Week 15 - February 12, 2021

This week in Seekers we concluded our unit on the Torah.

In Anavim with Stephanie, we looked at a whole bunch of different interpretations of what the Torah portion mishpatim might be teaching us. One Anavim student wrote, "it brought up the idea of different paths we can take following your values or just do what everyone else is doing? also there's more than just two options of good or bad." Another Anavim student wrote, "There are SO many different views on what one torah portion means, I think for my B Mitzvah I'm going to try to figure out what my Torah portion teaches us about being grateful. 2020 taught me about how many things I took for granted."

In Tamarim with Batya, we created Joseph's striped coat. Then, they imagined what it might be like to forgive his siblings for their deep betrayal, they wrote a message on the coat about what it must feel like to be Joseph. One student said, "It must be so hard to forgive!" Another Tamarim student said, "I would make my brothers pay for the food!"

In Te-enim with Rabbi Nadia, we tackled another story from the Torah, the story of Moses and the burning bush. The students asked amazing questions like: "What does slow of speech mean? What if people think he is delirious? Why does Moses second guess himself? Regarding the "magic tricks" that God tells Moses to do to prove himself, a student said: "God is in all of us. God doesn’t do magic tricks because God is God." 

In Rimonim with Leilah, we summed up our Torah unit by doing another fast paced "Find that Perek : Pesuk!" (chapter:verse). This time when we arrived to a given passage in the Torah, we reviewed what happened in a given story. We then viewed another short clip of a contemporary female sofer. One Rimonim student remarked that writing the Torah was probably something that women were not allowed do in the past. Another student answered, "Maybe it was allowed for women but there just weren't people willing to teach them." When one Rimonim student asked where we keep the torah, another student answered, "We keep the Torah in a special cabinet... Because the torah is special, the cabinet must be special."