Hello, Wonderful Havurah First Grade Aleph Families! Keeping with our theme of holy spaces (in connection to the Solomon story), we began our day by decorating 3d synagogues, which we will finish next week. It's incredible to see the diversity in how the children imagine their ideal temples. Some were rainbow-clad ("because that's how we know G-d is there!" -- Becca) while others showed their precocious understanding of Jewish values ("I put a window on the ceiling because light is important in Judaism." -- Sofia).
We were then joined by the most joyous Joyce, who started by asking about shabbat practices. Hannah proved herself a shabbat sage as she was able to explain how our practices tie to making shabbat important. Joyce then told a 3 brothers' shabbat story. While recapping the tale, James asked the most insightful question: "If G-d created everything, who created G-d?" A tough question to answer! We then decorated tzedakah boxes as we discussed how tzedakah can be more then money.
Going into our shabbat rituals, we shared a beautiful and calm moment as we held hands and blessed the challah. We then continued with our theme of holy spaces and talked about what makes a temple a temple (see picture).
We wrapped up the day by joining the other first grade class and Megan for music.
Have a wonderful week!
From Gabriella:
A few notes:
1) This Saturday, 12/22, is our last Havurah session before winter vacation. We will not have classes on 12/29 or 1/5, but look forward to reuniting on 1/12 for our first session of 2019.
2) One of the Havurah families is working with Abbott House (http://www.abbotthouse.net/why-abbott-house/mission.html), an organization that is caring for unaccompanied minors who have been moved to New York. Abbott House has put together an Amazon wish list to meet the needs of these children. Making a donation, especially during holiday time, is a beautiful way to practice tzedakah (charity) and gemilut chasadim (acts of loving kindness), values that we devote so much time to at Havurah. The wish list is here: http://a.co/h8mo0kH
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