First, thank you so much for sharing your children with us! We are enjoying delving into Jewish ideas, holidays, and traditions. Our fundamental goal is to provide students with both a solid knowledge base and the skills necessary to prepare them to become fully engaged Jewish adults.

Theology:
We are exploring and evolving our symbolic language for thinking about God. So far, our metaphor collection includes: "Dad" and "King" (Avinu Malkeinu), which also lead to meaningful discussions about God and gender; "Bigger than Me"; "Source of Life"; the concept of a time-connected God; and God as both mercy and justice.

Prayer:
We are unpacking the layered meanings of Hebrew words to explore the prayers from multiple perspectives. For example, we started with the common word ברוך (baruch). Its three-letter root is shared with words that signify authority and life-source. When we add the traditional understanding of "thank you," we uncover three different aspects in Hebrew compared to the single-faceted English translation, “blessed.” We’re having a lot of fun praying and singing together as we welcome Shabbat.

Skills:
For the High Holidays, we learned how to blow the shofar, practicing stomach breathing and blasting techniques, and reviewed the four different sounds. Of course, we used a 2½-foot kudu horn because it’s cool! We also streamlined Teshuvah, the apology methodology especially relevant during this season, down to a few basic steps: “I hurt you” => “I am sorry” => “I will try my best not to do that in the future.” We practiced this amongst ourselves to make initiating such difficult conversations easier. We also had meaningful discussions about whether one is obligated to accept another’s apology.

For Sukkot, we are actively building and decorating a 5’x10’ sukkah for placement in BZ’s Dream Space, so that students can proudly say, “I can do this.”

Thank you again for entrusting us with your children’s education; we look forward to continuing this meaningful journey together!