For Tu BiShvat this year at Gesher Jewish Day School, we ran a succesful program to help our students take a closer look at nature. We brought nature inside the school following a clever plan from the book Let the Earth Teach You Torah.
Our school is set into a large property of woodland. We gathered many samples of tree branches, twigs, leaves and bark to the kids. Each one chose an item, and set to work examining it carefully. They wrote as detailed a description as they could, getting to know the item as a new friend.
In the Middle School, the students also ...
Garden season in Southern California is year round and every time I turn around another garden has popped up. Last week I helped IKAR, a spiritual community in Los Angeles, to put in their very own garden. A great company, Farmscape, donated beds, soil and automatic watering supplies to the cause. Neighborhood people and IKAR congregants helped with the building and schelping. It was a beautiful day and I was proud to be a part of it.
However, one thing that I truly learned from the experience is that while so many people are interested in getting their gardens ...
