CHALLENGES & CHOICES HISTORY

WHAT WE TEACH and CULTIVATE

We address eleven middot (character or soul traits) and explore the nature of the qualities, ways to balance and manage them within ourselves, and ultimately, how to transform to become our “best selves”.

The middot our program focuses on are:

• humility/anavah
• honor/kavod
• envy/kinah
• responsibility/achrayut
• trust/bitachon
• gratitude/hakarat ha’tov
• patience/savlanut
• lovingkindness/chesed
• enthusiasm/zeirzut
• peace-of-mind/menuchat ha’nefesh
• silence/sh’tikah

The evaluation by an external evaluator testified to the positive impact of the program:

• 90% of all teens in Year 3 rated the program good or very good
• 60 – 85% agreed or strongly agreed they understood how the middot related to their behavior
• 60 – 77% agreed or strongly agreed that Jewish wisdom is relevant to their lives, compared with 31-33% before the program
• 67-80% said they intentionally act with more kindness
• 70-80% said they consciously tried to honor others