Our Makom Community Torah tells a story. The physical Torah scroll that we are so lucky to have and use at Makom Community, has been on a journey to get to where it is today, and looking at it, you can tell. When we received this Torah from our friends and neighbors up at Beth Sholom in Elkins Park. It…
Category: Learning with the Kvutzah
Cross-Age Teaching & Learning
At Makom, we know that learning extends beyond the kvutzah (age cohort group), and much of our programming, such as Family Shabbat and our Showcases, are dedicated to just this. We aim to enable our learners to teach their families the rituals and values they experience at Makom so that they can choose what they want to bring to their…
Reflecting on Rest
A few weeks ago, we delved into an excitingly familiar text for the Nitzanim (3rd-4th graders): the creation of Shabbat (Genesis 2:1-3). This is the same text we sing at the beginning of Friday night kiddush (blessing over wine/grape juice), which many Nitzanim kiddos are working on in Tefilah mastery. At this moment in the text, God stops creating the…
Building New Traditions
In this unit, our learners have been exploring all aspects of creation. After many exciting weeks of diving into the creation story through discussion, building, and art, we arrived at the study of Shabbat- God’s time to rest. To begin our discussion of Shabbat, our class worked together to build a fort out of the chairs and pillows that we…
Immersing Jewish Holidays & Responding to The World
“Who wants to shake the lulav?” This wasn’t a man wearing tzitzit and a black suit on a street corner – – it was one of our Garinim (pre-K to 1st grader) learners. He was inviting his classmates to step out from their usual options of Shulchanot Avodah (project center) about Bereshit (the creation story) to participate in this special…
Betzelem Garinim
The Garinim (PreK-1st grade) entered week 4 of Textploration at Makom with an eager mind. We’ve been tackling the text of Bereshit 1, exploring the diversity of what God created on days one through six. God separated light from darkness, sea from land, created plants and fruits, sun and moon, the stars, and of course, the animals – but what…