Schaarai Zedek Religious School’s
Pre-K through 2nd Grade Home Unit
V’ahavta L’reiacha Kamocha
Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
In our first video, Rabbi Simon welcomes your family and introduces our value. And before we think about loving our neighbor, we have to think about what it means to love ourselves. Make sure you make it to the song – you don’t want to miss it!
Concluding Questions: Why is it important to love yourself? What are things we can do in our family to make sure we each are taking time to show love to ourselves?
In our second video, Rabbi Weiss helps us begin to explore what treating those around us in the way we want to be treated can mean in some real scenarios. Get ready to act a little bit!
Concluding Questions: Has your family had scenarios like these recently? Have there been times where it was difficult to love another as ourselves? If you could pause and rewind, are there any things you’d do differently?
Loving your neighbor also means getting to know your neighbor and trying to understand those who are different from you. During our Zoom session, Lindsey shared the book The Name Jar. If you missed it or want to hear it again, the video is below.
Many of you either received our craft kit or picked it up from temple (if not, you can still get yours!). In this kit are the materials to create a “Good Neighbor Jar.” Though you can use our kit, you can also create this as a family with a cup and pieces of paper.
Inside the jar, there are ways that we can help our neighbors and become better citizens. As a family, go through the suggestions (or write your own) and talk about how each of these can help to make the world a better place.
Some of the suggestions in the kit provided are easy for some people (“Look others in the eye and smile at them”) while others may take more time or practice (“Assume good will and forgive others if they hurt you by mistake”). As you talk about these ideas, think of how others treat you and who you can see performing any of these actions. How can you show them the same kindness and respect?
Thank you so much for going on this journey with us as we explored what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves! If you would like to continue the conversation with us, please e-mail Rabbi Simon at jsimon@zedek.org and he will set up a time to join you and perhaps a few other families to chat together.
Parents’ Bonus
The Philosopher Martin Buber talks about how we find God when we truly love another – not because of what we may gain from him/her but just for the purpose of loving. This, for Buber, is called an I-Thou relationship. The following article challenges us to think about how loving our children goes beyond the love we feel for anyone else and can be an expression of the way in which we love God. If you enjoy the article, you may want to consider reading Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. Rabbi Simon and Lindsey will be leading discussions based on the book in the Spring.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-torch/i-thou-parenting/
https://danyaruttenberg.net/books/nurture-the-wow