Gesher is amazing!
Gesher students are leading the TIRS
Thanksgiving campaign. Last week, our
Gesher students began their first mitzvah project of the year the TIRS Thanksgiving Dinner Campaign to
benefit eight Natick families through the Natick Service Council. They presented the campaign to each of the
other classes and are tracking donations while collecting both cash donations
and non-perishables in our class too.
With great poise, three students made a presentation on the TI bima last Shabbat (Nov. 12). They are
learning the challenges of leadership including clear communication,
motivation, and modeling the behavior you wish to see. They are also learning some of the nuances of
providing for others: protecting people’s dignity (thus the recipients are not
named), sensitivity to members of our own community who may not be in a position
to give (and so, we do not make judgments and some of us will give more).
Birkot haShachar Arts Program: Gesher
is part of the TIRS Birkot haShachar
(morning blessings) Arts Program in which each class has been assigned several brachot (blessings) to explore and then
to illustrate on large fabric panels.
Appropriately, Gesher received
the blessings for putting on tallit
and tefillin. Unlike many of the other blessings in Birkot haShachar, the blessings for tallit and tefillin include the words “asher
kidshanu b’mitzvotav, vitzivanu,
who has made us holy with His commandments and commanded us to…” Thus, in Gesher, our study of the brachot began with an exploration of
what it means and feels like to be commanded and we looked at other blessings
that include these words for comparison to the blessings for tallit and tefillin. Next, in a lesson
called “Dressing the Part”, we discussed the influence of one’s clothing on
one’s personal experience and how others see them. Students provided
suggestions for the purpose of uniforms for athletes, firefighters, physicians,
police officers, and the military. They
agreed that uniforms identify the wearer and often protect him or her too. We thought about how wearing a tallit and tefillin influenced our experience of prayer and debriefed that
experience after several prayer experiences. Our third lesson in this series
focused on texts and meaning of tallit
and tefillin. Students heard the story, “The Tallit” in
which a boy writes blessings to be placed in his tallit. Students wrote their
own blessings. Then they discussed a
midrash,
A person is thrown from a boat into the
water. The captain stretches out a rope
and tells the person to take firm hold of it, for the person’s life depends on
it. The rope is like the tzitzit, the drowning person is like
Israel, and the captain is like God. The
tzitzit, which provides a lifeline
for adherence to the commandments, is life itself. (Numbers Rabbah 17: 6)
Next
we explored the two brachot (blessings) for tefillin, one of which is said when one
wraps the tefillin around one’s arm
and the other, when one places the tefillin
on one’s head. We noted that the word tefillin is based on the word, tefillah (prayer.) And we looked at
another midrash,
How do you know that the Holy One puts
on tefillin? For it is said: The Lord
hath sworn by His right hand, and by the arm of his strength… “And by the arm
of His strength”: this is tefillin…
What is written in the tefillin of
the Lord of the Universe? And who is
like the people Israel, a nation one in the earth… The Holy One said to
Israel: You have made me a unique entity
in the world… as it is said: Hear, O’ Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is
One. ‘And I shall make you a unique entity in the world,’ as it is said: And
who is like Thy people Israel, a nation one in the earth” (Berakhot 6a).
We examined the framed open tefillin in our chapel which shows the four
scrolls in the tefillin worn on the head and one scroll in the
arm-tefillin.
Students were divided into three teams, one for each assigned blessing, and each team began designing a panel to illustrate their blessing.
Havdalah is a very short and beautiful service that ends the Shabbat. It includes some verses from the Psalms,
blessings over wine, spices and fire and a blessing expressing our gratitude to
G-d for making distinctions. In class,
we re-purposed etrogs used for Sukkot
worship by inserting cloves in them to make b’samim
(spice sachets for use during Havdalah.)
Our etrog-b’samim are currently
drying at my home and will be sent home with students when they’re ready for
use. In the meantime, here are some
beautiful resources for learning the Havdalah
liturgy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr2zjQg2zdo
Parashat HaShavua:
Our study of the weekly Torah portion has grappled with Noah, a tzaddik in his generation and Lech-Lecha, the beginning of the story
of Avraham and Sarah. This week, we will learn more about Avraham and Sarah and
meet their son, Isaac too.
Life Cycle: We are honored to have a special
guest in class this Tuesday, November 22. Dr. Jennifer Novick, a trained and
experienced mohelet, will teach our
students about Brit Milah.
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