2) Interview someone who is sacrificing for the greater good. Ask them what they are doing to help during this time (this can be a nurse, doctor, someone who works with older folks, someone who works in a grocery store, a Rabbi, a teacher, etc.) Please prepare in advance before you call them. Have at least 3 questions ready and take notes while you talk. Blog about who you interviewed and the answers that were given to your questions. A question might be: what does your day look like when you go to work? How are you protecting yourself from the virus? How are you feeling about your work?

I asked my father, who is a nurse, what a regular day at work looks like. He said “I care for patients. Between looking at notes and caring for patients. I do both.”

I asked my father how are you protecting yourself from the virus. He said ” Washing my hands many times, wearing masks when in contact with patients, and using a lot of hand sanitizer.”

3) Write a letter to someone who is currently working to help during this time (ER nurse, doctor). Send it to Gev. Honigman, she will print them and get them to the nurses and doctors.

Dear father,

I am really proud of you. I am so honored to have a father and mother that cares for the lives of the American citizen. I can’t believe I have parents that save lives for a living. Your job seems easy but I know it’s not. I get that your job is challenging and I apologize for my rudeness. I should be more considerate of your feelings after you come home.

Sincerely,

ygaines21

For my Mishkan, I would make it in my basement. I would do it here because on Shabbos we sometimes go down there just to talk about how things are going with school and things like that. I would try and make a somewhat decent representation of the 2nd temples Mishkan.

That is a picture of what I would like my centerpiece to look like. I want a small bread holder that can hold at least four loaves for my family. I think this would make shabbos special because it was part of the Mishkan and was really important to the Jewish people. I would make it out of gold like the original one in the temple.

What is one thing you are excited to plan for experiential exodus? I am excited to create the ten plagues.

What is Challenging as you work on this project? I think the most challenging thing so far is generating ideas for the plagues and confirming them.

What is your favorite part of the exodus story and why?   I like the part of the plagues because I think they are very interesting and the fact that God can create those plagues is fascinating.

How does God affect our prayers? I will be using the Amidah to prove my points. In the siddur, there are prayers that involve god and others that don’t require a god. In a lot of prayers, God gives us specific things. But there are ways to get that thing anyway. For example, in the Amidah, there’s a blessing that gives us knowledge, but we can get knowledge either through people, school, books, etc.

 God only helps us when we truly need help. Let’s say we were back in Egypt for hundreds of years, we wouldn’t know what to do after we get free. God will help us with the necessities but he takes a passive role after a certain point. Think about your teachers when you were little you’re teachers helped you with things like wiping after using the bathroom. They taught you to use a pencil and taught you manners. God is kind of like a teacher when you grow up, they take a passive role in ur learning until we truly need the help to grow and understand how to live. All these small things that your teachers do God does in a different way. 

At first, I thought that God is always active and we are constantly using his help but now I think differently. I think that God takes a passive role in our lives, he still listens to prayers and our pain and sorrow but he doesn’t react because he doesn’t feel he needs to. He lets us learn and grow as MJDS does with our learning. They leave most of it to us and then watch from the sidelines. Since we have evolved God has taken the more passive approach instead of the super active I need to talk to the Jewish people about so and so and this event. We don’t need the helping hand we are the teenagers of Judaism. We have grown past the time where we needed God’s guidance constantly. There are multiple times in history where we were told what to do. But while being teenagers of the Jewish people(meaning that the people in the Torah were the children and now we grew up to teenagers where we break off from god.) everything can be great it can also be terrible. For example without God’s guidance, there are obviously going to be little bumps in the road. One of these bumps was in the Jews’ homeland. Where a jew Killed another Jew. But God didn’t come out because we were going to learn from the experience. 

So, I will leave you with this. Do you think that God is constantly active or do you think he takes a passive approach? Personally, I think that he is active when he needs to be. 

Teachers think about small things. Things that are not good for your pencil.  God can be active but in different ways than a long time ago. God gives help when really need it. God only gives things that you need in time.

In Tefillah, I joined the musical Tefillah group. I regretted this choice but I had to stick through it. We learned most about Kevah and Kavanah. Kevah meant structure which I am a big fan of. Kavanah means meaning, I thought I lacked in this department. I want to work on this. I need meaning in life and I think that I improved a little bit. Keva I also worked on since this class had us working alone we had to make our own structure. We had to make our own tune to a prayer. I worked with 3 friends on this project. It was very awkward making a tune. It felt like nothing worked until a group member went on the keyboard and then it clicked.

Simchat Torah, a very big holiday where we celebrate finishing the Torah and starting it again. Simchat Torah starts on Monday, October 21st. It ends Tuesday, October 22nd. As with all holidays, It starts in the evening and ends right after sundown. We sing many Torah related songs. We praise God’s Torah on this day. This is the only holiday that we make the Torah the main theme. A very close holiday near Simchat Torah is Shimini Hatzeret where we conclude sukkot.