Our Kitah Dalet students are an extremely bright, energetic,
and thoughtful group, and this week we encouraged them to participate in a
meaningful discussion about Jewish values.
We arrived at a community
definition and decided that values are behaviors that are important to a group
of people with common interests. Expanding
on this definition, students brainstormed values important to us as a community
in general, and more specifically to us as a Jewish community. Students learned the importance of upholding
the values of a group, and recognized that when group members fail to uphold
the values of a community, the community slowly disappears. Fortunately for us, our ancestors have been
quite clear regarding the importance of maintaining consistent Jewish values
throughout time. We talked about family
values and passing on values to future generations. Finally, we looked at the Chumash and
discovered the Torah is the foundation for living a Jewish life, passed on to
us for generations.
Our discussion on values was a perfect introduction to our Tuesday
afternoon High Holiday review. Although
students learn about the holidays every year, they are
introduced to more advanced concepts and ideas as they mature. Students examined the original text in the Torah commanding us to
celebrate an occasion on the first day of the seventh month, where we should do
no work and hear the horn. They interpreted
this to mean we shouldn't go to work, and we should hear the shofar, which was
pretty awesome for fourth grade Torah scholars. We talked about the concept of Teshuva, and
the importance of looking inward to improve our relationship with GOD and
others. We talked about working on
finding our flaws and turning things around when we fall short of our goals or
expectations. This is quite a
sophisticated concept, and we will continue our discussions next week. Until then, please ask your child to think
about teshuva, turning things around with those they have hurt.
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