Chevruta

I love this picture of Jordan and two of his best friends studying Torah together. They are working on making an animated screencast out of the weekly reading.

Judaism has a long tradition of learning with a partner or in a small group. The partner is called your chevruta, from the word chaver, friend. The Talmud teaches that "two scholars learning together sharpen one another." Jordan agrees, but wants it amended to "three scholars."

The paper torch in the middle of the table is from their history lessons. They are studying colonial Boston to learn about the events and attitudes that shaped the country at its founding. The whole thing is very experiential: each of them is a business owner, and after researching what all it takes to run a pub or a bakery or whatever in colonial Boston, they suddenly had a lot of taxes imposed on them that made it impossible to run their businesses. They got angry and tried to hold a town meeting, but the British say that they will throw anyone in jail who speaks against the new taxes. Jordan made the torches to burn up all the tax notices. Revolution is brewing.