IMPACT STORIES

Nursery children were introduced to the facets of Havdalah – the objects, rituals, blessings, and their own feelings – through sensory exploration that sparked children’s curiosity and captivated their imaginations. Children built connections slowly with the ritual by learning its choreography, turning their bodies into dancing flames, and sampling fragrances that captured feelings about closing one week and moving into a new one. To give voice to children’s fascination, we designed an immersive Havdalah mobile, setting into it nighttime fabrics, bright flame paintings, hanging spice satchels, and children’s own words of awe and connection with the ritual. The mobile was life-size, fully surrounding children and families with the sights, smells, textures, and sounds of Havdalah, imbuing them with a sensory memory of Havdalah to carry with them as they grow.

At the end of a year of learning and growing together, kindergarten and first grade children used a collaborative and creative process to reflect on their year, celebrate their growth, and design three stained glass panels to commemorate the year’s three themes. First, children looked through photographs and chatted with peers about highlights of their year. It became clear that children’s greatest excitement was for their theme projects, so those became the focus of their collaborative year-end project: stained glass panels. To design their panels, children first worked with a partner to draft a theme symbol. Then the group reviewed the drafts and built consensus around a final version of the symbols, using skills they’d grown this year for listening and collaborating. Finally, children created their stained glass panels, sharing ideas on how to use the paint, taking turns, laughing, and enjoying working together.Children were so proud  to share their beautiful stained glass with their families! Now, whenever they see the stained glass in our windows, children remember the joy and community they felt in their collaborative year-end project, and in their year together.

Havdalah (Separation) is a Jewish ritual for marking the end of Shabbat. Second and third grade children read a midrash (rabbinic story) about how Adam HaRishon (the first human) learned to make fire as darkness crept across the earth for the first time.

Children explored Adam’s fear and sadness at the end of his first Shabbat, and how Havdalah helped him feel better. It led this young child to see how separating time through rituals like Havdalah provides a safe space for humans to hold a mixture of emotions– allowing us to feel both happy AND sad at the end of Shabbat. The child’s insight led one parent to realize, “Havdalah cannot take away feelings, yet it can make you fully feel them.”

Children and families learned that Jewish ritual can be a way to help them fully feel and process the big emotions that come their way.

Why spend time on yetzirah (art/creating)? It’s integral to developing our ideas.

As fourth and fifth grade children encountered the biblical Joseph, they considered elements of comics. Where will you “point your camera”? Thick lines. Wavy words. A splash of color. Zoom in. Whose perspective are you showing?

Children portrayed the same moment so differently! By pairing Torah study with tools for visual expression, children offered each other nuanced text readings, vibrant and dramatic. Torah study, integrated with yetzirah (art/creating), deepened children’s capacity to consider the world from different perspectives.

Who is Yosef? It depends how you see it.

What does it take for children to peel back the layers of a complex biblical figure like Yosef (Joseph) and develop their own interpretation?

In the first – third grade group, children heard the text multiple times, wrestled with it with peers, and created with chalk pastels. Chalk pastel was such a rich, expressive material for this age group! Children could blend and layer, use pressure and big gestures to express their big feelings about this text.

Children developed such nuanced interpretations! One 8-year-old thought the biblical Yosef changes through his life. He starts “being normal” and “turns angry” when “his brothers did all those bad things…, because it’s not really his fault that he’s Ya’akov’s [his father’s] favorite.” This child thinks that Yosef becomes a person who is “hiding himself.” Finally, years later, “he took off all of his disguises and showed himself…unleashing himself and revealing himself” to his brothers.

Wow.

As third-fifth grade children wrestled with the text of Rivkah, they went to the studio to process their thoughts with clay.

The project above left shows how a third grade boy explored the sharp and broken relationship between Ya’akov (Jacob) and Esav (Esau). Working with the clay to reflect on the brothers’ ties led him to consider distinctions between a person’s inner life and their outward actions. The boy decided that how Ya’akov behaved might not be the same as how Ya’akov thought and felt.

The child’s deep dive into Ya’akov and Esav’s relationship led him to examine his own inner life. He came to a new understanding about his own mind and behavior.

Our ancient Torah text breathes life into children’s development as humans. Amazing.

When we began our Teshuvah theme, this child said that the word was new to him.

A year later, we asked him to reflect on how teshuvah appears in his life. Astonishingly, he articulated that teshuvah can rebalance power in his relationship with his younger brother. Through our Teshuvah theme, the child came to recognize that power can be used in damaging and nourishing ways, and that teshuvah can rebalance the scales.

What a powerful understanding for an 8 year old!

Elijah the Prophet. We open the door for him at Passover. We sing for his return at the end of Shabbat. Who is he, though?

Children met Eliyahu in I Kings, when he seeks God in the wind, in the earthquake, in the fire, and finally, hears a soft, small voice. Children met Eliyahu in rabbinic literature, reminding us of our responsibility to make the world as it should be. Children met Eliyahu in folk tales, where he appears and provides for those in need. Finally, children considered why we might include this enigmatic character in our Passover seder.

Second and third grade children considered what tools they would carry to help them hear the “soft, small voice” and make the world better. On Friday, March 13, 2020, their shrinky dink tools sat ready, the room filled with projects from children ages 3 – 15, for a family celebration that never took place.

The kindergarten children needed more. They were taking part in the nursery tunic-making project, but they were nearly bursting with wanting to grapple with the whole, complex Yosef story. We invited kindergarten children to design their own project.

The knowledge, creativity, and sensitive social attunement of the four kindergarten children expanded to fill every aspect of this project. From collaboratively retelling the entire text, complete with their own literary flair (from “There was once a boy…” to “And that was that!”) to making props, navigating disagreements, matching character costumes to the mood of the scene, and acting with movement, posture, and expression, children’s interpretation of the text emerged through hundreds of small details and collaborative decisions. This was their version.

When the kindergarten children saw the book they had created together, they knew they had accomplished something Big. “I feel like a twelfth grader!” one boy said. And indeed, these young children showed as much dedication, collaboration, enthusiasm, and deep thought about Torah and human relationships as Jewish people of any age. Kol hakavod – way to go – amazing kindergarteners.

In the winter of our second year, we created a symbol of personal yearning and communal responsibility. Inspired by two traditional Jewish morning prayers, our Mah Tovu tent knits together the personal intentions of children, parents, and grandparents.

Today, we gather under our beautiful tent at the end of every session, adults and children together. It graces our singing space, a visible reminder of our commitment to each other.