Storahtelling

"Just for the Record"—performed at CSAIR in Riverdale

September 23, 2008

By Deanna Neil

Storah On The Road

The title of the parsha from last week is "Ki Tavo" meaning, when you arrive or when you come. In the parsha, Moses delivers a lengthy set of instructions to the people of Israel about what to do when they arrive in the holy land. Arriving in a new land is very much like arriving in a new year. We are gathering up our instructions of what to do. We look back at the record. Just like the people of Israel, who will amass on the mountain of blessing and the mountain of curse, we too will climb up a metaphorical mountain and take a look around. We'll see where we came from and where we are going. We'll assess our blessings and our curses. We'll fast and we'll feast, just as the Israelites would feast on the peace offering on the mountain.

This was the parsha that Jonathan Ross and I addressed during our show at CSAIR in Riverdale this past weekend. It was a perfect parsha because there are a lot of new things happening at the synagogue this year. I will be working with Naomi Less and various members of the CSAIR congregation on a MyDrash program and Maven Mentor program. I will be taking the full year to train two people, Diane Sharon and Phil Keisman, to be Mavens. Naomi Less will be working with Mike Dorfman to use Storahtelling techniques to engage 6-8th graders with torah. It was a great kick off to a year long process and it was exciting for us to climb up that mountain and look into the new year as well.