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=Welcome to the Yavneh Tefil﻿ la Wiki!=

We had a shuir yesterday from Rebbetzin Peshi Neuburger in connection with our year-long theme of Tefilah. As is good educational practice, we would like to pose some questions as a summarizer for the lesson. It helps to cement the ideas and assists us in reflecting on the lesson.

Please offer your responses on the discussion board.

1. Write 2 things that you thought were the most interesting about the lesson. 2. Share 1 thing that you would try to use in your tefilah class 3. What did you think Rebbetzin Neuburger meant by "trying to do too much you do nothing" refering to tefilah instruction? How will this influence your tefilah class in the future.

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This wiki will serve as a "conference room" for our discussions about Tefilla that will serve as a theme for Professional Development throughout the 2010-2011/תשע"א school year.

This wiki will be useful for:
 * Posting of materials - articles of interest, videos, and other thought-provoking materials will be placed on the wiki during the year.
 * Ongoing discussion

For starters, please consider the following quote from an article about tefilla by Rabbi Tzvi Grumet. On the discussion board, please offer any thoughts that you may have to the questions written below the citation. You may respond to comments written by your colleagues - that's how we get a discussion going!

Tefilla is but one component of an entire informal educational experience. Thus, while we may think that we are observing a successful tefilla program, we may really be witnessing the cumulative effect of an entire approach. This brings us to our first critical component. In its very nature tefilla is an experience, not a cognitive, intellectual process. When we enter a beit kenesset we do so to daven, not to study the tefillot. Not that studying tefilla is unimportant, but it cannot be confused with davening. To effectively bring about affective change, a complete learning environment must be created (this is, essentially, what the Shabbaton does).

Environments are created on a school-wide basis, often in non-obvious ways. The subtle messages that are conveyed (whether willingly or not) are sensed by the students. The priority given to tefilla is evident by the resources that the school is willing to devote to it.

1) What are the components that are included in a successful program of tefilla education? 2) Describe and/or evaluate what is created for tefilla in your experiences at Yavneh.



This is a short section from a much longer article on teaching tefilla by Rabbi Jay Goldmintz, Headmaster of the Ramaz Upper School:

When we approach teaching a new class we must always ask ourselves: What are our goals? Prayer education should be no different. These goals will have implications for what and how we approach our subject and our students. What, then, are the goals for morning minyan? One might be tempted to say, “to create an atmosphere where students can daven with kavanah.” But what does this actually mean?

How would you answer Rabbi Goldmintz's question? Please post a response to the discussion board, and feel free to respond to posts already made by your colleagues.

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This is a slideshow that accompanied a webcast at the Lookstein Center for Jewish Education at Bar-Ilan. The slideshow can be viewed on this page. The link below will take you to the Lookstein Center page where you will be able to find a link to the mp3 of the class. media type="custom" key="8083018" Audio accompanying this slideshow

Please take a moment or two to offe your thoughts on the discussion board to the following two questions:

1) In the presentation, the speaker defines Jewish prayer. Do you agree with his definitions? Would you add anything? Would you take anything away from his list?

2) What are your thoughts about the poetry of tefilla? To the extent that tefilla is a form of peotry, how does that enhance our prayer experience? How can we convey that to our students?