7th Grade Update

Dear 7^th grade Families:

We had a fantastic first week of Religious School! On opening day we did some icebreakers and teambuilding exercises which built connection and solidarity between the teens. We feel it is important to build community within the classroom especially this year, as we will be taking the students out into the broader Jewish community to do service projects. Community must start in the classroom, and we feel the first week of class was successful in this regard.

We also introduced the idea of social action as a Jewish value. We examined Jewish texts which emphasized the importance of “not standing idly by (Leviticus 19:16)” and that “all of Israel is responsible for one another (Shevuot 39a).” We watched a video about Jewish involvement in the Civil Rights Movement and did some reflective activities. What if you saw an injustice happen right in front of you? What would you do? What does our tradition teach us about what our responsibility is in the face of injustice? These were some of the questions we delved into this week.

Next week we will be getting into our first unit of study which is the ethical responsibility of “Shomrei Adamah” (protecting the earth/environmentalism). We will examine texts from the Torah and some Aggadah (traditional folklore). On Sunday, we will take the teens on a nature walk in Southfield to kick off our  "Shomrei Adamah”. On Tuesday a Jewish Detroit urban farmer, Scott Unger, owner of Beaverland and Farms will come in and speak to the class about the Jewish values that inspired him to start a farm in the City of Detroit. We look forward to connecting our learners with the land and with their Jewish heritage.

On Sunday, September 21 our class will travel to Eden Gardens , a grassroots project and collaboration between the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue and the African American neighborhood block club.

Eden Gardens is a place where local Detroiters can learn life skills such as eating healthy, cooking, sewing, farming, and canning. The community project is a place where youth can learn leadership skills and make decisions on what they would like in their neighborhood ultimately guiding them to make better decisions in their lives and in our world. Our teens will work alongside Detroit teens in the garden to learn abut the values of Shomrei Adamah. 

We joyfully anticipate all that lies ahead with our 7^th grade learning community.

Your 7^th grade teaching team,

David and Rachel