A kickoff to the month of Elul
The month of Elul, the kickoff month to the High Holiday season, begins on Shabbat.
During Elul it is traditional to blow the shofar every morning. These shofar blasts remind us to prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur by beginning to reflect on who we have been and who we want to become.
Upper School students (6-8) have been studying the question, "What kind of people do we aspire to be?" To this end, students are studying Pirkei Avot (wisdom literature in the Mishnah) and selected Yom Kippur prayers.
Their challenge over the coming month will be to create a supplement to the usual prayerbook that will inspire us on Yom Kippur. It will include the texts we study, student commentary, art and ideas. They are now studying texts they might choose as their personal focus.
The seventh grade did a particularly fabulous job this past week of creating a commentary on Pirkei Avot 5:7. To read their commentary, which is formatted to resemble a Talmud page, click the image below.
