Shabbaton

Last Shabbat I spent 25 hours at B’nai Amoona celebrating Shabbat with 31 amazing
4th and 5th graders. Students from B’nai Amoona, Shaare Zedek and BSKI joined together for our annual community Conservative Shabbaton. We sang, prayed, ate, played and laughed together. This was a great group of kids.

One of the most exciting things about a Shabbaton is the blending of formal and informal education. Students are able to experience the beauties of Shabbat, the T’fillot, the community, and even no cell phone, computers or i-pods for a full 25 hours. They are able to make meaningful and fun what they learn about in the classroom. Additionally, each Shabbaton we choose a theme that compliments their classroom curriculum. This year our theme was Bereshit, the book of Genesis.

This may not sounds so exciting at first but we challenged the students to make it though all 12 parshiot (sections) in the time we had together. We had relays to build the tower of Babel and help Rebecca water Elizar’s camels, we created Abraham and Sarah’s family tree and were guests in their tent, we performed raps and cheers about the Garden of Eden and Noah’s ark and we laughed at the Madrichim (counselors) skit when Jacob wrestled the angel.

Throughout the Shabbaton we worked on creating a timeline of the stories in Bereshit. And by the time the parents joined us on Saturday evening for Havdalah we all cheered as we put the last parsha in place, completing our timeline and reviewed the entire book of Genesis. If you missed this Shabbaton then you missed out on a special weekend.

Tweet your Prayers

Our seventh grade Hebrew/Tfillot class was given the challenge of creating a Tweet, a 140 character message, of a communal prayer one could say during Minchah, the afternoon service. Here are some of our student’s Tweets:

Praised are you, Adonai our God, king and ruler of the universe, Todah Rabah, for my life, my soul: my family, my friends.

Blessed is Hashem, who is merciful in the court of justice. Blessed is Hashem who bestows his wisdom upon his subjects. Whose domain is over all nations.

Accept this religion I have given you and don’t turn down on it. Help the people I have made & give charity & respect them as if it was you.

Thank you Adonai for giving me love in this cool world.

Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam, Todah Rabah Hashem, Todah Rabah Hashem, Atah Metzuyan. (Blessed are you God, King of the universe, thank you God, thank you God, you are excellent.)

Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam to God for being there for me throughout my whole life & supporting me & my family. We praise you so please don’t stop on me now.

The Lord is our Melech. Thx for blessings as the Israelites. God is awesome. The Lord is the creator of the world. God is glorious and royal.

God places changes in our life. Some are good, but some we don’t like or we aren’t ready for. But change can be good. Change helps you grow.

We praise you our Lord. You sprinkle us with kindness. You are all forgiving. You are the Lord our God.

God, I love you very much, because you are the almighty awesomeness of the world.

God is a shield and a guiding hand and he is awesome.

God bless you who is the greatest who is the universe who is the only.

OMG! God is the BEST, he did cool stuff. I luv u God.

Kristallnacht Commemoration

Kitah Dalet (4th) and Hey (5th) walked into a classroom yesterday staged to look like a Jewish owned store on November 10, 1938 in Nazi Germany. The class then engaged in a discussion of how to speak up when you see and hear discrimination or intolerance of any people in order to commemorate Kristallnacht.