This is a short school week but still it’s full of excitement. The 3rd graders spent time in the Sukkah, played a bingo game with terms of Sukkot that they all recognized really well, and said the blessing over the 4 species.

Then, we learned about the Jewish tradition of “Sweet Letters”- having the young children taste honey covered Hebrew letters before they start learning the Torah. This tradition existed in many communities in Eastern Europe as well as North Africa. We then renewed this tradition by baking “sweet letters”of our own: we baked Hebrew letter shaped cookies, and made the letters of our Hebrew names.

This is a wonderful way to get excited for our next step of learning- we will start learning the book of Bereshit (Genesis) right after Simchat Torah.

As we learned about the high holidays, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, we have concentrated on the concept of forgiveness- Selicha in Hebrew (סליחה).

we talked about acknowledging our mistakes and starting over. We learned stories of people who made mistakes and how they overcame them.

The 3rd graders learned a lot of new Hebrew vocabulary connected with the high holidays. Then, we did Tashlich- a tradition that symbolizes throwing away our sins into the water. We did it both indoors and outdoors. On Friday before Yom Kippur, we walked to Klode park, where we had a beautiful Shabbat sing, sat in a group and discussed our process of Teshuva, and went near the water to throw small pebbles into the lake.

On Erev Yom Kippur, Tuesday morning, we used filter paper and markers and wrote the word “סליחה” on the paper. we then dipped our papers in water and we saw how the water washes the words away, leaving us with a clear new start.

I was also very lucky on the same day to join the 3rd graders on their repairing together program at Urban Ecology center where they met their partners from 3 different Milwaukee schools and had a beautiful program in nature together. It really brought us all into Yom Kippur with hearts full of friendship and a sense of community.

Wishing you Chag Sameach for the holiday of Sukkot which we will also celebrate together visiting the school Sukkah and with much more Jewish learning.