By Mckinley Edelman, Director of Education, and Rabbi Samantha Frank, Rabbi Educator
It’s hard to flip through a Jewish periodical these days without finding an article focused on rising antisemitism at home in America and abroad. Families new to the Machon invariably ask us about security at Temple Micah and how we address antisemitism in our classrooms. We could let this fear dominate our collective spiritual life and our classrooms. In the Machon, we choose a different path.
We do not ignore historical hatred or the ways Jews have been othered throughout time. These themes are woven throughout our curriculum because they are inseparable from our history. It would be impossible to teach the stories of Chanukah, Purim, and Passover without grappling with them. But we focus not only on what Jews have endured, but also what Jewish life has created in response: courage, perseverance, and community.
By centering our learning on our rich history, culture, food, prayer, art, and diversity, we teach that Judaism is vibrant and alive—and we make a point to have fun while doing so.
Our philosophy is not one of avoidance or ignorance, but derives from an evidence-backed belief that learning environments that are rich with connection lead to deeper understanding (see Judy Willis’s “The Neuroscience of Joyful Education,” 2007). We see our role as not only teaching information, but about building identity. Students have the space to ask their own questions and make their own discoveries. When they understand that Queen Esther had to find her own courage in order to save her people, they discover that they can be courageous, too.
This year, this philosophy came alive in countless ways.
We welcomed multiple guests to our sanctuary on Sunday mornings to increase the joy that already thrives during Boker Tov. Accordionist Jordan Wax brought Yiddish music and comedy. Nava Tehilla shared their soulful musical tefillah. University of Maryland’s Jewish a capella group, Kol Sasson, and Israeli dance troupe, Avirah, shared their passion for Israeli culture and the arts.
Our youngest students shared the joy of Machon with their families at new family education sessions. Kindergarteners searched the sanctuary for hidden elements of Shabbat (candlesticks, challah, and grape juice) and then explored what extra fun element their family could incorporate into their Shabbatot. Popular ideas included after-school cookie runs on Fridays, Shabbat morning family walks, and unlimited ice cream from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown.
Our older students enthusiastically celebrated Passover. After several weeks of practicing the four questions, the order of the seder, and all of the great Passover songs, our fifth, sixth, and seventh graders celebrated Pesach with a candy seder. Each class sat together with haggadot and seder plates filled with chocolate-covered matzah, pudding charoset, graham cracker “shank bones,” sour candy maror, and chocolate milk in place of wine. We included orange tootsie pops as a replacement for the orange that many add to their seder plates to represent LGBTQ+ inclusion in Jewish life.
Machon parent, author, and illustrator Jessie King Regunberg piloted a fifth and sixth grade book club, “Books and Babka.” Jessie guided the students as they explored Jewish history, immigration, identity, family life, and resilience across different time periods and places, with themed treats at each gathering.
In a world that too often asks Jews to define ourselves by what we are against or what we fear, Machon Micah strives to help our students define themselves by what they love, create, and carry forward. By grounding our children in joyful Jewish learning, meaningful relationships, and a deep sense of belonging, we are not ignoring the challenges facing the Jewish people.
We are preparing the next generation to meet them with confidence, compassion, and pride.
This was beautifully demonstrated with the Kaddish D’ Rabbanan (Rabbi’s Kaddish) that Rabbi Frank wrote for this year’s final session of Reason to Be, our high school class. As we stood in a circle, saying farewell to our three R2B seniors who have been with us in the Machon since early childhood, our thirty-plus teens read aloud:
We affirm that there is holiness in the world, beyond us, that we do not understand.
We are grateful that there is still wonder that exists.
We are grateful to the One,
We are grateful for our Jewish community, and for our teachers,
For our fellow learners, and friends,
For all those who have studied and taught before us,
So that we might learn too.
Let there always be for us, and for our community, A full life, of goodness, of chesed, loving kindness, Of kehilah, sacred community, and hope.
May the one who makes peace on high bring peace to us, to the Jewish community, and to the whole world.
Amen.
This article was originally featured in the June/July/August 2026 issue of the Vine.