It was great to get back from my first visit to Israel in 15 years! My main purpose for going was to reunite with many friends all over the country, and to see the incredible changes in Israel since I was there last in 1999. Luckily, my first day back at the Cohen school coincided with a visit from Matan Graf, our Israeli Emissary. I showed the kids some of my pictures and explained about some of the places I had been and what I had seen. Matan also gave us a "virtual tour" of Israel via the interactive web site of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism. Matan also talked about Passover in Israel and how he and many Israelis celebrate the holiday--with a Seder, of course, but also with hiking and camping. Pesach is a big school vacation in Israel, so many families head out into the natural beauty of Israel. 


Our discussions about Passover focused on the structure of the the Seder and some history of how the Seder was celebrated over various periods of history. The kids rehearsed singing the 2nd of the Four Questions, which they performed beautifully at the school seder. 
Here's a video of them singing it!:

Students in the 4th/5th grade class are extending their work on "prayer" by creating collages depicting various aspects of Jewish prayer. Some are illustrating a particular prayer, or type of prayer, while others are creating visual summaries of the range of responses given to a specific question asked in their prayer interviews with parents and other adults from our congregation.

In Hebrew class, we continue to practice reading fluency and gain vocabulary. We are practicing the blessings and prayers from the Shabbat morning Torah service as a way to both practice our Hebrew and provide students some familiarity and practice with leading this part of the service. Hopefully, a good number will learn and master this small section of the service and be able to lead it during their bar or bat mitzvah! For "group tefilla," our classes will meet separately every couple of weeks to run through the Shabbat service. There is, of course, no substitute for the real thing! If you want to learn this material, come to a Shabbat service on the first and/or third Saturdays of the month!

I have posted the text of "Ein Kamocha," the first prayer of the Torah service, along with audio so that students can practice at home. Click here, or access it from the main school page.

After a snow cancellation and two weeks of winter break, it was nice to see everyone again and to resume our various areas of study! 
The class is currently screening a rough-cut of the prayer interviews we recorded and making observations about what they are hearing from you, their parents, and other adults from our congregation. There is diversity as well as much commonality in the thoughts and feelings expressed in the interviews, and we are using the data we gathered to generate more questions about the role and function of prayer in our lives. The students will be writing some personal reflection pieces, and we hope eventually to incorporate their thoughts into the finished video that emerges.

Our weekly Torah study was somewhat truncated this week so that we could view the prayer videos, but we did watch a very interesting and thought-provoking video commentary on the parasha "Beshalach" (below). The parasha, itself, describes the parting and crossing of the Sea of Reeds, and the early days of the Israelites in the desert. The video focuses on the challenging of trusting other people's experience of God. It presents an interesting explanation of why Jews don't believe that anyone has a monopoly on God, and why the only people you need to trust are your parents.

Work continued on our video project about how we pray. The last few parent interviews have been conducted, and the kids and I have made some decisions on how we would like the final product to look. I hope to complete the editing by the end of the year. In the meantime, the students will be engaging in a related assignment that will serve as a compliment to the video.

We reviewed the story of Joseph and his brothers, and watched a video commentary on this week's Torah portion, "Vayigash," in which Joseph's brothers come to Egypt to find assistance during a famine. Joseph, who is now the second-in-command in Egypt, does not reveal his identity, and plays a trick on his brothers in what looks like a kind of revenge for their having thrown him in a well and left him for dead. Or maybe he was just trying to get them to acknowledge the wrong they had done to him? Unfortunately, time ran out before we could discuss the story much, but I invite you to watch the video and discuss the following questions with your children:

Last week, I posted about a class project to help shed some light on the personal side of prayer. In class, we watched an excerpt of the video "How Jews Pray," and we engaged in a brainstorming process to come up with a collection of interview questions that the kids will ask a parent, or grandparent, for our video documentary.

The interviews will be done at Torat Yisrael on the next two Sundays, the 17th and 24th. In order to keep our project manageable, each student can interview just one person. The interviewee can be a parent, guardian, grandparent, aunt or uncle who is able to come to the synagogue for a 20 to 30-min. interview. The interviewee does not have to be religiously observant (but can be!), nor does he or she need to be Jewish!

Please sign-up for either this Sunday, the 17th, or the following Sunday, the 24th.

I would like to run the interviews from 9:30 - 11:00. We can conduct two interviews at a time, so I'm hoping we could complete at least 6 to 8 interviews on each Sunday. Since we don't know exactly how long each interview will take, or whether we might have technical glitches, it would be great if you could plan to be at the temple and available for an interview anytime during that block. As an added incentive, the Men's Club is holding their "TY Café" with coffee and bagels starting at 9:30 on the 17th! So you can nosh and schmooze while you wait!

Thanks in advance! The kids are very excited about creating a video and seemed to be very enthusiastic about interviewing you! These are the questions they are planning to ask:


Where are you when you pray?
How do you pray?
Why do you pray?/What do you pray for?
What do you think about when you pray?
Do you think praying has an effect (on you, on the world)?
What do you enjoy the most about praying?
What do you enjoy the least about praying?
Do you have a favorite prayer? What is it, and what do you like about it?

This week, we welcomed a new member to the 4th and 5th grade class! Bruchim haba'im to Jacob S.--we are happy to have you in our class and look forward to integrating you and your family into our community!

Now, to the other Jacob--our forefather, son of Isaac and Rebecca. This week, our class studied the story of Jacob and Esau's birth and early life, and how Jacob (with the help of his mother) cheated Esau of the birthright that should have been his because he was the eldest son. We focused on the idea of cheating to get what you want, and whether or not there is a cost to pay when we cheat, and whether that cost is worth it. Whenever you cheat, you risk getting caught. What can happen if you get caught being dishonest? Who does it hurt? What if you don't get caught? Is anyone hurt then? It Jacob's case, he got away with his deception and gained the blessings of wealth and security. But at what cost? We learned that by cheating, Jacob destroyed the relationship between himself and the person with the closest relation to him--his twin brother. Was it worth it? What would have happened if Jacob had been found out by his father, Isaac? Or what would have happened if he and Rebecca had not practiced this deception on Isaac, and Esau had received Isaac's inheritance? These are big questions for us as a people, but also for us as individuals. Is it right to play our parents off against one another? Is it right to skirt the rules in sports or other competitions? We have some tough decisions to make, but we also have a history full of ancestors who made mistakes. We should try to learn from their stories and strive not to repeat their bad decisions.

We know that you want your children to be prepared to take their place as adults in our community, and part of that includes learning the skills necessary to lead our congregational worship services. Not everyone needs to know everything; but everyone should know something! That's why we work with the students in all grades to teach them the words and melodies of the prayers and blessings that Jews say on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis; and why we teach them the mechanics of our prayer services, such as when to rise, when to bow, when to face east, etc.

But this is only the mechanical structure of prayer, the outward expression of worship. What is happening inside us when we pray? How do we teach our children about this inner, hidden side of praying?

Inspired by a documentary I learned of recently, I would like to have the students interview their parents, or another adult relative, about this question of how we pray. The plan is to record these interviews at Torat Yisrael during school time, and to edit these interviews into a document that, I hope, will be a powerful statement and a lesson about the wide variety of ways that people in our school community pray and think about praying. Whether you are someone who comes to services once a week or once a year, your perspective is valuable!

Our first interview day will be Sunday, November 17th, from 10:00 - 11:30am. I will set up a schedule and ask you to sign up for a slot. The kids and I will discuss the questions that we plan to ask, and will practice our interviewing techniques with the iPad. I'll also share the questions with you in advance so you can begin to formulate some thoughts. I hope you'll enjoy being a part of this project and participating in your children's learning!

!!חג שמח
Hag Sameah!
Happy Holiday!

That's a phrase we get to hear often as Fall brings us a string of Jewish holidays! Hag Sameah to each and all of you! Today was the last day of Sukkot, tomorrow is Shmini Atzeret, and tomorrow night we will celebrate Simhat Torah--literally "Rejoicing in the Torah"! Simhat Torah marks our completion of the annual cycle of the reading of the Torah. We will gather as a community at 6 pm on Thursday to read the last portion of our cycle and begin the new cycle. We'll also take out all the Torah scrolls and dance around with them as we sing songs and blessings. And as if that wasn't enough, we'll have sweet snacks and beverages to enjoy!
In class, we've learned about the themes of "memory" and "remembering" that permeate our High Holy Day observance. For Sukkot, we talked about the significance of the holiday as a reminder of our time living in the desert, and as a celebration of the harvest that we thank God for. We also watched an animated video about the many rules for building a sukkah. Rabbi Levin taught the class about the symbolism of the lulav and etrog, and everyone had the privilege of saying the blessings and performing the mitzvah of shaking the lulav and etrog in the sukkah.

The students also created some lulav and etrog decorations to hang in our room. While they worked, we learned about another view of the lulav and etrog as symbols for different types of people, and how by bringing them together in the sukkah, we remind ourselves that we need everyone to come together--all Jews of all types are part of our family!

As you know, we have divided the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grade students into two Hebrew classes. Alexa Goldstone, our 6th/7th grade teacher, is teaching those students who are working on their mastery of the alphabet and their phonetic reading skills. I am working with the students who have demonstrated a solid grasp of the aleph-bet and a good foundation in phonetic reading. We'll use a combination of online resources, games and traditional textual materials for reading practice and vocabulary development. We are particularly interested in using elements of the siddur (the daily and Sabbath prayer book) to help reinforce both reading and vocabulary, as well as to build familiarity and comfort with the fundamental elements of Conservative Jewish worship. But we will also be presenting vocabulary that is useful for everyday communication. Thus far, we have begun learning the days of the week and related vocabulary, and have talked about Hebrew's use of feminine and masculine grammatical forms. I'm teaching the class also to be able to identify the plural endings for feminine and masculine, and to know which is which.

Another of my goals is to remember to take more photos of the kids in action!! Hopefully we'll have a video or two, as well, in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I'll share these few snaps!
If you happen to be in the building, please feel free to look in at what we're up to! Hope to see you Thursday for Simhat Torah!

David

Dear 4th and 5th grade parents and families:
L'Shana Tova to you and your families! May this be a year of peace, health, and happiness for all of us!

I hope, too, that this will be a year of learning, self-discovery, creativity, growth, community building and good fun! After one Sunday with the 4th and 5th grade students, I know I am looking forward to reaching all of these goals. What an amazing group! I can't tell you how thrilled I am to finally be getting to work with all these children who I have known for several years, but never had in class. I'm excited to work with our new-to-the-school students, as well! Welcome to you all--we will try to make your transition into our community quick and easy and hope that by the time we've raised and decorated our community sukkah, next Sunday, that you will feel at home!

Our first day was spent mostly getting to know one another's names and a little about our personalities. We also did a brief Hebrew assessment to help us place each student with the right teacher at the right level. It is our goal to help all our students reach fluency in reading Hebrew and be familiar with the basic vocabulary they will encounter in services. This way, not only will they be well prepared for their Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies; they will be well on their way to becoming knowledgable and literate Jewish adults.

This Friday and Saturday, we will observe Yom Kippur. There will be a children's service at 10am, led by Sari Guttin, our Program Director. Childcare is provided until 1pm. I will be leading Shacharit services in the main sanctuary starting at around 9am, and would be happy to see as many 4th and 5th graders there as can make it!

Sunday, the day after Yom Kippur, our synagogue community--with special help from the Cohen School families and students--will build TY's sukkah in preparation for celebrating Sukkot. Please plan to join us for all, or part, of Sunday morning!

Finally, we are integrating our school web pages into the TY website. If you had bookmarked the school site--cohenschool.weebly.com--please change your bookmarks to point to http://toratyisrael.org. Teachers will be posting their blog pages on the TY site under the link for "Cohen School," and you will find school-related calendar events on the main TY calendar page. We will be developing the school pages over the coming weeks. Please visit and subscribe to the blogs of your children's teachers!

Looking forward to an inspiring and productive year! L'Shana Tova--see you soon!
David