Kodesh Moments in our Religious School
If you walk into the school hallway at Temple Sinai you will see that our ceiling is full of stars. Green, red, yellow, and orange, they are the visual representations of the good deeds our students are doing not because they’ve been asked, but because we as a school value the actions they take to step beyond themselves to be kind or helpful to another human being.
The thought behind this recognition comes from the book Raising A+ Human Beings; Crafting a Jewish School Culture of Academic Excellence and AP Kindness. In the book, Dr. Bruce Powell talks about the importance of crafting a school culture which not only prepares students academically, but which provides opportunities to actualize Jewish values through action.
In our school, we do this by recognizing a Mensch of the Week.
To be a Mensch, students are invited to go beyond the mundane of showing up for school, following instructions, participating, and executing assignments. They are taught that this place, this school, this synagogue is theirs and as such they should use it and treat it as their own. Within this ownership, they are invited to practice Kodesh moments, holy moments, that are special and which push against routine participation in school through chesed (kindness), rachamim (mercy), and tzdakah (justice).
Each week we all are on the lookout for these Kodesh moments, and we are seeing them in abundance. Students are choosing to let others go first, older students are tying the shoes of younger ones, they are washing dishes in cooking class, delivering latkes to the rabbi, handing out papers to go home, and inviting others to join in. In dance class one student took off her tap shoes and gave them to another student to try on because hers didn’t fit. Students are bringing snacks for each other, and they are returning lost water bottles and Rubic’s cubes.
When these actions are seen students and teachers post their observations on the bulletin board in our hallway, and every week we recognize at least one Mensch of the Week in assembly to the applause of all present. The Mench then selects a star to be added to our ceiling for all to see the chessed and kodesh that they shared.
