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Raising The Roof For Torah

Kollel Torah MiTzion begins another year of experiential Torah study for children.

DIANA LIEBERMAN

Staff Writer

S

tudents at Yeshivat Akiva
begin classes at 8 a.m. and,
depending upon their grade
and the day of the week,
they stay at the school's Southfield
campus until 3:40-5:30 p.m.
But, once a week, about 90 Akiva
students volunteer for an extra hour of
Torah study with teachers from Kollel
Torah MiTzion, the corps of young
Orthodox- Israeli couples who spend
two- or three-year stints teaching in
communities of the diaspora. The
after-school activity, organized as a
series of learning experiences at each
child's level, is called Ahavat Torah —
Love of Torah. In its fourth year, the
afternoon program is also open to
non-Akiva students.
"The idea is to engender in the chil-
dren a love of learning, a love of

Torah," said Tzvi Schostak, president
of Kollel Torah MiTzion and an Akiva
parent.
"Torah study is not something you
engage in just while you're in school,
but something you are involved in by
choice during your free time," he said.
Unlike traditional classroom study,
Ahavat Torah involves learning by
doing. For example, Schostak said,
when the older boys study the wearing
of tzitzit, or fringes attached to a tallit
(prayer shawl), they also learn how to
tie tzitzit.
The introduction to this year's
Ahavat Torah program took place Oct.
27 with Rabbi Asi Tzobell, one of the
Kollel Torah MiTzion teachers, lead-
ing a fun afternoon of singing, bal-
loon games, poster-making and pizza.
"The learning is educational — but
fun, not boring," said eighth-grader
Shugmi Shumunov of Southfield. ❑

Clockwise from top right: Kollel Torah MiTzion Rabbi Asi Tzobell conveys Ahavat
Torah — Love of Torah.
After the class, Rachel Wolfe, 9, of Southfield enjoys some pizza.
Seven-year-old Ariel Solomon of Oak Park works on a poster.

11/ 7

2003

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