Tefilah

The Leffell School seeks to offer its High School students the ability to achieve four specific goals through different aspects of the tefilah program. These goals include experiencing traditional communal prayer (on Torah-reading days), learning the basic skills of tefilah leadership, delving into the meaning of the siddur, and exploring their own sense of the sacred in a variety of elective offerings.

Torah-reading days: On Mondays, Thursdays, and holidays when the Torah is read, students meet by grade for tefilah. Our goal on these days is to build grade community, to familiarize students with the traditional structure of the minyan, and to develop opportunities for student leadership in tefilah. In each grade, students are encouraged to lead tefilah up to the level of their ability. In ninth grade, all students are expected to take leadership roles, including having aliyot to the Torah and acting as toranim (giving out parts for the service). In tenth grade, most students add basic leadership of the prayers and Torah reading. In eleventh and twelfth grades, all students are required to lead the service and read Torah on a rotating basis. In this way, we ensure the students’ ability to participate in other minyanim when they leave the Leffell School community.

Other days: On non-Torah-reading days, students meet in small groups designed around the development of particular skills or ideas. In ninth grade, students work to achieve mastery over the structure, pronunciation, and daily nusach (tunes) of the prayers, meeting as a grade on Fridays to build skills and familiarity with Shabbat nusach as well. Beginning in tenth grade, students are given the choice of elective-based tefilah classes in which they can focus on their own interests. Recent electives have included a traditional minyan (in which additional prayers are added), an “A-ca-minyan” (in which students prepare performances of tefilah-related music), an artists’ minyan (creating artwork around particular lines of the siddur), a mysticism minyan (combining traditional tefilah with a variety of ideas from Kabbalah), and a student-run Nefesh v’Guf minyan (reflecting on the way in which the siddur affects our bodies and our minds). Electives change each year based on student needs and interests. During the second semester of senior year, students daven together daily as a grade in Poland and Israel, as well as when they return to school in the spring.