Everyone is doing an awesome job learning to read trope and using what they already know to practice chanting their aliyot. I am really looking forward to our Torah Service next week!
Continuing our exploration of tefilah in Rosh Pinah, we followed a 4 minute guided meditation by Alison Laichter, an innovator and leader in the world of Jewish meditation. This practice was well received by the class! Here is the conversation that followed, reflecting on the experience:
- We meditate in school twice a week
- It was very calming. What if during the school day instead of running around for 5 minutes between classes we did this?
- I liked doing that.
Next week we will listen to it again and reflect further on what makes it Jewish, and how it feels connected to spirituality, if at all.
We also had a discussion about what topics everyone would like to focus on for independent Rosh Pinah projects. These are some of the initial ideas they came up with, reflection on what we learning so far about tefilah and what they would be like to learn more about:
- I liked when we learned Hebrew words.
- The structure of the service, there are 7 parts, but one of them is the Torah Service, and you don’t do Torah service every day, so why is it considered one of the 7 parts? It shouldn’t be!
- It’s cool there are so many different kinds of origins of tefilot. I want to learn more about medieval poetry.
- Want to learn more about Yochanan Ben Zachai because he escaped Jerusalem in a coffin- he seemed like a cool person.
I am excited to see where our learners’ inquiry into these various topics lead them once we begin the independent research phase!
Now that we set the clocks back fro daylight savings, by the time we go out for tefilah at 5:30pm, it is totally dark! And chillier in…. looking forward to lots of bundling up and incorporating physical movements into tefilah in order to stay warm!
