This Gesher class continues to amaze me!
It’s been a very busy, rich and rigorous few weeks—
We completed three banners for the Birkot haShachar arts project, each
student created a personal birkat
ha-bayit (blessing for the home), and, as part of our Jewish Life Cycle
Speakers Series, we met with Robin Kahn
who taught us about Jewish education.
The following is their thank you note to Robin:
Dear
Robin,
Thank you for educating us on the topic
of Jewish education, an important part of the Jewish Life cycle. We learned that Jewish education lasts
throughout the duration of one’s life.
We also learned that Jewish learning will never end as the generations
go on. And we learned about the
importance of Jewish education to the Jewish community. We enjoyed the videos of the children singing
and the boy dancing. The text taught us
about how God teaches parents to teach their children who will then teach their
children and so on about Jewish values.
We hope to learn from you again in the
future.
Sincerely
yours, The Gesher Class (your favorite!)
The Men’s Club treated our school to a festive Hanukkah
celebration with latkes, dreidels and gelt.
Gesher students represented our school in writing a thank you note to
Men’s Club too:
Dear
Men’s Club,
Thank you for the delicious
latkes. Thank you for your time. The dreidels
were very fun to use. We had a
lot of fun getting ready for the upcoming holiday!
We are so grateful for everything that
you do for us. And we are very proud
that many of our fathers are members of the Men’s Club.
The
Gesher Class (the best class!)
On
behalf of the Temple Israel of Natick Religious School
We were rabbinic thinkers discussing developmentally salient
questions of should a child who has sold drugs be permitted to attend religious
school? And, if a post bar mitzvah teen
shoplifts, should his parents be held responsible?
Having succeeded
on our Thanksgiving campaign, students were excited to embark on a new mitzvah
project. Have you noticed the JF&CS Family Table Food Pantry wood box in
the temple hallway? Did you know that
our synagogue community is responsible for collecting 45 4-packs of toilet
paper each month for the JF&CS Family Table Food Pantry? Dafne
Blacker taught us about this important mitzvah and our students are busy
developing ideas to inform our congregation and to generate donations.
We have also
continued to study the weekly Torah portion.
Students have been particularly observant recognizing details,
commenting, and working to make personal connections. Today we watched G-dcast videos to summarize
the parshiot from last week, this
week and next week:
Vayishlach (last week) http://www.g-dcast.com/vayishlach/
Vayeshev (this week) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDQuHNDCm3A
Miketz (next week): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APtaivO25H8
We ended class today with Hanukkah gifts: chocolate gelt from the Religious School and
from HaMorah Margalit, a thinking tool (aka fidget), a dreidel kit (gelt,
dreidel and a dreidel-game refresher).
The students expressed genuine appreciation and gratitude for everything
that they received.
May your Hanukkah be filled with light, joy and gratitude!
HaMorah Margalit (aka Gretchen Marks Brandt)