All in a Day’s Avodah

Except… from the window of a cabin tucked in the campus’s corner, blue lights flash on and then off, punctuated by red and yellow zigzagging bolts. Booming noise. Music, singing, thumping footfalls.

Inside the cabin, a man is standing on a stage with a guitar tucked around his shoulder so neatly, you’d think he was born with it. His eyes are closed and songs seem to roll out of him effortlessly. He’s concentrating on something but it doesn’t seem to be the vocals. His mind is clearly elsewhere. But where?

Then there’s the crowd. They’re going crazy, but not over him. In fact, few seem to be paying any attention to him at all. They’re dancing — in a circle — but each kid is kind of doing his own miniature dance as well. Hands go up at random, not necessarily in sync with the music. At times those solo dances become too big to handle, so the dancer breaks off entirely, enters the middle of the circle, and jumps and claps and waves his arms. He’s dancing his way, the way that makes him feel right, even if it isn’t typical. Then the other guys catch on and join him in the middle of the circle.

They’re dancing his way; they realize that it makes them feel right too.