Building Towers and Building Community

“If, as one people with one language for all, this is how they have begun to act, then nothing that they may propose to do will be out of their reach.” G-d said this about humanity as they were building the Tower of Babel. Here at Masa, I believe we are coming together to build some things that are more wonderful than a single tower meant to reach the heavens. We’re building community, connections, and hopefully a better world.

This Sunday, Rabbi Brent joined us and led the morning prayers, and then we had a snack while Danielle and Wendy read the story of the Tower of Babel in Hebrew and in English. Some of our students were inspired by the story to build their own towers as well!

We moved on to learning, where students of all ages discussed the different meanings of the Tower, and some of them even got the chance to build towers of their own in class--without being able to speak to each other! It’s a testament to the community we’ve build that the third through fifth grade students didn’t need to speak in order to cooperate on a project!

The kindergarten through second grade students embarked on the year-long process of creating items for their Shabbat bags. Don’t worry if your child was absent on the first day, as they will get plenty of chances to work on their bag over the coming weeks.

This week, we will have Friday Masa at 4, Stories with Rabbi Brent at 5, Mini Minyan at 5:30, Potluck at 6, and Friday night services at 7. I hope to see you there!

On Sunday, the third through seventh grade students will begin a sixteen session course on Mindfulness, led by Rob Lieblein. Each session will be just fifteen minutes, and the students will hopefully gain some good mindfulness skills over the coming weeks. The youngest students will continue working on items for their Shabbat bags. This week, we are focusing on tzedakah boxes and on giving tzedakah.

This week’s journal topic will be: How do you act when you feel grateful? What are some of the things that you do? What are some of the other feelings you have? Do you like the person you are when you feel grateful for something?