Becoming a Young Woman: Personal Identity in Mind, Body & Spirit
A seminar for young women
As a girl blossoms into young womanhood, she is confronted with a challenging, and sometimes confusing, mix of physical, spiritual, and social changes. Becoming a Young Woman guides adolescents as they struggle with these changes and helps them explore the Torah’s perspective on modesty and femininity, limits and responsibility, self-expression and creativity. Tal Torah teachers, specialists in teen education, encourage students to consider how the changes transpiring within affect both their inner world and their interpersonal relations. Through creative and engaging discussions, together we arrive at deeper understandings of the beauty of young womanhood.
This eight-week seminar includes:
• The Power of the Feminine: Creation, Renewal and Continuity
• Physical Maturation and the Menstrual Cycle
• Staying Healthy: That’s Torah Too!
• Respecting Myself: Clothing and Self-Image
• Understanding Humility: Recognizing My Strengths
• Peer Pressure: Discovering My Inner Voice
• The Mitzvot: On Authority, Limits and Responsibility
• Women and Mitzvot: Our Unique Role
Series offered to groups of teens or teens with their mothers:
Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof: This series is often the next step for TAL TORAH families following Bat Mitzvah. In this class, a young women’s place in the community and the broader world is addressed, helping her to define the values that she wants to embrace as her own, and the role that her Jewish identity plays in capturing it all. The “Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof” class allows mothers and daughters to come together once a week for eight weeks to study the importance that our tradition places on tzedakah and gemilut chasadim. This inspiring class culminates in the designing of a community service project and is a wonderful way for mothers and daughters to continue learning Torah together and give back to the community.
From Avraham to Ruth – The Dynamic of Chessed: The stories of Genesis teach us the great importance of chessed by concentrating on the personalities who acted with chessed throughout their lives. Following the example of the Torah, this course explores the acts of chessed in the lives of three of our ancestors: Avraham, the "founder" of chessed; Rivka who married into his family because of her chessed; and Ruth who acted with chessed and merited to join the people of Israel. As we study these Torah texts, we will see how chessed shaped the lives of these extraordinary men and women and learn how and why chessed forms the basis of a healthy society. This class offers the option of planning and doing a chessed project as a completion of the learning.
 |
Ve’ahavta Lereiacha Kamocha (Loving the Other as Yourself): This class explores the mitzvah of loving the other as yourself from different perspectives. Questions are raised: What does this mitzvah include? Who am I supposed to love? Am I still commanded to love the other even when the other doesn’t treat me as they should? Issues and conflicts are discussed in relation to loving others as oneself and the manner in which one loves oneself and still interacts safely and positively with friends and family. These questions are not exclusive to children, but also relate to adults. |
Kibud Horim (Honoring Parents): What does the mitzvah of honoring our parents really include? Why is its reward “long days”? Why was it placed in the ten commandments and yet in the group of commandments connected to Hashem? What happens if a parent tells a child to do something contradicting the Torah, or the values that the child believes in? Does the child have to honor a parent who acts badly toward them? All these questions and many more are discussed in this class through sources from the Torah and the commentators, the Midrashim and the Halacha. The nuances of honor and love, and honor and fear are discussed, as well as typical dilemmas from the lives of teens and their parents.
Ki HaAdam Eitz Hasadeh: In the writings of Tanach, we find many analogies that demonstrate how people have a lot in common with trees, fruit and plants! We can actually learn a lot from nature about ourselves, our relationships to others and to God. In Ki HaAdam Eitz Hasadeh, TAL TORAH explores issues such as the significance of our creation from the earth, making connections to our roots with branches spreading upward, the importance of “not wasting,” how faith develops and what the qualities of different fruits teach us. Presented annually before Tu B’Shvat, Ki HaAdam Eitz Hasadeh offers opportunities to discuss stories from Tanach, Midrash and Chasidut as well as learn mitzvot from the Torah and the Halacha. Not simply a class, this TAL TORAH annual program is a “growing” experience through Torah, drama, and art!
Women in Tanach: Tanach is filled with wonderful, inspiring role models for young women. Whether they are thoughtful as Hanna, beautiful as Rachel, soulful as Leah, strong and courageous as Yael, kind as Sara, full of initiative as Rivka or full of life and vision as Miriam, girls find some of their personality and some of their sense of destiny in these vibrant female figures from our early history.