A Shavuot Feast!

So even though it's been awhile, I thought I'd share about last Friday's Tel Aviv Shavuot feast! In my life I have never really known much about or celebrated Shavuot until I found myself in Venice wondering around a deserted Jewish quarter on Shavuot two years ago.  When I knocked on the door of the Synagogue I was confused on why it was closed. A religious man opened the door from the restaurant next-door labeled "Kosher Pizza" and asked me if I was Jewish. I saw that it was a Chabad house, an organization I was familiar with, and my friend and I replied yes and went on in. Inside there were Jews from all over the world studying Torah and eating Italian pizza and cheesecake. It was a feast!  We  ate and studied together and discovered we knew many people in common through Brandeis. This was a meaningful Shavuot experience to me and a story that I shared with the Tel Aviv class.

 Since Israel is the land of "MILK and honey" we celebrate Shavuot by eating dairy products. We made our own pizza and the sunshine class shared their cheesecake with us. We sat around the table and shared memories of the stories from the Torah we had learned about throughout the year. Together the class pieced together both the story of Purim and Passover. It was great to see how many details they remember! I also loved observing how one child would remember something that would trigger another memory for someone else. It was truly a group learning experience. Last but not least, Ezra proudly shared the story of Jonah, one that he knows well because of his own brother named Jonah.  
Through our sharing of sorties both past and present and our delicious homemade dairy treats I felt like we were true Torah Scholars and that meaningful Shavout experiences can be found everywhere, even in a four year old's pre-school classroom.