Last weekend, my husband and I took our newly-bipedal toddler to his first aquarium. It was only a small, one-room “Aquatic Discovery Center,” part of a larger children’s park, the perfect size for him to safely toddle around and then excavate a whale-sized trench in a sandbox afterwards.
A Pisces, our son has been one with the water since his second bath (we don’t talk about his first). When in a pool, he instinctively knows to kick his feet and do something resembling a breaststroke with his arms nary a single swim lesson, and if it were up to him, he would wear a variation of a fishy tee every day. In short, we knew this tiny peek into marine life would be the literal best time of our toddler’s life.
What we didn’t expect, though, was for him to break free from my grasp as soon as the doors opened, speed-waddle to the nearest tank, point up, and loudly proclaim, “Kitty!”
“Close! But no!” I laughed as I crouched down to his level and scooted to the next tank. “Fish!”
“Kitty!” he repeated, eyes wide. My husband and I smiled at each other, telepathically agreeing he’s so cute. I turned to the aquarium worker that appeared next to us and explained that we believe our son thinks the word “kitty” means “animal,” broadly. She roared as if it were the funniest thing she’d ever heard, and then proceeded with her informational spiel.
As our son screamed “Kitty!” once more, this time at, what I imagined to be, a very confused turtle, I had an idea. I bent down to his level and said, “It’s not a kitty, silly! But it could be a dog.”
In Hebrew, the word “fish” translates to דג, pronounced “dahg.” In some accents, like my own, it is pretty close to the English word “dog.” And so, my first public Hebrew lesson began.
“Ha-dahg gah-dol!” (The fish is big!)
“Kuh-tahn dahg!” (Small fish!)
“Ka-reesh!” (Shark!) It was a small, freshwater shark, by the way — no need to be alarmed at the prospect of a Great White Shark in a one-room aquatic discovery center.
“Mai-yeem!” (Water!)
“Ha-dahg ya-fa v-ka-khol!” (The fish is pretty and blue!)
I was on a roll. Years of Hebrew School began flooding back to the forefront of my brain — I could practically see old workbook pages in front of me. Even if our son wasn’t absorbing any of it, I was certainly impressed with myself.
The worker from before made her way back to us, and her face clearly showed she overheard me tell my 1-year-old that the fish in the tank were actually, in fact, dogs. I stood up and clarified, “The word fish translates to ‘dahg’ in Hebrew. I promise I know they’re fish!”
“That’s really interesting!” She seemed genuinely grateful for this tidbit, and I saw wheels begin turning inside her head, as if I just inspired some future lesson for camp-goers about the word fish in different languages. “I’m going to remember that!” she told me as she nodded her head. Another mom overheard the conversation and smiled at us before repeating the information to her son, older than mine but not by much.
After viewing various sea creatures for 30 minutes — and still calling them kitties and dogs — our son found a large, open container in the back of the room. It housed horseshoe crabs, oysters and other beachy beings you could touch (with the help of an employee). Our new best friend, the overly-excited aquarium worker, helped him touch the horseshoe crab as my husband held him extra tightly to prevent a gleeful dive face first into the vat to join his soul siblings underwater. With one tiny hand, he bravely petted the horseshoe crab in a manner much gentler than he pets our cats. As I wiped off his fingers, I told him, “You were so brave touching the crab in the…” I didn’t know the Hebrew word for tank, or vat, or container, but I did know a word for tub. “Ahm-baht-ya!” Bathtub. Same thing.
After some light bribery, the three of us left the aquarium and walked over to the outdoor playground. My husband lifted up our son, high off horseshoe-crab-touching and free-range running, and raced towards the wooden pirate ship ahead of us, and I watched from afar, satisfied with the Hebrew I pulled from the depths of my memory and proud to have taught a few strangers something new — a little piece of goofy Jewish-themed trivia for them to take home.
In a conversation with my husband’s grandmother a few years ago, I mentioned that I learned basic Hebrew as a child, but I had forgotten most of it by the time adulthood arrived, aside from the literal act of reading the words. Shocked, she didn’t understand how that could be. I explained that once I was bat mitzvahed, there was nowhere to practice my Hebrew vocabulary in the secular world; it’s not like Hebrew was written on signs or spoken at the supermarket in suburban Pennsylvania, so it faded away.
But this trip to the aquarium made me realize two things: You can make your own classroom anywhere, even in front of a fish tank surrounded by confused children. And the special parts of my Judaism I thought had slipped away over time — replaced by other important things, like algebra or Taylor Swift lyrics — never truly left me. They nestled into my mind’s crevices waiting to be activated again, and maybe that’s true for everyone and whatever rituals or songs or hobbies they’ve accidentally abandoned as the years pressed on. And who knows, in the future, there might be gaggles of non-Jewish children in the DC-metro area who know the Hebrew word for “fish” is pronounced “dahg,” and we will laugh with the knowledge that it’s thanks to our son, who thinks fish are kitties (still).
