Sukkot at Makom Community this year spurred discussion about welcoming: How do we welcome guests and why? What does it feel like to welcome or be welcomed? Our BMitzvah students delved deeper into the history of the welcoming ushpizin by becoming ushpizin ourselves! Our initial research about the ushpizin brought up some challenging questions and feelings. Why, traditionally, do we…
Makom Community News & Blog
Makom Community News & Blog
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Welcoming and Resilience: A Sukkot Story
This Sukkot has been an adventure! We were so excited to spend our afternoons in the fabulous Center City Kehilah community sukkah in Julian Abele park. And then Wednesday it rained. No worries, though; we regrouped and changed the plan. We met up at Makom Community and spent the afternoon practicing our welcoming skills for future days in the sukkah….
Treating Mistakes with Love
According to a midrash (story that elaborates), the incident of the Tower of Babel led angels to argue with God about the worthwhileness of people. Because of the “ruinous” actions of the people in the story, the angels said to God, “Didn’t the first set of angels speak appropriately before you, that human beings are not worthy of having been…
What does becoming a BMitzvah mean to you?
What does becoming a BMitzvah mean to us? How do we innovate on rituals that have existed for hundreds or thousands of years? What do we keep and what do we change? Our BMitzvah cohort has been tackling some hard questions in our first month of classes and having a lot of fun as well! Every day in BMitzvah, we…
Jumping to Conclusions and Choosing Compassion
What happens when we jump to conclusions and judge a situation before we get all the details? The text of Migdal Bavel (the Tower of Babel) says that God came down to see the tower that the people were building (Genesis 11:5). Rashi wonders why. Didn’t God already know what was going on without coming down to look? Rashi suggests…
Walk and Talk: A New Year Blessing
Tekiiiiyaaaaa! Do you hear the sound of the shofar? We’ve already been hearing it for a week at Makom Community. Rosh Hashanah is coming up this Monday and Tuesday, and we’ve got some special plans at Makom Community to celebrate. We’ll be enjoying some extra sweet apples-and-honey themed snacks as well as some extra sweet projects and activities. In the…
On God and Misunderstandings
What do we know about God? How does the description of God in the story of Migdal Bavel (the Tower of Babel) add to or challenge our pre-existing understanding? Why does God make people unable to understand each other in this story? How did they respond to their misunderstandings? How do we respond to ours? Read on to find out…
Walk and Talk: Advice and Misunderstandings
Construction has begun in the valley of Shinar where the people have gathered. God notices the tower and the city that the people are building and doesn’t seem to like them. God says, “Let’s go look at what they’re doing.” And then, “Let’s mixup their speech so they can no longer understand each other”– lo yishm’u ish s’fat re’ehu (Genesis…
Diversity of Culture in a Unified Voice
What are the benefits of different languages? What are the challenges? What’s good and helpful about people all speaking the same language? These were some of our lines of inquiry as we dove into the first verse of the Migdal Bavel (Tower of Babel) story. The story opens by asserting that “The whole earth had one language and one set…
The Ups and Downs of Working Together
Team work! It’s a great thing, right? Sometimes. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it goes wrong. The people in the story of Migdal Bavel (the Tower of Babel) get together and decide to build a city with a tower that reaches all the way up to the sky. God comes down to take a look at the tower and is not…
August Camps: A Recap
Somehow it’s already September, which means that it’s time to look forward to the school year, and think back on camp! We had an amazing 10 days, and got to see lots of friends in our new, remodeled space! A fresh coat of paint on the walls and a brand new kitchen was exciting for newcomers and returning kiddos alike….
Learn and Play at August Camp!
We hope you all are enjoying a fabulous and relaxing summer! We’re resting well and gearing up for more days of playing and exploring with your kiddos. School’s Out Camp is back the last two weeks of August. Join us to stage a rebellion, practice your patience, become a spy, explore the moon, and more! See more details below. Or…
Is It Summer Yet?!
Is it summer yet?! How many days left of school? Are you counting today or not? How many minutes is that? Sound familiar? In your family, are these insistent questions followed by a challenging transition to summer? The whole structure of our kids’ lives changes, and there can be real pain with that shift in reality. Beginning a new school…
A School’s Out Camp Story
Let me tell you a story. Once, there was a community. It was full of some of the loveliest humans. Every day they came together and did their best to be kind, inclusive, and helpful. Sometimes they made mistakes—someone would take a toy without asking; someone would walk away from a mess; someone would use an unfriendly word—but they always…
Summer Camp!!
Camp is right around the corner! Our camp programming this summer is complete with fun, games, outdoor time, and exciting Jewish learning! Read on to get the details about camp. You’re invited! We are kicking off camp with Wyatt’s Rainbow Glitter Birthday Bash! Those who attend can expect sparkly crafts, sweet treats, and of course lots of musical theater-y fabulousness….
Stop! It’s Party Time!
This week we are celebrating Lag BaOmer, a Jewish holiday on the 33rd day of the Omer. We’re counting up 49 days from the 2nd night of Passover. The 50th day will be the holiday of Shavuot when Jews celebrate receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai. The Omer is a time of mourning for the Jewish people. Some Jews observe…
Smell You Later!
This week we are discovering what kinds of brachot (blessings) we say over smells! We are delving into smell’s relationship with taste, memory, and how we feel. We are exploring the way smell enriches our lives and brings us into the present. Read on to hear about the smelly activities we have been doing! We are making bath fizzies using…
Thunderbolts and Lightning, Very Very Frightening!
This week we are learning all about thunder, lighting and rainbows and exploring the ways we can appreciate them as parts of creation, even though they can be scary. We are spending time talking about how these elements feel, what they look and sound like, how we feel about them, and the science behind them. We are learning the brachot…
Noticing Nature
This week at Makom Community, we are paying attention to the parts of creation that make us gasp in amazement. We began with a nature walk through the city. We noticed nature and took lots of pictures along the way. Read on to see what we noticed: I made that face because a bug just tried to go in my eye! The flower was the shape of a bell pepper. …
Makom Community Leaves Egypt
Last week, we completed the final stretch of our Pesach (Passover) unit. We did Bedikat Chametz (checking for bread products) by playing hide and seek games with chametz (bread products). And we did Biyur Chametz by destroying all the chametz. We closed out our week with a camp day about the leaving Egypt story. Read on to get the details! We had lots of fun hiding chametz around Makom Community. One day our older and younger students hid chametz for each other. For Biyur Chametz we…
Sweet Freedom
This week we have been enjoying our status as free people! What are things that free people get to do? Read on to find out! Free people get to make music! We were fortunate enough to have Ami Yares come visit. He helped us write a song, and performed a fabulous concert! Check out our song writing process: These are…
Chocolate Seder
This week at Makom Community, we had our very own chocolate Seder! We have been doing a deep dive into haggadah over the past few months, and this was a delicious way to let your kiddos use what they’ve been learning about! Take a look and see some pictures of our tasty Seder! We tasted the sweetness of freedom as…
Agreeing To Disagree
What do we do when we disagree? With each other? With a text? With Torah? It happens! This week we wrestled with a Pesach classic, Dayenu.What? Wrestled? But that song is so catchy! It’s also pretty violent and poses some values that we don’t share and that aren’t totally comfortable to us at Makom Community. The premise of Dayenu is thanking God for all the things that God did…
Purim Adventures!
This week has been a grand Purim adventure! We celebrated with sweet treats, fabulous crafts, and wacky theater. Read on for the delicious details! We baked our own hamantashen and we also made hamantashen groggers, but we kept our wits together enough to tell them apart. We have spent the past couple weeks crafting and rehearsing our very own Purim Shpiel, complete with homemade props and costumes, dance…
Q and A with Erev!
This week our 3-5th graders are practicing their question asking in preparation for Pesach! We had them look through a section of the Hagaddah, list 3 questions, say what page of the Hagaddah their question came from, and then pass their page of questions to a friend. Then the friend looked in the Hagaddah on those pages to find an answer. Here are their questions and answers! Q:…
The Four Children
This week we stepped into the shoes of the four children at the Pesach (Passover) seder. Often these four children are described as wise, wicked, simple, and unable to ask a question. We unpacked all of those qualities and looked at how we can be like any of these four kiddos at any given time. Read on to see what your multifaceted…
With Great Freedom Comes Great Responsibility
This week we went on a journey back in time, to when we were slaves in Egypt. What was it like being a slave? How did we become free people? Once we got back to present day at Makom Community, we discussed the things that enslave people today, and we explored what freedom means to us. Most importantly, we talked about what…
Wacky Backwards Words (try saying that ten times, fast)!
In conclusion, last week was extra silly and fun here at Makom Community! What? This blog is wackbards! Er, I mean backwards. That’s because its Purim Katan, which is a time of wacky, backwards, joyous nonsense. We mixed things up with extra treats, Ivrit (Hebrew language) games, calendar exploration, a surprise snow day, and backwards shenanigans. Stay tuned next week for a…
Summer Camp 2019 Dates and Themes!
It’s time to start thinking about SUMMER CAMP! Makom Community offers programing in the weeks before and after area summer camps run. See below for our list of theme days this summer! We know you need to work and want to make sure your child(ren) are safe and having LOTS of fun. Early-bird registration for June camp ends May 29th….
Yachatz: Brokenness and Repair
This week we broke into Yachatz, which is the part of the Pesach Seder where we break the middle Matzah as a way to remember the way the world was broken when the Jews were leaving Egypt. It is also a way for us to think about the ways the world might be broken today, and what systems are in…