By our Tiferet Segel: Rabbi Jody Cook, Director of Education at Sinai Temple in Champaign, IL and Rabbi Binah Wing, Rabbi at Temple Beth-El in Rockford, IL

Tiferet Aleph is an eidah (unit) for 6-8 graders who are interested in an art intensive program at OSRUI.  Tiferet chanichim (campers) can choose to be in one of five studios – Visual Arts, Drama, Digital Arts, Dance and Music.  The limmud (learning) theme for Tiferet, is Bereshit Rabbah – the study of the stories from the book of Genesis.  Moomchim (specialists) planned lessons for their studio groups that wove the stories from the beginning of the Torah into different projects.  Each day, chanichim in Tiferet spend two blocks of time in Studio where they learn and create according to their interests. During studio time, they have opportunities to create, perform and study together.  We thought that we would give a summary of each studio.

Visual Arts:  Over the past several weeks, chanichim have been working on expressing the transitions that take place between the days of creation.  The Torah text tells us what God created each day and the chanichim are creating visual midrash (storytelling) to explain the transitions.  They are working on creating art on unique shapes.

Drama:  As part of the final performance, Drama Studio madrichim presented four stories from Genesis.  After working as a large group to interpret the four stories, the chanichim divided into smaller groups and created scripts based on the narrative of their choice.  The scripts were creative interpretations of the Torah text and the commentaries that campers made on them.  A perfect example of creating midrash!

Digital Arts:  For one of the Digital projects, campers created digital representations based on verses of Torah from the creation story.  Chanichim designed pictures of their verse and layered images to create movement.  In addition to this, the Digital Studio produces a weekly video for OSRUI.

Dance:  In Dance Studio, the chanichim have explored different pieces of biblical text through movement.  They worked on imitating animal movements while learning about Noah’s Ark, created a group dance after learning the story of the Tower of Babel and were given the challenge of dancing while limiting movement of one hip to understand how Jacob’s mobility was limited after his struggle with an angel.  For their final performance, the chanichim will perform short individual pieces that are based on their interpretation of the transition from chaos to order.

Music:  Musicians have experimented with Biblical stories that involve tension.  They have composed music based on the complicated relationships in the Abraham/Sarah/Hagar narrative.  At the Day in the Park, they explored the challenge of musical communication using the story of the Tower of Babel.  They also had an interesting session reflecting musically on the feelings of Joseph’s 11 brothers.

It has been an incredible and interesting session for Tiferet!