Chaburah Spotlight: Rina Landsman

Rina Landsman is from Teaneck, New Jersey. She attended Ma’ayanot High school followed by a year of learning in Israel. She is now a junior at Stern College majoring in Jewish Education. Rina is so excited to be back on Michlelet again, this time as a madricha!

The girls in Rina’s chabura are: Rikki Bruckenstein (Woodmere), Malka Edery, (Norfolk, Virginia), Shana Friedman, (Chicago), Gabrielle Hawk, (Woodmere) and Shoshie Wasserman, (Columbus, OH)

Rina’s chabura is titled “Gratitude is an Attitude” and focuses on learning important lessons in hakaras hatov through stories in the TAnach. Each chabura highlights a different gift we are given from Hashem, and the essential attitude of gratitude that we must display in response. A recent chabura that focused on the story of Maaseh Bereshis taught the vital lesson of opening your eyes to the beauty in the natural world that we tend to take for granted. The structure of Rina’s chabura involves activities, textual sources and lots of stimulating discussion. A highlight of Rinas chabura is a game called ” Thankagories”, a spin off of the classic “scategories” game. The game, played every chabura, is meant to bring to mind the small and seemingly insignificant gifts of life, reminding us to never take these things for granted. The goal of Rina’s chabura is to emerge with a heightened awareness and appreciation for the small and large gifts of everyday life.

What is your favorite Oreo flavor and how does it connect to our chabura?

Gabi Hawk: “Plain – we have to recognize that Hashem gave us, our original selves, the tools and potential we need specifically to be “milks favorite cookie.” If we look within us, like Adam Harishon had to, and not at others we can unleash our potential. We should be thankful for the things Hashem gave to us to fulfill our tafkid”

Shoshie Wasserman- Reese’s (chocolate and peanut butter) we live in a physical world and our job as Jews is to elevate physicality to spirituality. Therefore combining the Chocolate(physicality)and the peanut butter(spirituality) to make a wonderful delicious Oreo.

Shana Friedman- double stuffed. Hashem gives us everything we need in this world to serve Him (which is the first layer) and then He also gives us things to enhance our lives, things that we actually don’t need (the second layer).

Rikki Bruckenstein: Birthday cake because every day of life is a party because it’s another day Hashem gave us to live which we must have hakarats hatov for

Malka Edery: My favorite Oreo flavor is birthday cake and I think it relates to the theme of our chaburah because many times we take our birthdays for granted.  We only focus on the fun and celebrations and we tend to not focus on the deeper meaning of our birth day. This is a day that a major miracle occurred where Hashem  brought us into the world and gave us the gift of life . Many babies aren’t so fortunate to be born healthy and we have to be grateful that we were . Our birthday is actually a tremendous  day of gratitude to Hashem  and our parents for raising us all these years and taking care of us from the minute we were born.