Elie Kligman — the second known Orthodox Jew ever selected in a Major League Baseball draft —  spent a few hours this week on a baseball diamond with children from a Palo Alto synagogue. Some were so small they didn’t even reach the 19-year-old’s waist.

The lesson in baseball fundamentals was part of Congregation Emek Beracha’s initiative to bring more life and energy to its events. Kligman — currently living with Rabbi Joey and Sarah Felsen, who housed him and provided kosher food — happily accepted the invitation to teach and serve as a role model for young, observant Jews.

“I thought he would be a terrific person to do an event for kids and to show them how you can play in the professional world but also be true to your faith and true to religious obligations,” said Bonnie Rosenberg, the vice president of Emek Beracha who organized the event.

Kligman, who hopes to become the first ever Sabbath-observant player to reach the big leagues, has been outspoken about putting Shabbat over baseball, saying his religious obligations are “more important.” He has stated he will not play from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.

Last summer, the Las Vegas native was drafted out of high school by the Washington Nationals in the 20th and final round, the 539th pick out of 612, but he opted instead to go to Wake Forest University in North Carolina, where he liked the baseball coaching staff and the college culture in Winston-Salem.

This summer, he played for a summer league collegiate team, the Menlo Park Legends, which is what brought him to the South Peninsula and the July 25 event at Greer Park in Palo Alto. There, he was decked out in Wake Forest black and gold, with oversized Oakley sunglasses flipped backward, resting on the brim of his cap.

As parents snapped pictures and sat on blankets, the kids gathered around Kligman and David Klein, the head coach of the Legends who introduced himself to the kids as “Captain Fun.”

The session started with some basic baserunning skills, then Kligman demonstrated his graceful home run trot, which the kids were supposed to mimic. Unable to contain their excitement, however, they sprinted around the bases instead of trotting.

The kids then learned how to shuffle before throwing the baseball, how to get into position in the infield and how to pitch from the stretch. Kligman’s father, Marc, who played baseball for Johns Hopkins University, was one of the volunteer coaches who went into a crouch to catch pitches from the kids.

At a Q&A session in the first-base dugout after the drills, Kligman was peppered with questions: “What position do you play? … What was the score of the first game that you ever played in? … What are the Nationals? … Did you see the president in Washington, D.C.?”

Later, the kids gently approached him and asked for his baseball card and autograph. He signed for every child brave enough to ask, realizing that he was once in their position. “I always like to do it because when you think about being on the other side of it, you want an autograph to get signed,” he said.

Kligman hopes to sign autographs as a big leaguer one day. Many players who get drafted go to college instead of signing, and many of those end up in the major leagues. Kligman hopes to become one of them, and that’s one reason he chose college over signing: so he can develop his catching skills. He only recently switched to that demanding position.

“Especially at that position, it does take some time to get good at it, to be comfortable back there, so I just thought that transition would be best when I was in college,” he said.

As a freshman, Kligman got into only one game, and he struck out in his only at-bat. But he was playing behind a catcher who batted .355 with 24 homers and was drafted by the Los Angeles Angels. (This summer for the Legends, Kligman excelled, batting a team-best .408 with 20 hits, including three home runs, in 14 games.)

Kligman described Wake Forest as “amazing” in supporting his religious observance. The coaches moved some preseason Saturday intrasquad games to after sundown so he could participate, and the college gave him an old-school key to enter his room so he wouldn’t have to break Shabbat by using an electronic key.

He also praised Chabad at Wake Forest, where he attended Saturday morning prayers and lunches. He would then walk 45 minutes to the ballpark, “a healthy walk, but not too bad,” he said, for the team’s Saturday afternoon home games.

Not only was Kligman’s observance foreign to some of his teammates, but some had never even met a Jew before.

“Why can’t you eat this?” and “What do you do on Saturday?” were some of the questions Kligman fielded and was happy to answer. “You never really think of [these questions] because it’s just kind of second nature, but it makes me think a little bit.”

Kligman will soon head to Wisconsin to play for the Wausau Woodchucks, another summer league team for collegiate players (he also played for a team in Duluth, Minnesota, before coming to Menlo Park). He’ll return to Wake Forest next month to start his sophomore year.

It’s been a busy summer, but one thing has remained constant: his goal to play in the major leagues.

“That’s what I keep looking for every day,” Kligman said. “It’s why I keep on playing.”