"Smiles and Frowns" - The communal beginning to our Zman Kadosh each morning.
The "PBL Beit Midrash" at The Idea School celebrated the concept of Shivim Panim La’Torah, the seventy unique perspectives that coexist within Torah. We believe that nurturing student perspectives and building a capacity to honor multiple narratives allow for the development and beautification of Torah. Our program was designed to engage students from the full spectrum of Jewish backgrounds.
Specifically, our Judaic Studies program was divided between two core experiences: Inquiry Beit Midrash (IBM) and Beit Midrash. In IBM, students exercised their curiosity, wonders, and passions alongside close readings of Jewish texts. The intersection between those personal wonders and ancient texts took form in a variety of artistic mediums, providing greater relevance and personal connection to the students. In Beit Midrash, each semester was focused on a single area of Jewish content, either Tanach, Torah She’bal Peh, Halacha, or Jewish History. The study and discussion of that Jewish content became further relevant and meaningful through its culmination in a compelling project that we built or a societal problem that we aimed to solve. Those projects were then shared outwards with our community through our Exhibitions of Learning, which took place twice a year. Images from some of those projects can be seen below.