NTHC Religious School Report (from Dec 2025)

NTHC Religious School Report to the Congregation

Semester One Wrap Up: September-December 2025 (Tishrei-Kislev 5786)

Our Underlying Philosophy about Jewish Education: Learning as a Way of Living

At its core, Jewish education is not merely about the transmission of information, but about the cultivation of a way of life informed by the wisdom of the past 4,000-5,000 years of our people. From our earliest rabbinic sources, learning is understood as the foundation upon which Jewish continuity, ethical responsibility, and spiritual vitality rest. The Mishnah teaches, “Talmud Torah k’neged kulam” — the study of Torah is equal to all other mitzvot combined (Pirkei Avot 1:2). This is not because learning is an abstract ideal, but because it shapes how we act, how we relate to one another, and how we understand our place in the world. Nor is this only about the rigor of studying Torah texts in a literal fashion, but so much more about learning in a Jewish context, writ large.  Jewish education seeks to form people who can live with intention, compassion, curiosity, and courage — individuals who know how to ask good questions, wrestle with complexity, and bring holiness into ordinary moments.  In our community, we strive to create positive Jewish experiences in a positive Jewish environment and to raise young Jews with whom we want to share the Earth.

The Torah itself frames education as a relational and embodied process. “You shall teach these words diligently to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the way, when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Learning is meant to accompany us everywhere — in our homes, in our travels, in our cycles of rest and renewal and growth. Jewish education, therefore, is not confined to a classroom alone. It is meant to illuminate lived experience, shaping how we celebrate time, build community, respond to challenge, and cultivate joy.

From Fear to Reconnection: Our Post-COVID Educational Arc of the Past Few Years

Over the past several years, Jewish education — like so much of communal life — has been shaped by the long shadow of COVID. In those early seasons, fear, disruption, and isolation required us to focus first on safety and survival. Jewish wisdom understands this instinct deeply: pikuach nefesh, the preservation of life, overrides almost every other commandment (Yoma 85b). Protecting one another was itself a sacred act.

As we slowly emerge from that period, however, Jewish tradition urges us not to remain frozen in fear. “Choose life,” the Torah commands — not only biological survival, but a life of meaning, relationship, and blessing (Deuteronomy 30:19). In the wake of prolonged disconnection, our educational vision has become increasingly intentional about restoring what was most diminished: joy, the values that inform our lives, explorations of embodied practice, and a sense of belonging, especially for our younger members. For many of them, we are rebuilding from scratch and, step by step, we are building Jewish learning as something warm, relational, and shared — rooted not only in knowledge, but in trust and presence. The ability to have meaningful relationships with other Jewish children was hampered by COVID. The children young enough to be a part of our religious school now were significantly impacted at a critical developmental time and rebuilding from that is a slow but steady process and the typical, long tested curriculum has needed to be altered.

Joy, Practice, and Place: Jewish Wisdom in the Tahoe Basin

Throughout the past few years, our evolving curriculum reflects a conscious turn toward integrating Jewish joy, Jewish values, and community-building with Jewish practice, so that learning speaks directly to the lives our students are living here in the Tahoe Basin. The sages remind us, “It is not study that is the essence, but action” (Pirkei Avot 1:17). Learning must lead somewhere — it must shape how we show up for one another, how we mark time, how we respond to beauty and challenge, and how we build resilient, caring communities. It is experiential. Judaism has always been a tradition that adapts wisdom to place. Whether in the desert, the city, or the mountains, Jewish life asks: How do we sanctify the world as it is? By grounding Jewish learning in ritual, seasonal rhythms, storytelling, prayer, and ethical reflection, we invite students to explore their own lives — family, friendship, fear, gratitude, courage — through the lens of Jewish wisdom. Joy (simcha) is not treated as an add-on, but as a religious value in its own right; as the Psalmist says, “Serve the Eternal with joy.” (Psalm 100:2)

Post-Covid, Jewish education becomes a bridge — between ancient texts and contemporary lives, between inherited tradition and lived experience, between individual growth and communal responsibility. Our goal is not only that students know Judaism, but that they experience it as something that helps them live more fully, lovingly, and wisely — right here, in this place, at this moment in time.

As time moves us forward, further and further away from the emotional and spiritual challenges from Covid, our curriculum this year gently returns to one that grounds our students in the traditions, customs, practices, and Hebrew skills that we have seen in pre-pandemic years. Below is a summary of our learning journey this past semester:

Overview: 

Our Guiding Question for the Year: How do we celebrate in Judaism?

Over the course of the fall semester, students entered Jewish life through time, story, ritual, and relationship. Each month layered new skills and understandings onto what came before, helping learners experience Judaism not only as something to study, but as something to live, practice, and carry home.

September: Beginning the Year with Intention

The year began, appropriately, with beginnings. Through Rosh HaShanah and the High Holidays, students were invited into the Jewish understanding of time as sacred, cyclical, and filled with possibility. As they crafted pomegranates — cutting, shaping, and assembling each piece — they learned that Jewish symbols are never only decorative. A pomegranate holds many meanings at once: abundance, sweetness, the seeds for mitzvot, and hope for the year ahead.

Hebrew learning was woven directly into this experience. Students practiced letters not in isolation, but as part of forming words that mattered — placing each letter in the correct right-to-left order and discovering that language itself carries a worldview. On the reverse side of their creations, students wrote personal hopes and blessings, linking ritual language with inner reflection. 

The stories of Creation from our sacred text framed the moment: just as the world is shaped day by day, so too, is a year, a community, and a person. The semester opened with a sense of belonging, joy, and the shared work of beginning again.

October: Torah as Story, Structure, and Cycle

October deepened students’ relationship with Torah — first as a physical object, and then as a living narrative. By constructing their own Torah scrolls, students explored what it means for a text to be sacred. They noticed how a Torah is held, rolled, and protected, and discussed why this story has been carried by the Jewish people for generations.

As students encountered a range of Jewish values through quotes and teachings, they were encouraged to respond, question, and articulate what they believe Judaism asks of us. Torah became not only something received, but something engaged. Visiting the sanctuary and examining the community’s Torah scrolls brought learning into sacred space, reinforcing continuity between classroom and communal life.

In the following weeks, Torah expanded from object to content. Students explored how the Torah is organized into five books and how different stories cluster around themes of creation, struggle, law, leadership, and relationship. Retelling these stories through comics, illustrations, and drama allowed students to interpret Torah creatively, discovering that sacred texts invite imagination as well as study.

This textual exploration then widened into time itself. By building a Jewish calendar together, students traced the rhythm of the year — holidays and their symbols, natural seasons, and months unfolding in a cycle of learning. Hebrew letters associated with learning and teaching (as the root for both words is the same, as Lamed-Mem-Daled) anchored the idea that Jewish life is not a straight line, but a continual cycle of growth and meaning making.

November: Shabbat, Peace, and the Heart of Prayer

In November, Jewish learning moved firmly into the home. Shabbat became a lived practice rather than an abstract idea. Through hands-on exploration of ritual objects, students learned how Jewish families mark time, welcome rest, and say goodbye to the holy day. Reenacting candle lighting, Kiddush, and Havdalah helped students imagine themselves as active participants in Jewish ritual.

The concept of Shalom was explored not only as a greeting, but as a skill. Through cooperative challenges and reflection, students experienced how peace is built through patience, listening, emotional awareness, and teamwork. Jewish values were no longer only discussed—they were practiced in real time.

Prayer learning shifted the focus inward. Students explored kavanah – intention – and discovered that prayer can take many forms: gratitude, wonder, request, and reflection. By studying the structure of the prayerbook and noticing how modern liturgy invites personal meaning, students learned that prayer is both inherited and personal. Writing their own gratitude prayers for Thanksgiving allowed Jewish practice to travel home, bridging synagogue, school, and family table.

December: Light, Courage, and Jewish Identity

As the days grew darker, learning turned toward light — both literal and metaphorical. Students explored what it means to be Jewish in a complex and sometimes challenging world. Through morning blessings, particularly She’asani Yisrael, students reflected honestly on pride, gratitude, fear, and belonging. Journaling provided a private space for these reflections, with the understanding that courage begins with naming what is true.

Hanukkah offers a layered story: miracle and history, celebration and struggle. Acting out the Hanukkah narrative and then examining its historical context invited students to consider difficult questions — when to fit in, when to stand apart, and what it means to be visibly Jewish. A Shin-Shin guest (on Shnat Shirut, the year of service from the Jewish Agency) expanded these conversations into global Jewish peoplehood, making Jewish identity feel both local and worldwide.

The semester concluded with a joyful Hanukkah celebration centered on food, ritual, and togetherness. As students cooked, lit candles, and sang, they reflected on the metaphor of flame — spark, fuel, and oxygen — and considered what sustains their own Jewish lives. The year ended not only with light, but with intention: an understanding that Judaism is something we actively fuel through practice, courage, and care.

Integrated Hebrew Learning Reflection:

Throughout the semester, Hebrew letters and words were introduced not as isolated decoding exercises, but as living vessels of meaning that support ritual, reflection, and belonging. Students encountered Hebrew through a wide variety of modalities — visual, tactile, auditory, and embodied — practicing all of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet letters while crafting ritual objects, assembling holiday decorations, building calendars, reading blessings, journaling intentions, and participating in communal prayer. Vocabulary was carefully chosen to align with each unit’s thematic focus, so that words such as Rosh, Torah, Shabbat, Shalom, Kavanah, Chag Urim, and Hanukkah became anchors for lived Jewish experience rather than abstract terms. By repeatedly encountering letters and words in meaningful contexts — often returning to the same vocabulary across multiple weeks — students developed familiarity, confidence, and a growing sense that Hebrew is a language they can inhabit. The purpose of this approach was not fluency for its own sake, but relationship: helping students experience the skill of Hebrew as the connective tissue linking text, ritual, identity, and community, and empowering them to participate more fully in Jewish life with understanding and intention.

Overarching Learning Reflection:

By the end of the semester, students had not simply learned about Judaism — they practiced it. They learned to read Hebrew as a language of meaning, to experience ritual as something embodied, to approach prayer with intention, and to understand Jewish identity as both joyful and resilient. Each month built toward a deeper sense of connection: to text, to time, to one another, and to themselves as growing Jewish individuals.