Shaare Emeth Religious School’s 8th-10th Grade Program
Affirming Your Jewish Identity
We believe that Jewish learning is a lifelong journey that should grow with you. So, hereâs the big question: what comes after bâmitzvah at Shaare Emeth? The journey continues in Tikkun! Imagine your teenâŚ
- Learning about food justice, then getting to work the next week on making grocery packages at a food pantry and harvesting at an urban farm to feed those in need.
- Spending the morning at church with their rabbis and friends to experience the shared values and diverse traditions of their Christian neighbors.
- Finding their own connections between the text of the Torah, rabbinic commentaries, and the current conversation about environmental justice and caring for the earth.
We hope all of this and so much more speaks to you (and your teens) as you plan for their 8th-10th Grade experience. Our goal is to meet our teens where they are. We know their lives have been impacted in so many ways by COVID-19, the rise in antisemitism, pressure and anxiety from school, and so much more. Participating in Tikkun is our way of responding to their needs and providing a space for actively developing Jewish community and identity.
The Tikkun Vision Statement
Members of the Tikkun program at Shaare Emeth will discover a community of peers and trusted mentors with whom they will…
Tikkun will meet weekly on Sundays from 11 a.m.â12:30 p.m. Each year of this three-year journey builds on the others, but it’s never too late to join.
Our Themes Are:
Each year also has some shared components that weave together including built-in community meeting time each week (with food of course!), annual group travel locally or to other cities, and hands-on opportunities to learn Jewish “life skills” for holidays and mitzvot.
While our Tikkun program spans 8th, 9th, and 10th grades, each is unique. Use the tabs above to explore more about the individual, grade-level programs in depth.
Mizvah Corps
Our 8th grade students have the opportunity to be a part of a hands-on, service-learning experience that meets weekly on Sunday mornings.
Our year is dedicated to social justice, a core value of Reform Judaism and at the heart of who Shaare Emeth is as a community. For each unit, we focus on specific social justice themes, including poverty and hunger, racial justice, inclusion, and more. After our students gain a strong foundation in the issues, including a study of Jewish texts and values, they move into action to create change about the issues they are studying. We donât just talk about hungerâwe help our local food pantry prep for the winter months. Along with each interactive experience, we reflect and help our students find the lessons for their own lives.
We hope that this experience gives our 8thâŻgrade teens a broader perspective on the need to pursue justice and a strong belief that every person can make a difference.
Reform Jewish Values (RJV)
The 9th Grade invites our students to engage with the wider community and society around them by looking at social justice issues through a Jewish lens.
They begin their journey by defining Reform Judaism, its principles, and exploring the history of the movement. We then find the issues that our teens care about all over the spectrum, including climate justice, gender equity, gun violence, and more. Participants have the opportunity to look at a wide variety of issues from a Jewish perspective, studying ancient and modern texts together. They also have the chance to engage in debate and wrestle with these texts to understand their own beliefs better. Our program becomes a place for questioning what is and imagining what could be.
Confirmation | Kabbalat Torah
In 10th Grade, our students are asking big questions about who they want to be in the world and what they believe in. We capture that energy as we spend the year exploring what Jews believe. Our participants start by learning about the various movements and forms of Judaism and what it means to be a Reform Jew. With that foundation, they spend some time looking at different Jewish theologies to help them articulate what they believe (or what they do not believe) about God and spiritual matters.
As the year progresses, we widen our lens as students go on a multifaith journey. Grounded in Jewish ideas and values, they look outward at other religious groups within our community, including Christianity of all stripes, Islam, Hinduism, and more. They have the chance to hear from local faith leaders, visit houses of worship in St. Louis, and share their reflections with one another.
We hope this year immerses them in questions of identity, faith, personal choice, and more to prepare them for the next steps in their journey.
In the spring of their 10th Grade year, our Confirmation participants inspire the entire congregation by participating in their Confirmation service. The service is planned, written, and created by the class in partnership with our Clergy and Worship team. Students have the chance to share what they have learned over the years and mark the end of this phase of their formal Jewish learning. Students continually speak about how Confirmation is one of the highlights of their Jewish educational journey at Shaare Emeth, and those memories last a lifetime.
