It’s been over three years now that he’s been coming to us for Shabbos.

We had watched as the famous saying of how drops of water can eventually wear down a stone actually played out on his previously cynical-hardened now softened face. His actual features expressions and actions. His every move has changed since he started learning. And not just learning but constant learning. Never leaving his sefer never wasting a moment.

His life had not been an easy one. Though he’d gone to a Jewish religious school the other boys had not been kind to say the least. The clenching of a few fingers was the only small sign of the larger pain and trauma he’d suffered. From small bits of stories he shared I believe it was a sad mixture of public shame and constant taunting that had semi-closed his eyes and made his face pale and drawn. A constant fear and panic had closed him deep inside himself almost unable to see or feel for anyone else.

He himself would easily admit he’d not recovered and that the small five-year-old hurt boy who still lived inside was unable to give.

On the Shabbosim he came he’d always ask “How can I grow? Which ways do I go?”

Growth was slow.

Until this last Shabbos.

He came home from shul with the others on Shabbos morning. And even before Kiddush he tells us about his challenge his eyes now wide open and his smile wide. We all notice a completely different boy sitting at our table.

“I was sitting in shul in the first row. Between the Torah reading and Musaf there was a short 15-minute shiur being given by an older man who spoke extremely quietly and in Hebrew. I couldn’t understand a word and I was thinking the whole time about how I was wasting time from learning that I really should open a sefer and learn. I didn’t know what to do. Here I am in the front row facing at least 15 minutes of time wasted from learning Torah and I can’t understand a word the man is saying. And I’m thinking This is bitul Torah. But if I open up the sefer then I will take away from this man’s honor and embarrass him. I could really hurt this older man.

“I decided not to open the sefer. But the whole time I was feeling bad about losing this precious time from learning. It was a torture. My back started hurting and I broke out in a cold sweat. And my inner five-year-old is screaming at me: ‘Open the sefer!’

“But I didn’t. Although I still feel like I lost learning time.”

Ari finishes his story still unsure if he made the right decision.

“You lost learning time?!” exclaims one of the other guests “This is what learning is all about! You didn’t waste a second!”

Ari’s face lights up.

“All your learning was the preparation for that very moment to help you make the right choice” the guest goes on. He’s as excited for Ari as Ari is himself.

It is a moment of beauty and glory.

I look around the Shabbos table at my family and the handful of guests and I envision how some of us look during the week in our work clothes and yet here at the Shabbos table we sit dressed in nobility.

And I’ve heard it so many times before but I feel it so clearly now how these are the instructions of the King for those who live in the palace.

We eat only this and not that. We speak like this and not like that. We act like this and not like that because we belong in the palace. We’re the King’s children.

And it is so beautiful watching the King’s children return.