Beth HaTephila Religious School
Newsletter - 2/18/16
Upcoming Events: Mark your calendars NOW!
- Shir Tephila Rehearsal after school this Sunday, February 21st.
- Friday, March 4th at 6:30 - Religious School-led Services with a D'var Torah (that is not to be missed!) provided by Kitah Bet and Kitah Gimel. Oneg provided by parents of Kitah Bet and Gimel Students. As alway, ALL students are encouraged to come and lead the congregation in prayer!
- Sunday March 20th - Our celebration of Purim with a special visit from Queen Esther's Bubbe and Zayde. Our 2nd Annual Seth Kellam Lookalike Contest! Everyone come in costume! Prizes for all!
- Wednesday March 23rd - Our congregation's Purim Spiel, Megilla Reading, and Potluck. Save the date. More details to come!
- Friday, April 1st at 6:30 - A very special Religious School Led service in tribute to the history of our Temple on the occasion of it's 125th Anniversary. Come celebrate and welcome back Rabbi Meiri from her three-month sabbatical!
- Saturday, April 2nd Dan Nichols Live, In Concert at CBHT. You know Dan Nichols music! We sing it all the time! You know "B'Tzelem Elohim"? "Sweet as Honey"? Yes? Well, that's Dan Nichols. And he's coming to sing for us. Concert is free. Get your singing voice ready!
Our Hebrew Word of the Week: לֵב
Our Hebrew Word of the Week was לֵב (lev/heart), which was fitting since Religious School landed on the (mostly secular) holiday of Valentine's Day. The word לֵב is very important in our prayer vocabulary, since we are commanded to love God with all our hearts. Our hearts are like homes and we should take special care of them since (like our homes) they were also created to hold people and keep them warm and safe. We also learned that there is a Day of Love in Israel called Tu B'Av (the fifteenth of the month of Av!)
Some Highlights from Sunday, February 14th
- In K'tanim we danced with the babies and talked about the connection between the eyes and the body. We sat on the big bouncy balls and handed the babies objects and blew bubbles for them so that they would track with their eyes and reach for them. The babies are learning and growing every week and the parents are really enjoying the community!
- In Gan Yeladim we talked about the Torah and how it tells us stories and gives us rules to live by. We read a book about a classroom that had no rules and made our own Classroom Ten Commandments.
- In Kitah Aleph we talked about love and acts of loving-kindness. We made hearts with tissue paper flowers and learned to write love (Ahava) in Hebrew. We talked about how we can be loving to the earth and we planted seeds that will grow into flowers for the bees.
- In Kitot Bet and Gimel we worked on our d'var Torah for our upcoming (March 4th) family service on March 4th. We talked about gifts of the heart we can offer our community and started making murals for our service that show what the world likes with and without these gifts.
- In Kitah Hey we made posters that showed how prayer can help us build relationships with others. We talked about the formula for a petitionary prayer (including respect, compliments, and praise) and the students had some very humorous responses to an activity where they had to "butter up" a parent to ask for something they were unlikely to receive.
- In Kitah Vav we talked about the Torah's understanding of blessings and curses and discussed the merits of second chances and why in Torah God gives the Jewish people warnings and second chances.
- In Kesher, we finished watching the documentary "Deli Man" (and got to eat popcorn while watching, thanks to Karleigh!) After the movie, we continued our discussion of Jewish food by outlining the laws of keeping Kosher, the origins of the laws of Kashrut and different interpretations and observance of Kashrut. Miri brought us Israeli foods and we practiced creating Hebrew dialogues about food!
- In Hebrew, all of our students in Kitah Gimel though Kitah Vav continue to move forward. Three more students moved out of the decoding class and received their Hebrew prayer binders. Three of our students are coming very close to finishing the entire Friday night service -- and one of them is on their VERY LAST (of twenty-two!) prayer!