March 29, 2024 |

Grades 2-5: Creative Arts, Week 3: Tiferet

Posted on May 16, 2016

Everybody Counts!
Week 3: Tiferet/Inner Beauty & Beauty in Nature
Do not look at the container, rather what is in it. (Avot 4:27)
Last week our theme for our Omer Project was Tiferet.  One way tiferet is translated is 
beauty and with the students we focused on inner beauty and beauty in nature.  
As one theme was inner beauty students were first asked to describe the outside of a geode.
Hard, rough, plain were a few of the most frequent descriptive words – definitely
NOT beautiful.  We then cracked open a geode and there was a “WOW!” moment when
students saw the crytals inside.   As one student commented, “It’s like when my teacher says,
‘Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.’”  Our core text last week was, in fact, another way of 
saying just that.  From Pirke Avot we discussed what “Do not look at the container, 
rather what is in it. (Avot 4:27).  Another student offered another way to explain our 
text: “sometimes food looks yucky, but when you taste it, it’s good.”  After discussing 
how we each have inner qualities students wrote acrostics with their names on scratch art paper.  This was another tangible example of hidden beauty.  While working on these 
students were reminded that acrostics appear throughout Jewish prayer and texts.  
The afternoon concluded with students cutting out images in magazines of beauty in nature.
Check out some photos below.

An unopened geode
Norah Margie cracks open a geode
An opened geode

Rabbi Liben teaches a song.
Our Tiferet Collage