Temple Israel of Natick’s Gesher
students are extraordinary! They have
been studying the parashat haShavua
(weekly Torah portion) and developing discussion questions for all religious
school students. They have been
selecting the weekly breakfast cereal working to connect their cereal choice to
the parasha. They have been exploring the Jewish life
cycle and Bar/Bat Mitzvah is their current topic. Today we discussed the rationale for
celebrating Bar/Bat Mitzvah at age 13.
According to tradition, a 13 year old has attained the maturity to confront
his/her yetzer ha-ra (evil
inclination.) We discussed essential middot (Jewish values) and identified those that our
students believed to be priorities. Middot included:
- Repentance
- Forgiveness
- Loving
your neighbor
- Controlling
anger
- Doing the
right thing
- Avoiding
groundless hate
- Being a
friend
- Pursuing
peace
- Preventing
shame,
- Taking
care of one’s body
- Guarding
one’s tongue
We began to think about personal
commitments to Jewish belief and practice, such as:
- Belief in
One God
- Support
for Israel
- Living an
ethical life
- Studying Torah
- Celebrating
Shabbat and Jewish holidays
- Having a
Jewish home
- Making
the world better
- Saying
the Shema at bedtime
- Remembering
that we are created in God’s image
- Feeling
connected to all Jews
Our study of Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Sages) included 1:14 “Hillel said; “if
I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am for myself only, what am I?
And if not now, when?”” and 4:2 “Mitzvah
goreret mitzvah. Aveirah goreret aveirah. [One mitzvah generates another and one
transgression generates another.]”
Students then had the opportunity to create i-movie trailers on the mishna of their choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment