Rabbi Uri Topolosky of Kehilat Pardes – The Rock Creek Synagogue believes that children are the center of our spiritual lives. That’s why he immerses them in Jewish tradition at a young age.
After congregants of Kehilat Pardes built a 50-foot sukkah in the Berman Hebrew Academy courtyard — the synagogue partners with the school — Topolosky led the Berman preschoolers in putting the finishing touches on the sukkah and decorating it to illustrate the fall harvest theme on Oct. 15.
Berman Hebrew Academy closed for the week of Sukkot, so Topolosky was glad to celebrate with students a day before the holiday began and show them the various stages of building a sukkah.
“There’s some kind of awe and wonder in the ability to create something for the holiday, and children get to be a part of that,” Topolosky said, adding that he invited each student to make and bring a decoration for the sukkah. “They’re very proud that they get to decorate the sukkah, get something hung up with their name on it.”
Preschool students brought paper chains, and also “more unique” decorations including laminated paper pomegranates, painted pine cones, photos of themselves engaging in various holiday rituals and their handprints on poster boards. Some of the older students created tributes to the hostages still held in Gaza.
“It’s just color; it’s vibrancy. It adds so much to the space,” Topolosky said of the students’ decorations.
He said although preschoolers are young, they are able to begin to understand the significance and symbolism of various elements of Jewish tradition.
“One of the beautiful things about so many of our holidays is that our rituals are really tactile,” Topolosky said. “There are things that you can hold, touch, sniff and smell, and there are so many ways to connect to them. Preschool children might not understand all the symbolism of an etrog — a little citrus fruit — but they can see its brightness, and sense the wonder and uniqueness of this fruit that only makes an appearance once a year, and there’s excitement around that.”
Topolosky taught the students that the etrog represents the heart, which kids can visualize when he tells them the fruit is about the size of a human heart. He also taught that the sukkah is one of the only mitzvot that one can immerse the entire body inside.
“You can sing a song like the ‘Hokey Pokey’ — ‘you put your whole body in’ — and children can appreciate that and can begin to develop connection with the symbolism and uniqueness of the holiday, so that’s very special,” Topolosky said.
He emphasized the importance of being outdoors and having the children experience hands-on learning rather than being seated in a traditional classroom.
“The sukkah is so open, it comes without the confined space of a classroom,” Topolosky said. “Being outdoors, they sense the changing of the season. It’s a very special time for that.”
Topolosky incorporated music into the preschoolers’ learning, playing his guitar and singing traditional songs such as “Vesamachta B’Chagecha,” which means “rejoice on your festival,” and “Ruach,” meaning “wind” or “spirit.” The wind is an important theme of Sukkot because sometimes, being in the sukkah exposes one to the cold and the wind, but it’s okay to be out of one’s comfort zone, he said.
His goal is to get children enthusiastic about the holiday so that they can go home with that same excitement and celebrate with their families. Topolosky added that many of the students at Berman are also members of Kehilat Pardes whose families attend weekend services.
The synagogue is also hosting a community book drive with Berman Hebrew Academy throughout November. Topolosky said community members across the DMV have dropped off unwanted Jewish books and materials, totaling 250 boxes of books in the first two days of the drive.
The books will either be buried, recycled or resold for one dollar each in the lobby of Kehilat Pardes: “It’s always very, very exciting, but it’s also really exciting for children because there are so many children’s books, but also to see teenagers and adults excited about learning and Jewish learning.”
The book drive is co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, the Garden of Remembrance Cemetery and the Washington Board of Rabbis.
“I really am very grateful to the Berman Hebrew Academy because this has been a great partnership between our school and our shul, where I am a resource to the preschool, and we partner, not just for Sukkot, but other programming,” Topolosky said. “Our children are at the center of our spiritual lives and represent the possibility of our people. We have to invest in them in a way that celebrates joy and expresses joy and allows them to sense and feel the joy and the wonder of Judaism, so that as they get older, what they remember are the smiles and the laughter and the music and the energy and it makes them want to dig deeper.”
