Month: May 2018

Charlotte woke up at 5:45am SMT (Standard Martian Time). She put on her kippah, and thetallitshe inherited from her great-grandfather. She carefully wrapped her tefillin and opened her siddur entitled, Sha’arei HaShamayyim, “The Gates of the Heavens.” She was ready by 6:00am SMT to daven shacharit. She had lived on Mars since she was in middle school, and she became more interested…

In my final year of sacred service learning, I’ve returned to the religious school classroom. Last I was here, a fledgling second-year, I faced many difficult challenges as a teacher, learner, and leader. Now I find that my work with young adults, most of whom are about to become B’nai Mitzvah, has transformed into a rewarding partnership. For the last…

Over the summer I was asked to come up with a new way of thinking about how to teach Jewish high school students. I had learned about an idea that came out of the Stanford Design School called “design thinking.” This is the process that helped create the iPhone Airbnb and is a prominent mode of development for Facebook and…

The fourth grade Hebrew school curriculum at Rockdale Temple focuses on learning prayers, specifically, the Shema and her blessings. Ideally, the students will be able to read and recite the prayers at the end of the year. But more than that, I hope they come away with an understanding of and sense of connection to the prayers. In trying to…