Word By Word

John Barry: TAMPA — The Chair is one of those ugly gray Office Depot things. It faces the long messy desk of Cantor Moshe Friedler at Rodeph Sholom. All the kids in religious school have heard about it, even the little ones. They know that one day they'll take a turn in the Chair, squirming, twisting their tongues into granny knots of pitiful excuses and horrible Hebrew. And their tears will come, certain as God's justice.

Shelbi Dominguez was 10 when she started worrying about the Chair. Her older sister Sasha had spent 2006 in it, learning Hebrew for her bat mitzvah. Just try to picture Cantor Friedler — 12 feet tall, perched behind a desk 20 feet long, blazing black eyes barely peering over his massive golden Torah.

A year ago, Shelbi's bat mitzvah was scheduled for today. To reach the congregation podium, she had to get past the Cantor. She knew one thing about him:

"He made kids cry."