Rabbi Andrew Klein |
Our rabbi Have you ever spent 4 days and nights with 300 high school students, traveling through security, visiting national monuments and museums, studying how our legislative process works, making presentations to Legislative Aides in your Senators' and Representative's offices? If not - you don't know how much fun you're missing! From January 29 th - February 1 st , I was privileged to accompany 9 of our Confirmation students on just such a trip to Washington DC. We joined other high school students and chaperones from all across the country for the RAC's (Religious Action Center's) L'Taken High School Seminar, an intensive four-day study retreat in Washington, DC, focusing on Jewish values and social justice. L'Taken is a Hebrew word meaning "to repair," and learning another way to repair the world is exactly what our students did. The main goal of the weekend was for them to learn how to express their political view points to their elected officials and become effective advocates for their beliefs. They visited Senator Reed's, Senator Whitehouse's, and Congressman Kennedy's offices, where they each made a presentation to legislative aides on their views concerning current legislative bills about which they felt passionate. In addition, our THB students were asked to lead Shabbat morning services for the entire conference, and they said a resounding "YES!" They collected readings for the service which expressed their views on our mandate to work toward social justice, they lead prayers, and two of our students - Amy Entin and Melanie Chitwood - chanted Torah.
To learn more about Rabbi Klein and to read his bio, click here. Temple Habonim |
My heart was filled with pride as I watched our kids leading worship, being adventurous and making new friends, engaging each other at a deeper level, and really looking out for each other as "family." As exhausted as we all were on the way home (especially after being out of our rooms for two hours late Sunday night for two different fire alarms!), we all knew we had had a meaningful, fun, and life changing experience. Please look further on in our website for pictures of the trip and the students' responses.