Dear Seventh Grade parents and students,

The past Sunday was a great success! We started off the day with our getting to know you session. This included many different icebreakers, and gave the kids a chance to reacquaint themselves with both the teachers and each other. After we got to know each other once again, we got down to work. 

In their class with me, the kids started to learn about one of the basic tenants of Judaism, that of debate. Throughout Jewish culture, life, and religion many of the ways we learn is through debate. In the Talmud is is taught that finding a good adversary is like finding a good friend, they'll make you think about certain ideas in ways which you never might have considered otherwise. 

To start this off, we read about the story of Rabbi Eliezer and the Sages arguing over the oven of Acknai. Rabbi Eliezer says, before the sages, that he is right, and to prove it he calls up four miracles. The fourth miracle being that of Heaven itself saying that he is right. The sages refute him, claiming that even if Heaven believes he is right, it is not up to Heaven to claim it. 

At the end of the story, God concedes that even though Rabbi Eliezer is right, God's "children" have defeated God, due to the fact that they have chosen to use their own ideas than simply taking the ones God puts forward as rote. (Keep in mind that this particular story was told long after all the events in the Tanach and therefore was part of the Rabbi's way of saying that it was time to move forward with Jewish observance.)

What we'll be emphasizing in class is that other people's opinions matter, and even if you don't agree with them, that doesn't mean you can't listen. I will be posting this update on our blog. In addition I'll be adding links to give you a chance to look at the different debates and topics we'll be covering in class.

Until next Sunday, here's a topic for you to debate about at home:

It is the job of the person who made dinner to clean up after as well.

As always, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me ab bchalmer@gmail.com, or you can just leave a comment on the blog. Here's the link for your reference.  http://seventhgradecbe.blogspot.com/

Bryna

P.S. If any of you want to help out with participation in Jr. Congregation, I'd be happy to have you. That means looking at the Torah portion of the week to talk about, reading from the Torah, or leading one of the different prayers we say on Shabbat.