Ben Porat Yosef kitah bet students received their first chumashim before an overflowing audience of parents, relatives and friends, at their ‘mesibat chumash,’ on Sunday, December 10. The students actively prepared for this milestone event in several ways during the weeks leading up to it. They each chose a favorite story from chumash, created a three-dimensional project to illustrate it and also wrote about it. The students had the opportunity to visit a sofer stam to learn all about how a Torah is written and to practice writing their Hebrew names with ink and quill in Torah letters.

They also participated in a tekes hachnasat l’cheder, in which they heard a story from Rav Beit Hasefer Rav Ilan Acoca, licked honey from Hebrew letters, prepared and then ate a sweet treat and made special bookmarks for their chumashim. At the mesibah, the students performed a number of songs and dances, acted out Avraham Avinu’s hachnasat orchim, Rivka’s middah of chesed and compared Rabbi Akiva’s learning of Torah to water wearing away a stone. An especially meaningful part of the program took place at the end, when, to the delight of the audience, each student read one pasuk from parshat Noach with sephardic taamei hamikra, from a real Torah scroll.