Seventh Grade Girls Navi

The seventh grade girls have just completed a marathon of Navi learning. In honor of the Yamim Noraim they worked with diligence and insight to learn the haftarah for the first day of Rosh Hashana- taken from our very text for this year, I Shmuel 1-2. This haftarah tells the story of Chana, Shmuel HaNavi's mother, and her mission to build a relationship with Hashem. Many of the girls went the extra step out of school to be in beit knesset to hear the haftarah and even engaged in meaningful discussions at their respective yom tov tables. The discussion points included ideas such as,

- Why do you think Chazal chose the story of Chana to be the haftarah of Rosh Hashana?

- What is the purpose of tefilla

- If we don’t get the thing that we davened for, does that mean that Hashem didn't hear our tefilla?

Through our study of Chana's story we learned how many of our halachot for shmoneh esrei directly model Chana's tefilla because she is seen as the ideal example of calling out to Hashem. Chana does not simply ask for something; she asks in order to give. This is what a true relationship is all about. 

Just hours before Yom Kippur, 7G1 had the opportunity to write their own bakashot for the coming year. They then added to their tefilla how they would use what they asked for in order to give back to Hashem should his answer be yes. Each girl then chose a special place in the beit knesset to share her tefilla with Hashem by modeling Chana's tefilla. 

May every tefilla bring us closer to Hashem.

Chag Sameach,

Morah Shira