October 25th, A Middot Filled Monday

This week, our students began really diving into the various Jewish values, or  middot, that comprise a holy community, or kehillah kedoshah. Grace taught her students the song "We All Live on Our Own Mountains," a song about reaching over the divide to connect with one another. The group studied the middot of chesed (loving kindness), binah (understanding), ometz lev (courage), tzedek (righteousness), and rodef shalom (pursuing peace). Clara helped us define binah by explaining that "understanding" means, "really seeing something from another person's perspective and respecting their feelings about it." Thank you for your wisdom, Clara! 

Tali's class put a theatrical spin on learning about middot, and created skits that embodied each middah. The class split up into two teams and had to guess which middah their classmates were acting out. Can you guess which one Ansen, Hiram, and Mira were representing in the photo below?

In Arielle's class, the students created documents describing different middot and identified how they saw the embodiment of those middot in their own lives. Sam remembered the meaning of kehillah kedoshah and described what those words mean in the context of our world today.

For Hebrew, Grace's class learned the Aleph-Bet song. Romy enthusiastically sang with Grace, faster and faster as they practiced the Hebrew letters as a class. The class also played "L'atzor L'lechet." Watch the video below to see Scarlett lead the game.

In Leilah and Tali's Hebrew class, Hiram inspired the class to write down the words they were learning in their "Hebrew Through Movement" portion of the class. The class is excited to keep learning new vocabulary in Hebrew! 

Adira's class learned the words of the Shecheyanu and Harlowe taught everyone a version of the prayer that she loves. Julianna discovered meaning in the act of putting on a tallit because it reminds her that Jewish people have been performing this sacred act for generations. Finally, Leora wrapped up the day by leading the class in singing the final portion of the worksheet they had been completing. 

We can't wait to see what next week has in store!