Sara Wiener is from Teaneck New Jersey and she is so happy to be a madricha on Michlelet for her second consecutive summer. She went to Touro College for undergraduate studies and is going to be starting Touro Social Work Graduate School in the fall.
The girls in Sara’s Chaburah are Esther Trevino (St. Louis, MO), Shana Kaplon (Baltimore, MD), Meira Margulis (Chicago, IL), Debi Benedek (Brazil), and Rachel Retter (Bergenfield, NJ).
The title of the chaburah is “Student of Life,” General Subjects and How they Connect to Torah and Judaism. Each day we focused on a different school subject and developed a Torah and hashkafic lesson that we can learn from it.
Q: what is your favorite (Chaburah) subject and why?
Esther- To pick a specific topic would be impossible because I loved them all. So if I had to take one, I would choose the introduction. The introduction teaches us the fundamentals before we can even dive into the Torah we are about to learn. We learned that secular subjects like science and math are there as a means to marvel at the beauty of Torah. Without the introduction I would not have understood the need or reason for learning secular studies. Just like without the knowledge of secular studies I would not be able to understand how amazing Hashem’s Torah is and how everything we learn is ultimately to help us grow closer to Hashem and marvel at the world He created.
Shana- Science. Because it helped me understand and appreciate G-d’s world.
Meira- Science. We focused on how even if one our organs were to shut down, we could not survive. I thought it was so incredible that we take the miracle of waking up healthy every day for granted, when in actuality it is a neis that every bodily function of ours is working to its standard.
Debi- Ecology/Nature. Now I can see more of what HASHEM made and appreciate it.
Rachel- Health. My favorite Chaburah subject was when we learned about how health and taking care of our bodies applied to Judaism. To me it had always been something so secular and physical, but we learned how to elevate it to help us do mitzvot.