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Left: Rabbi Elliot Pachter helps Dorina Shayne, 11,
of Farmington Hills, put on t011in.

Middle: Leah Hurvitz, 9, of West Bloomfiele4 colors
in the word Israel with a turkey-feather quill pen.

Right: Matthew Epstein, 8, of West Bloomfield
Jacob Gussin, 8, Farmington Hills, and Jordan
Barpa1 9, of Bloomfield Hills,_ raise their hands to
answer questions during the trivia game.

B'nai Moshe's LIFE program brings families together
to study and observe the Torah's mitzvot.

SHELLI DORFMAN
Editorial Assistant

A,

nd the students were
given their instructions:
In the first week of the
second month, thou shalt
go to Hebrew school an extra day.
Thou shalt participate in a tefillin
program, become a scribe and prac-
tice Torah lettering. And because this
is a school program, though shalt be
tested on your Jewish knowledge in
game-show style. And thou shalt
bring thy parents, and together learn

about the Torah and its mitzvot.
And thus, the program you attend
shall be know as Torahteynu, or Our
Torah.
And so it came to pass that
Congregation B'nai Moshe families
spent Feb. 7 learning about and per-
forming mitzvot together.
Beginning with Shacharit ser-
vices, led in part by each of the
school's kindergarten through sev-
enth-grade classes, the morning's
events continued with three hands-
on workshops.
Andie Simons, co-chair with Sue

the time they left, they knew that
saying "a sofer used a kulmus on a
klaf,' is the same as "a scribe wrote
on parchment with a pointed feath-
er." Students tried their hand at the
lettering. Younger ones used stencils
and calligraphy markers, while the
older ones, like Janey Gordon, 9,
were able to draw their own letters,
filling them in with quills with
turkey feathers dipped in black ink.
Pearlina Bodzin, who with
Robert Roth co-chairs the Torateynu
project, said the Feb. 7 event was an
introduction to a March 22 visit

Kalisky, called the program "an aux-
iliary to the regular school" curricu-
lum, "to teach kids that a mitzvah is
more than a good deed."
Parental involvement is an essen-
tial part of the LIFE (Learning Is a
Family Experience) program. Nate
Berman, the school's interim educa-
tion administrator, said, "If we don't
get parental reinforcement, children
lose a little appreciation for what
they learn."
In one room, the groups were
introduced to actual Torah parch-
ment and tools for its writing. By

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