"Please give it a try," he had said. "I think it's important."

I was not sold–either on the importance or the trying. Day schools, private religious day schools in particular, were outside my realm of experience. I am a public school graduate. But I was newly married, anxious to please.

And somewhere within the reaches of my conscience, I could recognize a certain truth in what my spouse was telling me.

He and I, each married for the second time, have had to rely heavily on trust and maturity this time around. Although he has no children of his own, he has taken my son and daughter with the warmth and caring of a dedicated parent.

So I said I would look at the day school. I said I would consider it because I appreciate my husband, because I believed he had my children's best interests at heart. I said I would look at the day school because I sensed, beneath our surface conversation about Judaism and faith, a depth of understanding which I envied.

My husband has a strong background in religion. He attended Yeshiva from kindergarten through college. He read, studied, argued, rejected, accepted. My husband was reared in an observant home where being Jewish meant, simply, to be.

I, on the other hand, label myself a proud Jew. I hesitated at the thought of a day school for the liberated identity I thought my children would lose.

I wanted my son and daughter to mix with other youngsters, to know there are black people, yellow people, tan people. I want my son and daughter to feel strong and secure in a world of many races and faiths.

And my husband said, "They will. They will, because they will be strong and secure in the knowledge of who they are. They will be proud, and their pride will allow them to accept other people's individuality."

"But what about indoctrination?" I asked. "Will the day school teach my children that Jews who eat McDonald's hamburgers are bad? That Jewish people who drive on Shabbos are not Jews?"

In my attempt to protect my offspring, because of my fear of the unknown, I wavered. "Too much," I said. "Perhaps a day school will be too much."

I cried. At one a.m. on a weekday night, three days before the start of school, I agonized at the change in direction my life might take. I cried until my daughter tiptoed out of her bedroom to comfort me.

"Mommy," she said. "Are you worried about the school, Mommy? Don't worry so much. Maybe the day school is an opportunity we shouldn't pass up."

She was right.

The day school has added songs and prayers and a sense of security to my life. It has given my son and daughter an understanding of who they are. They tell me stories about their ancestors, my ancestors–brave, powerful, real men and women.

The day school has taught my children to accept differences among people, to see the good in others. They climb on the bus each morning, smiling. They come home singing, laughing, spilling their tales of math, social studies, science, literature, the prophets, the holidays.

They love no one more or less for his level of Jewish observance. They are growing quickly in their range of understanding. And they are teaching me.

They continue to play softball and baseball, to take music lessons, to play with children of all ages and races. They have lost nothing by attending the day school. They have gained everything.

And so have I.

The Hebrew Day School–it's as much my school as it is my children's. It is the place which has given me a daughter who now attends Yeshiva High School and a son who learns some Talmud every day. But more than that, it has given me the ability to appreciate what it is my son and daughter have achieved. And further, it has touched something within me.

From the time seven years ago when my children first entered this place, I would volunteer to serve hot lunch as often as I could–not so much because I wanted to give something to the school but rather because I wanted to take something from it. I never told this to anyone, but long before I understood the meaning of Birchas Hamazon, I used to stand just outside the lunchroom doors to hear the children bentch. And I would cry at the sound of their voices.

And whenever I could, without seeming overly anxious, I'd pick up my children from school on Friday afternoons so I could watch the oneg.

Without their knowing it, I used to practice all the songs the children learned in school. I'd sing them to myself before I learned to read the words.

And then, one day, I had the courage to ask my children to teach me how to read. Which they did, with patience and pride. Each day, they'd help me stumble over letters until, at last, I could follow one line and then another. And every afternoon when they'd come from school, I'd borrow my son's first grade book, and he would help me print the letters.

And then, they told me that they'd learned in school that we could build a sukkah in our yard if we'd like, and they said, "Please," and my pulse quickened, because I think it meant as much to me as it did to them–and then their classes came to visit–came to visi t our sukkah. And I served them fruit and juice and cookies in our sukkah–and I had to turn away because my eyes were filled with tears–again.

And I volunteered to serve lunch at every model seder, because I needed to see the children in their beautiful clothes, sitting beside Jewish children they'd invited to share the meal, sitting beside children who are deaf, children who are retarded, sitting beside strangers, reaching out to strangers with whom they shared something in common. And, in their reaching out, I learned to reach out, too.

And I chaperoned the class trip to the Kosher Food Fair in New York. And I chaperoned the class trip to the Brochos Bee. And my son was asked to join the Tzlil V'Zemer Boys Choir because the music teacher who taught here was the choir-master. And while my son sang his heart out, I sang silently, always grateful to this little school.

And our family visited Israel, where my children could understand the language and the road signs, could converse with the people, could shop in the supermarket, could talk to the children, could show me our history.

And on Purim, we received baskets of fruit and candy. And we made baskets of fruit and candy and we called them shalach manos. And we drove all over the neighborhood delivering them.

And I dressed as a clown because it was Purim, and my son played the saxophone at the Purim party.

Oh yes, and then one of the teachers invited us to spend Shabbos at her home–and she taught me how to make a pot of cholent, and our children played with her children and it was wintertime–Chanukah–and when we came home, my son and daughter said, "Let's keep Shabbos."

We did. And we do. And it's beautiful. And it has to do with the day school which I love–very much.

Reprinted with permission by CIS Publishing, Lakewood, NJ.

Anna Gotlieb is the author of Between the Lines and In Other Words. She is the editor of ArcLight magazine in Rockland County, NY.