Hello and welcome back to my blog. Today I will tell you a little bit about what we learned in Jewish studies this term. Some things we learned about this term are:

1. How does life change once you reach the age of Bar/Bat Mitzvah?
2. Why are the tallit and tefillin important? (What purpose do they serve)
3. How does life change once you reach the age of Bar/Bat Mitzvah?

Lets start with how does your life change once you reach the age of Bar/Bat Mitzvah?

• When you turn 12/13, according to the torah you become a Jewish adult. Some things that change are: You become responsible for your own actions, you honor the elderly/wise community members, Giving tzedakah to the poor, Etc; you are also able to  participate in a minyan.

Now, why are the tallit and tefillin important? What purpose do they serve?

1. Tefillin= two square, black leather boxes (contain parchments of Torah verses). Attached to the boxes are leather straps, the two boxes represent the way in which we serve G-d.
2. The one on the head represents thought and the one on the arm represents action.
3. The tefillin is important because the three scrolls inside of the tefillin are very holy to the Jewish people.

1. The tallit is originally worn everyday by males.
2. After the destruction of the 2nd Temple a new tradition began where the Tallit was worn as a prayer shawl; typically made of wool or silk.

I think that the mystery of the chilazon (sea snail) is really interesting because nobody thought that it would be an animal until people researched it and found out it was a sea snail. They also thought it only appears every 70 years. But I still wonder why the tekhelet is so important to the Jewish people.

During this unit in jewish studies, we learned about most of the jewish life cycle, torah, names and family. Here are some things we learned about the torah and the life cycle.

• Abraham was 99 when he first got circumcised.
• You get circumcised when you are 8 days old, it can be postponed because of medical reasons.
• Getting circumcised is a symbol of a partnership between god and you.

Some other things we learned about was how to dissect part of the torah, and how to understand it.  We also learned about the pidyon haben which is a tradition that people do. people do it to redeem the firstborn of the sins of the golden calf that their ancestors did. The first born were traditionally considered a priestly class, but they lost that after the golden calf incident. You also must give five silver coins to the kohen or the amount of money five coins would cost.

Why are hebrew names important?

They are important because the Hebrew name is the channel by which life reaches you from above. boys are named at the brit milah and girls after the torah is read at the synagogue. They are also important because they are a special connection between you and your ancestors. The shalom zachar is a ceremony held for a boy. It is a ceremony that is normally very happy, you sing songs and thank god for the birth.

Here is a project that I made about my family.

Mishpacha project

• Some facts about my family is that we are ashkenazi
• My family originated from russia romania and some other places

If I could do this project again, I would change some of the colours of the writing. I would also add where my mom and dads parents and grandparents came from.