Capstone Celebration
The “Becoming” portfolio • The d’var Torah • Leading the community
Students lead. You do not. Run the order once beforehand, then hand it over and sit in the congregation like everyone else — that is the point of the day.
Children wonder and discover; you facilitate more than you lecture.
- What do you carry now that you did not have in Grade 1?
- What does your Torah portion ask of you?
- What kind of Jewish adult are you choosing to be?
This is the end of a nine-year journey, and it should feel like one. These students were four years old at the start of Roots, singing about apples and honey. Today they lead the room. The d’var Torah matters more than its polish: what you are listening for is a young person saying something true about their portion in their own voice, not a performance of adult phrasing. Invite the PreK class if you can. Letting the youngest children watch the oldest lead is the single clearest picture of what the whole curriculum is for.
- D’var Torah — a word of Torah, a teaching
- Siyum — completion, a celebration of finishing
- Kol hakavod — all the honour to you
- “What if I am nervous?”
- Everyone who has ever led this prayer was nervous. That is part of the job, not a sign you should not do it.
- “Is this the end?”
- It is a siyum — a completion. In Judaism we finish the Torah and immediately begin it again.
- Students present their “Becoming” portfolio.
- Students deliver a short d’var Torah in their own voice.
- Students lead a T’filah segment for the community.
Offer real choices in how to present — spoken, read, recorded, or co-led with a partner. A student who leads alongside a friend has led. Be alert to students whose families cannot attend, and arrange a second audience for them rather than letting the day sting.
Folktale. Simchat Torah (tradition) — we roll the scroll to the very end and, without pausing, start again from “In the beginning.”
Changemaker. Ruth Bader Ginsburg — was not called to the Torah as a girl, and spent her life making sure the door stayed open behind her.
I wonder what you will want to tell a Grade 1 student about this day, when you are the grown-up?
“Your child led the community today and shared their Becoming portfolio. Try at home: ask them what their Torah portion asks of them — and listen to the whole answer.”