Bringing their Social Studies lessons to life, the 7th grade spent a recent Friday exploring houses of worship of the three major Monotheistic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.  They met with religious leaders at each temple and church who shared with the students the basic tenants of the religion.

As 7th grade is the year many Jewish young people come of age with a Bar or Bat Mitzvah service, it so happened that one student was going to have her Bat Mitzvah that weekend.  As the students were looking at the Torah (the holy scripture), the Rabbi invited Sydney B. ’21 to read her Torah portion.  With encouragement and a blessing from several boys–Ethan B., Matthew W., and Bernie B.–who had already completed their Bar Mitzvahs, Sydney read from the Torah in front of her class.  This bringing together of the personal and the educational in front of one’s classmates was a powerful experience for all the students.