Who is holy? What is justice? How do we go after justice?
This week we began our unit on tzedek (justice)! We began with a discussion of what we thought holiness is and what it means to be holy. A lot of students had varying opinions of what they thought holiness was.
- Helping people in need
- Being nice to our friends and family
- Finding God in everyone.
We explored the idea that there is holiness in everyone, we just have to find it.
During snacktime learning, we read the book Hanukkah Cookies with Sprinkles which is a story of a little girl who helps a man in need in her community. We dove deep into ideas of giving Tzedakah (giving that makes the world more just) and doing tzedek (justice) work. Our students had so many wonderful ideas:
- Donating to schools
- Inviting someone over for Shabbat dinner
- Donating food to a food pantry.
We even learned about several organizations in our area that practice Tzedek work these included Philabundance, HIAS and Project Home.
On Wednesday, we brainstormed about ways the world is unjust, how we can we fix it, and whether it is permanent or not. Topics that came up were President Trump, Pollution, Gun Violence and Lying. The students came up with some astounding ideas and arguments about how we can fix and solve these problems with Tzedek. We read aloud the text Tzedek Tzedek tirdof (Justice, Justice, chase after it!) from Deuteronomy 16:20. After looking at most of the injustices our students noticed in the world and realizing that many of them can be handled momentarily but not permanently, we explored ways that pursuing justice (even if it isn’t completed) help us to live and to contribute to our world. At Makom Community, we always think that Torah is about our day to day lives. We are finding that this tzedek until is applying in especially powerful ways.
