We wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on some of our favorite moments from this year with all of you! Which one is your favorite? 10. Makom @ Home A 3rd grader in Makom @ Home who usually insists that she hates singing and turns her camera off during Tefilah (prayers), got very excited when we brought in some…
Category: Anafim
Torah Service, Tallit Making, and Farewell!
The Torah service last week Thursday was a huge success! Yasher koach to all of our learners for reading from the Torah. And thank you parents for joining us! This was our second Torah service. Everyone was pretty relaxed and ready going into it, since this was our second time doing the complete Torah service with Torah reading this year….
Tallit Making and Trope Learning
It’s crafting time in BMitzvah! We are focused on designing and preparing for making our own tallitot in the coming weeks. Everyone has come up with their own really unique, true to themselves ideas for what kind of tallit they want- from size to colors to themes to images. It is a joy to watch their creativity at work, and…
Rosh Pinah Presentations!
Mazel tov (congratulations) to our whole class on their fantastic Rosh Pinah (capstone) project presentations last week! Not only am I extremely proud of how well they did, they are very proud of themselves! I am proud of myself for singing in front of people. Inside I was so nervous! I am proud of how well the coffin came out….
BMitzvah Update: Rosh Pinah Projects & Continuing Vaykhel
It has been a delight to watch each learners’ interests take off in their independent Rosh Pinah projects! These projects are building on what we previously learned about tefilah (prayer). We looked at the history of when Jews started praying in addition to, and eventually instead of sacrifices and temple based worship. We learned about the role of early rabbis…
Holiness, Oreos, and Building the Mishkan
Last week we began studying parshat Vayakhel (For more information about Vayakhel, here is a great article to check out!) and made really good juicy next steps on Rosh Pinah projects. To begin Vayakhel, we engaged with a big quadrant chart on the wall labeled “holy” on the left, “not holy” on the right, “by God” on the top and…
Torah Service, Brit Building and Driedels!
The BMitzvah Torah Service on 11/18 was a huge success. We were so grateful to be joined in community by all the family members who came in person and on Zoom! Some reflections from the proud learners about how it went: I loved it but I hate that I can’t do it again tomorrow. I like being done. It was…
BMitzvah Update!
This was an exciting week- we finished reading all of Vayishlach, keep growing our Hebrew Word Wall, and have begun preparing for our Torah service on 11/18. Also, so many students have mastered the first tefilah they chose to work on this year! In the last section of Vayishlach, learners reflected on some important ideas and questions: Yaakov got the…
BMitzvah October Update!
We are two weeks into our first Rosh Pinah project about all things tefilah (prayer). After our exploration of tefillah gear, we have been learning about the various opinions about when communal prayer began, diving into ancient and rabbinic Jewish history. We talked about what Jewish communal worship looked like during the time of the Temples about the early…
BMitzvah Update!
We are getting into the swing of things in BMitzvah class! During Sukkot, we were ate snack and had Tefillah in the sukkah, incorporating shaking the lulav and etrog into Tefillah. That was super fun! In text study each day, our learners are asking rich questions and creating their own commentary. Everyone decorated a binder…
BMitzvah Beginnings!
BMitzvah has been off to a great start this year. I have been delighted to find the learners all know each other quite well across the grades, enjoy talking, being silly, and learning together. We have been spending snack time these first few days out on Sansom Street playing some games to get to know each other more. Our first…
BMitzvah on Vayikra: Judaism and the Environment
Title: “BMitzvah on Vayikra: Judaism and the Environment” On Monday we jumped into a world of Judaism that in many ways feels foreign to our own- a Judaism based in sacrifice and Temple centered ritual. Vayikra & Environmental Justice Where do these dynamics interplay in our lives? How did they interact with ancient lives? Each of these types…
New Year, New Start!
Our first week together as a class in 2021! The day marked a variety of new beginnings for the cohort: the new year was freshly upon us, winter break had just ended, they were getting a new teacher. In ways we were all looking forward to what lay ahead of us. “I want each of us to repeat the word…
BMitzvah Wrestles With Racial Justice
“What is a criminal?” I asked the class. “Someone who’s in prison,” Nathan said. “Who a lot of people agree has done something bad.” “I don’t know if I agree,” Zoey said. “There are a lot of people in prison who haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t think you can just say that because they’re in prison that makes them…
Torah Together, Inside and Out(side)!
Living much of life online has been a challenging side-effect of the coronavirus pandemic for many of us. This reality made our Family Learning Experience of building an ark with the BMitzvah families so much more sweet! We gathered on Sunday outside Makom Community to study and create together, despite the chilly weather. The BMitzvah cohort shared some of the…
BMitzvah Builds for the Chaggim!
“It takes a village!” This was the refrain the day BMitzvah headed to Makom Community to build our sukkah. “There’s a catch,” I told them. “There are no instructions.” Nathan and Leo were thrilled! Nathan reminded me that he’s been building from Legos without instructions for years and Leo said that building without instructions is his favorite way to build…
The BMitzvah cohort become Rodfei Tzedek!
What motivates you to pursue justice? “Anti-anti-semitism,” Zoey says. “I know Jewish people have experienced oppression in the past and that makes me want to fight oppression now.” “My friend who has a different identity than me,” Remi says. “She is amazing and has gone through so much.” Our BMitzvah cohort are true rodfei tzedek, seekers of justice, and our…
BMitzvah Makes a Pilgrimage
In the days of the ancient temple in Jerusalem, Jews would travel to the temple for the three pilgrimage holidays, Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot. While today, we often think of pilgrimage as being more present in other religious traditions, the act of walking towards a holy place is a part of Jewish tradition. Whether knowing that makes it easier to…
The soul is harder to change: BMitzvah & the Book of Ruth
After seven weeks of studying the Book of Ruth, our BMitzvah cohort took the reigns on our discussions. Having the BMitzvah students lead text discussion is such a joy. These students deeply embody the middot (values) of “studying in order to teach” and “sharpening the wisdom of one’s teacher.” While working on these student-led discussions, we focused on using the…
Masterful Conversations in Tefilah Workshop
Tefilah mastery check-ins have long been one of my favorite parts of teaching BMitzvah. Seeing the cohort so proud of the work they’ve put into learning to read and chant a prayer is amazing. Our one-on-one conversations are always rich with meaning and new ways to think about the prayers. This has continued even now that Tefilah Mastery means clicking…