Grade 10
RAC Trip: (open to 10th Grade and if extra space is available, 11th & 12th grade)
Trip Date:
The RAC L'Taken Social Justice Seminar is an intensive four-day study kallah in Washington, DC, focusing on Jewish values and social justice. (L’taken olam b’malchut Shaddai means to repair the world under the realm of the Eternal.) Every year more 1,500 Jewish teens from across the country participate in this exciting event. This unique opportunity enables students to hear from experts both inside and outside the Jewish community. The seminar includes an opportunity for students to lobby on Capitol Hill, tour the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, participate in Havdalah services at one of the memorials, and visit Georgetown.
Click here for the enrollment form
Confirming Our Faith
At Temple Isaiah, the tenth grade year is filled with exciting experiences and milestone events. The tenth graders spend their year learning with our Rabbis on Tuesday nights in addition to participating in many life-changing programs. The main components of the tenth grade experience include: community building, learning with the Rabbis, our annual trip to the Religious Action Center (RAC) in Washington, DC, the Confirmation experience, and the summer in Israel! All of these experiences serve as benchmarks for continued growth and development of Jewish identity and values as well as allowing our tenth graders to openly confirm their commitment to living Jewish lives.
Confirmation
Early Reform rabbis created the ceremony of Confirmation to provide young people an opportunity to "confirm" their faith as Jews and to assume a rightful role in the Jewish community. Just as the Jewish people at Sinai spoke their acceptance of Judaism, so our children are called upon to come before their God, their families, and their congregation to say: "Based upon what I understand Judaism to be and upon what it means to me, I am willing to take my place today among the countless generations that have gone before me. I am willing to declare my acceptance, my confirmation of my Judaism." At Temple Isaiah, our teens become confirmands on Erev Shavuot of their 10th grade year.
Israel travel
Teen summer programs in Israel are recognized not only as spectacular opportunities for fun and friendship but as defining and transforming Jewish growth experiences as well. Studies show the formative high school years are a powerful time to visit Israel with other teens, an experience that forges a lifelong bond to Israel and the Jewish people.
Visit www.nftyisrael.org for more information on Israel travel.
10th Grade Core Classes:
Comparative Judaism, Comparative Religion (Trimester 1)
Teacher:
Our personal perspectives on religion almost always reflect the experience we have had with our own particular religious group. Few of us know much about or even think about how others approach the religious identity, and their understanding of God and their place in the world. We will explore not only other streams of Judaism, but other religions and faiths, primarily by interacting with representatives of those communities (including Orthodox, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Judaism, liberal Protestantism, evangelical Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, and Islam). An open, yet critical mind and willingness to engage and explore with others required!
God-Talk: Jewish Theology Today (Trimester 2)
Teacher:
Did you know that in the Torah there are over 30 names for God? Since the earliest days of our religion, Jews have been struggling to understand and relate to God. Asking questions such as: Can we ever really know God? Does one have to believe in God to be Jewish? Do our prayers make a difference? If God is all good, then why is there evil in the world? These are the questions that Jewish thinkers have been contemplating for centuries. Now it is our turn to wrestle with theology. In this class, students will explore many of the teachings from Jewish tradition about God and search out their own beliefs and understandings about the existence and impact of God in our world.
“Justice, Justice, you shall pursue” (Trimester 3)
Teachers:
In this class the students will grapple with Judaism’s ancient texts and confront society’s contemporary dilemmas. Through discussion and practice, individually and as a class, students will spend the semester engaged in God’s work of social justice, and hopefully come to understand it as such. This class will start with the annual 10th grade trip to Washington DC on the L’taken Social Justice Seminar with the Religious Action Center (RAC).
