We could not ask a better perek to start our learning of Sefer Shmuel. It just so happens to be the haftarah for the first day of Rosh Hashana. 7G has been pulling meaningful lessons, halachot (as we saw in the gemara in Brachot 31b) and themes from the inspiring story of Chana. Most notably, we saw how when Chana asks Hashem for something, she does so in the context of how being given what she is asking for will facilitate her building a relationship with Hashem. While the answer to our bakashot may often be "no," (as we saw in the moving story of Nachshon Wachsman), every communication we have with Hashem is an opportunity for us to build our relationship with him.
Following Chana's model, each student went into the Beit Knesset (the closest thing Yeshivat Noam has to a Mishkan until Morah Malki's 6th graders build one) and chose a place to daven that most spoke to her. Each student did her best to speak truly from the heart, as by Chana, "הִיא מְדַבֶּרֶת עַל לִבָּהּ." They spoke loud enough so that they could each hear their own tefilla but not too loud that it could disturb another davener nearby- just like Chana, "רַק שְׂפָתֶיהָ נָּעוֹת, וְקוֹלָהּ לֹא יִשָּׁמֵעַ." We were careful to model our bakashot, requests, to Hashem after what Chana did in our perek. Just like she went beyond simply asking Hashem for something, so to, we asked Hashem for things we wanted most within the context of how it could help us achieve a greater closeness with him.
We hope that by modeling our own tefilla after that of Chana, we too can be worthy of building inspiring relationships with Hashem.
