Sukkot and Mitvot

Happy Sukkot! I was in St. Louis for Yom Kippur so I missed week 3, but Steve led a great discussion about Yom Kippur and technology. They looked at an interesting ad campaign by www.offlininginc.com and discussed the implications of the ads. What do you think?

Week four was all about Sukkot. (well, except for the random tangent we went on about Yom Kippur and swinging chickens and funny Yiddish phrases. See here)

We talked about Sukkot and they listed everything they knew about the holiday. It was a lot! We then had a discussion about the different elements and purposes of holidays and how they are a time when we should be especially thinking about tikkun olam. I challenged them to think of some social issues that relate to Sukkot. They came up with homelessness, because we remember when our people were homeless, and we build sukkot or impermanant homes for the holiday. They did a little research and found out that it is a commandment that Jews should make sure that people in the community are not homeless. They also thought about hunger, because Sukkot is a harvest holiday. Just as we are thankful for the wonderful food we have, must we think about those who do not have enough to eat. Lastly, they thought about welcoming the stranger because of the tradition of Ushpizin or welcoming guests in the Sukkah. We talked about being welcoming to people at school, and also about the pros and cons of trusting strangers. (see Couchsurfing)

I then asked them to research organizations that we could donate our Tzedakah to that relate to Sukkot. Both groups chose local organizations -- The Central MO Food Bank to fight hunger, and Habitat for Humanity of Columbia to fight homelessness. We ultimately chose to donate to the food pantry becuase they decided that the money would help more people that way. We donated online for instant Tzedakah!


We ended class by tweeting something they learned. Check out the tweets!

• Our class donated $27.50 to the Mid Missouri food band. We talked about Sukkot and Mitzvot today!!

• We ended up donating to the food bank because it connects, since we are feeding the homeless
  

• i learned that there's a website where you can find strangers to stay with while you're traveling.
  

• there is a jewish law that says that everybody needs good permanent housing
  

• during Yom Kippur people swing chickens around their heads to get rid of their sins. we also learned about yiddish words and what they mean.

Read this for more on Sukkot and homelessness.

-Amanda

What is Community?!

Shanah Tovah!! Today was the second day of religious school and we tackled the topic of community. Jewish community and the internet is the theme of our class for the year, so we wanted to begin with a basic discussion of community.

So, we asked the kids -- What is community? Think about what it means and tweet your definition.

Some responses included:

• my friends and family and the enviorment
• community is all the people who support each other in the same general area

All of the students came up with very similar definitions -- that community has to do with people coming together in a common place. Some definitions had additional clauses dealing with purpose, values or responsibilities.

We discussed the Jewish community, and how it exists on many levels like national religious movements, federations in cities, individual congregations, and even our classroom community.

We then asked -- Does Jewish community exist outside the synagogue? How do Jews find community if they don't affiliate with a movement, or cannot afford synagogue dues? How can we use the internet to find Jewish community? We had a really great discussion.

I am lucky enough to be friends with an internet Jewish celebrity named Patrick Aleph, who is doing new and exciting things in the world of Judaism on the internet. He recently pioneered a new website called One Shul which exists as an online user run synagogue; a virtual Jewish community. Check out the website and watch this video to get an introduction to One Shul, which launched just a week ago.

I have talked to Patrick extensively about modern Judaism and ideas for our class and he was kind enough to make us a video after his band played a show in Memphis last night. He will be skyping with us in future classes and we are so lucky to have him as a resource.



The students are going to think about his assignment this week and will work on their responses in class next time. We will post their responses on the blog and link to Indie Yeshivah.

Thanks for reading and Happy New Year! We are trying to get laptops for each student so everyone can participate equally in class. If you have a laptop you can loan us for Sunday mornings please e-mail Debbie at kaplande@health.missouri.edu

Reflections on the First Day of Sunday School

Welcome to the official blog of the Beth Shalom High School Religious School class!  Steve and I are just so excited about this year.  We will be studying Judaism and the internet and we will use this blog to post reflections about each class.  After this week, much of the content on the blog will come from the students writings and responses that we do in class.

The first day was productive and fun.  We started by googling Judaism and talking about what came up first.  We discussed who the websites were for, who made them, and whether they would go there for information about Judaism.  Next, we learned about everyone's favorite websites and hobbies (including facebook, piano, soccer, and saxophone) and set rules for the class.  Some of them include, no facebook during class, be appropriate and respectful, participate and come to class.  Easy enough!!

We then got into more detail about what we will be doing this year, which is student guided learning using the internet.  Steve and I are not going to teach as much as we will facilitate discussions, research, questions, writing prompts, etc.  The goals of the class are for the kids to get excited about Jewish topics, to take ownership of their Jewish education, to relate Judaism to different aspects of their lives and to develop their Jewish identities.  We had a brainstorm of topics they are interested in and came up with:

• Jewish humor
• Israeli-Palistinian conflict
• Famous Jews
• Jewish music
• Community
• Jewish dating
• Facebook
• Youtube

Everyone seemed excited about the year!  Next class, 9/12 will be all about Jewish community and the internet.  We will even have a special guest speaker via Skype -- Patrick Aleph from www.punktorah.org

Please follow our class on Twitter!  If you have any questions please e-mail us at bethshalomhs@gmail.com

Shanah Tovah!!!

-Amanda