Finally we got to hear God’s response to Bnot Zelophechad’s (Zelophechad’s daughters) request to be able to inherit their father’s land! Spoiler: God agrees with them and thinks their request is completely just. We dove deeper into the situation of women in the Torah and discovered that men had autonomy in the Torah but that women, children, and slaves did…
Tag: gender equality
Everyone Counts – Justice and the Census
Who counts? We all do! Or at least, we think we all should. Last week we began looking at the story of Bnot Zelophechad (the daughters of Zelophechad). In this story, a man named Zelophechad died, leaving behind 5 daughters and no sons. At this point, women could not own land or property. With no men in the family 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…
Are you there God? It’s BMitzvah!
Sometimes we spend too much time thinking about something and not enough time experiencing it. In BMitzvah, we’ve been working on a new Rosh Pinah project about God: creating art pieces that express our personal theologies. We’ve been learning about how Jewish texts show different ideas of God: God as the authority, God as everything, God as all-good and all-powerful, God…
Our American Jewish Stories
“Emma Lazarus! The New Colossus!” Drew pointed at the quote on the wall as we rounded the corner to the next gallery. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” read the famous quote. Drew told us about the quote’s position on the Statue of Liberty and Lazarus’ history as a writer, as Lazarous was…
Those Who Learn From History…
We all know that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But what about those who do learn from history? My experience with our last Rosh Pinah unit on American Jewish History tells me that they are doomed to ask provocative questions. How can we re-balance the record and put women’s voices to the front? Can I design an…
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…