letters. I wanted ALL of these letters.

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