6th Grade Torah Blog

Shalom!

>At the beginning of the year, the students were asked to consider a time in their lives when they felt close to God. At least one theme seemed to pop up again and again: Many students felt close to God when something was needed—comfort, emotional strength— or some kind of victory! They learned that people have expressed and communicated their understanding of God in the world in many ways (such as in art or poetry). The books of the Tenach (Hebrew Bible) that will be explored this year, K’tuvim (Writings) and B’reisheit (Genesis) include many examples of such expressions. By taking a close look at some of these stories this year, we’ll have a chance to discover examples have seen God revealed in the world. In teams of two and three, the students pretended that they were members of a film production company and developed ideas for a film based on the story of Ruth! We then began our introduction to “Wisdom Literature” found in our Bible, and we focused on Mishlei (Proverbs) and Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). The also students learned that often, when Jews have found themselves in emotional situations and could not express themselves with their own words, they turned to the psalms in the Tanach. They were introduced to several psalms (both biblical and more recent) and tried to determine how the author felt about God and what images were used. They saw some examples of psalms written in several different forms, and the students had to select one of these forms for their own psalm. We began our survey of “B’reisheit” (“Genesis”) by discovering how Abraham started his journey from his homeland and family. As they begin thinking more and more of their Bar and Bat Mitzvah expectations, the students are beginning to see that a journey or two may await them in the not-too-distant future!  Even more journeys are to come.