Am Yisrael Congregation's School of Jewish Studies will be cutting edge with Tzedakah by collaborating with inspiring and innovative organizations. We will be using core principals of Judaism in inspiring relevant ways for a new generation of learners. For our pre-B'nai Mitzvah students, we will attempt to inspire them to choose causes to give portions of their gifts to worthy causes. Instead of children creating t-shirts that say "Moshe's Bar Mitzvah: June 19, 2012" we hope to inspire families to use the NU Campaign model to give t-shirts with the names of JChoice, Am Yisrael Congregation, the iCenter and NU Campaign on the back of the neck and the mission statement of the organization's key attributes on the front of the t-shirts.
When my seven year old son plays his DSi, he enters an alternative universe. Before attending iCamp and meeting Global Kids' Barry Joseph, I felt guilty that I let him play "Bowser's Inside Story." After being inspired by Barry Joseph's presentation and learning that Howard Gardner of Harvard University considers "gaming" to be one of the new Multiple Intelligences, this guilt has quickly absolved. My son is participating in higher level thinking, learning how to problem solve and learning a lot about the world and how it works through his DSi game.
My friend and colleague Josh Troderman, the CEO of JChoice is going to be working with all 120 students at my synagogue in Northfield, Illinois, Am Yisrael Congregation. He will be flying out from Boston, and will be in Chicago on Sunday, October 23rd and Monday, October 24th. We will be joining forces with David Kramer from the NU Campaign to teach our students about causes, with "gaming" as a key component of the curriculum. In part, using "Grow a Game" cards, we will teach our students about key causes, with Jewish values, tzedakah and tikkun olam at the core.
We are in the midst of conversations with our local Federation to get suggestions from them for local causes in the Chicago area that our students should be supporting. Creating a synergy between JChoice, the local JUF, Am Yisrael, the iCenter and the NU Campaign is our goal. We hope that this example will set an example for other synagogues and communities throughout the country and the world. The fact that David Kramer has connections with 30 countries is very exciting and could lead to a phenomenal model for bringing the "mitzvah" back into Bar and Bat Mitzvah and into giving tzedakah as a whole, world-wide.
