Friday, April 1 is Matzah Mitzvah Shabbat
At the ECC instilling the values of mitzvot, tzedakah and tikun olam are integral to our program. We do what we can to engage the children in hands-on learning experiences to help teach them these concepts. For example, our Chanukah toy and our weekly tzedakah box coin collecting.
The ECC has always participated in The Passover Food Drive, which is now in its 39th year of helping those in need to celebrate Passover with dignity.
Our tzedakah on Friday, April 1 will be allocated specifically to Matzah Mitzvah.
There are so many opportunities to foster a sense of Jewish identity throughout the year. We are experiencing that with the holiday of Purim. Purim is a holiday marked by joyous activities. The children are experiencing this holiday in a wide variety of activities; dressing up, holiday crafts, giving food to those in need, hearing the Purim story, and many more classroom experiences.
Through these fun-filled activities, we fulfill the four Mitzvot of Purim.
| Mitzvot | How we fulfill the Mitzvot at the ECC |
| 1. Sending gifts to friends and family (Mishloach Manot) | Preparing Mishloach Manot |
| 2. Listening to the Megillah | Telling the story |
| 3. Participating in the Purim feast | Eating hamentashen |
| 4. Sending gifts to the poor. | Donating our Wacky Mac graggers to the Food Bank |
Kita Gimel was privileged to have Adrienne Dubb as a classroom volunteer, lovingly referred to as Nonni. We first met Adrienne as a grandmother of a student. We at the ECC are so grateful for her hard work! We thank Adrienne for her time, patience, expertise, amazing generosity and dedication. Adrienne will be fulfilling her grandmother’s duties as she awaits the arrival of a grandchild. We wish her and her family well and we will miss her very much. We look forward to welcoming her back to the ECC in the future.
Rabbi Bill S. Tepper
While pursuing my education degree in the late 1980s I spent several two-week sessions as a student teacher in various Greater Toronto Area high schools. Among my challenges, during the first few days in particular, was locating the classrooms where I was to teach. I always gave myself a head start. Alas…my two-week term of service ended just when I had successfully learned to navigate my way through the building!
As a rabbi, resource person and participant in Holy Blossom’s Youth Education Center [YEC] classes, I am again being called on to apply navigational skills, though in a quite different manner than if I were in a brick-and-mortar institution. As I write these words, the YEC is – out of concern for student and teacher health – taking place via ZOOM. Prior to the start of our Sunday morning and Monday evening classes, I receive by email the ZOOM links for each grade level. Over the next two hours, I travel through cyberspace from one class to the next, greeting students and teachers, sharing ideas, teaching our traditions, and reading stories. Together, we endeavour to experience our learning in as interactive and dynamic as possible, students being encouraged to employ the virtual ‘raised hand’ signal to speak or contribute their thoughts by way of the Chat Box. On Sundays, during the final thirty minutes of learning, all students and teachers ‘assemble’ in one [cyber] location to enjoy and lend their spirits to an upbeat t’fillah that incorporates music, song, prayer, blessing and more stories.
At YEC, our gifted teachers and enthusiastic students of Jewish learning persevere in navigating the challenges posed by the pandemic. And as Jews, for whom ongoing learning – of both the young and younger – is imperative, all are to be praised for their enthusiasm and ingenuity. It may not be the in-person nor brick-and-mortar mode of learning we once took for granted. But when it comes to navigating our cyber classrooms there’s a good deal to be proud of, all the same.
We are delighted to welcome and introduce to the congregation, our new Adult Education Coordinator, Sharoni Sibony.
Sharoni is an experienced educator and life-long learner across multiple disciplines, including Jewish Studies, Jewish Literature and local Toronto history. She has an impressive background in Jewish communal work at the managerial and directorial levels with such organizations as Limmud, Kolel at the Prosserman Centre, and Miles Nadal JCC, where she managed the Jewish Life Department and ran the Downtown Jewish Community Council.
Sharoni also is a self-professed ‘culture-vulture’ and culture-maker. She spent the first year of the pandemic learning Talmud at Yeshivat Maharat and was appointed a Fellow at the ATIQ Jewish maker’s Institute, an Applied Arts Yeshiva. In the second year of the Pandemic, she was artist-in-residence at Miles Nadal during Jewish Disability, Awareness, Accessibility and Inclusion Month. And, for the past decade, she has worked as a tour guide with the Ontario Jewish Archives, Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre!
Sharoni brings to Holy Blossom her wide range of knowledge, experience and expertise in organizational management and educational programming, her tremendous networking skills, and deep engagement within the Jewish Community life. As well she has tremendous enthusiasm and a fresh perspective that already have begun to breathe new life into our Adult Education program and offerings.
We are very fortunate to have Sharoni on board with us, and are so looking forward to working and learning with her!
Your Adult Education Committee,
Gillian Helfield, Chair
Cynthia Good
Les Rothschild
Rabbi Yael Splansky
I live in Toronto but participate in Jewish communities in many places. In addition to this exciting new role at HBT, I will be teaching for the Ryerson LIFE Institute and the Morris Winchevsky School this year and will begin the Jewish Studio Project’s Creative Facilitator Training program in October.
For me, study is a devotional practice and a lifelong endeavour and I am delighted to join the Holy Blossom Temple team, where lifelong learning is also a central value. Holy Blossom has a reputation for excellence and I look forward to working with the community to bring the best and most needed voices forward, to shine a spotlight on the accomplishments of our members, and to create dynamic programs at the intersection of tradition and modernity.
By: Lisa Isen Baumal
This week I returned from two weeks at Camp George, serving as part of the educational faculty. What a gift to be able to experience the return to camp for 400 campers and staff after 2 years. The happiness and joy were palpable all over camp. To watch groups of campers and staff laughing together, hugging each other, singing together in outdoor t’fillah, and engaged in the wide variety of activities that camp offers were such a welcome sight. To be able to be together in community was truly a Shehecheyanu experience.
During my time at camp, the oldest campers examined the theme of Resilience through their Project Barak (Jewish education) periods. We reflected on our own experiences over the past 18 months, and the transition that we have experienced, both as individuals and as a community, from isolation and being apart, to being back together in camp, as a community. To honour and mark this transition, Barak campers each wrote a prayer, which we incorporated into a Mikveh experience. Here is a part of what the campers collectively wrote:
I am thankful for my friends and for camp George. Thank-you God for the friendships I’ve made, and to be able to join together at camp after a very different year. I am grateful to be with my camp family at Maple Lake and to be able to spend quality time with them.
I acknowledge the progress I have made throughout quarantine and how I never gave up by focusing on the brighter future. I hope I can come out of my comfort zone.
I am thankful for the independence that I have at camp.
I am thankful for the opportunities I am given and the love and support I receive.
Praised are you Adonai for allowing us to finally come to camp.
I am grateful to be at camp and for the light at the end of the tunnel over this past year.
Thank you God for giving me this opportunity to come to camp, and for keeping me happy.
Praised be you Adonai for allowing me to reconnect with my friends at camp, letting me grow as a person and finding my true friends.
Amen
I am always inspired by our youth and watching campers and staff reunite, after 18 months of pandemic life was in fact inspiring. To participate in the transition from being apart to being back together, and to witness the strengthening of the kehillah kedoshah that is Camp George.
The ECC continues to remain open and it was so nice to welcome staff and students back to school. We have many more holidays and celebrations to enjoy as well as many projects, exciting learning opportunities in the months ahead. With a relatively mild January, we are enjoying outdoor play and learning all about winter.
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Founded in 1856, Holy Blossom Temple is Toronto’s first synagogue with a rich history of tradition and modernity in our religious and spiritual expression.