Juniors Participate in Rabbinics Genius Hour Gallery

by Hannah Fineman, SSLI '25

Today, the juniors had a genius hour gallery session in their Rabbinics class. The genius hour project is a round-robin style presentation where the students individually present to each other about their own research topics that fit under the assigned category, this quarter being Shabbat.

Juniors worked hard on their projects and were excited to present to each other. (R. Rogers)

Rebecca Friedman-Charry, the junior’s Rabbinics teacher, shared that the project is “inspired by Google, who gave their employees a certain amount of work time to use for whatever interested the employee, and so I’ve given my 11th grade Halacha [Jewish law] students an opportunity within an umbrella topic to spend some of their class time investigating something of their own interest.”

The students really enjoy working on these assignments. Noah Schor, one of the class members, said that “these genius hour-style projects are… pretty cool because they… bring… a science-fair element and also a Jewish element into our studies, and it... combines all the things we learn, and I think it's really interesting. 

Another student in the class, Elinor Schlissel, thinks “that genius hour-style projects are cool because they make me research and see a part of Rabbinics you might not have seen if not for the project.”

In agreement with her peers, Sasha Chernoff said, “I really enjoy the genius hour style projects because you get to explore your own interests and pick your own topic, and you really get to make the slides how you want. You also get to have a gallery and present it to people, and you get to see other people's projects.” Chernoff also shared that “it can be really hard to find a source that’s specific to your topic, so I think it would be really helpful if there was like a library of sources that you could use, but Becky does offer a lot of help if you need it.”

Friedman-Charry believes that the genius hour projects are more engaging than a typical assignment because “everybody likes to follow their own interests, and ... there’s enough structure [in the assignment] that you feel like you can do this, but there’s also a lot of freedom within that structure to find whatever is compelling to you, and people like being able to satisfy their curiosity.”

“In our genius hour presentations, I got to listen to Ellie, Risa, and Jacob's presentations,” said Schor. "One that specifically stood out to me was Ellie’s, which was about live-streaming services on Shabbat during the Covid pandemic, and then also now." Schor later added that, from Ellie, he learned that “a gentile could start your live stream and people are allowed to join, and it's not an issue on Shabbat.”

Schlissel shared her favorite part of genius hour, saying that it is “getting to see other people’s presentations and seeing what they found. I enjoy seeing what other people came up with and thought was interesting for research.” Both Schor and Chernoff agreed that the process of presenting was the best part of the genius hour project.

Overall, Friedman-Charry was very impressed by her students, as they “uncovered some trends in Halacha that are significant. Students saw how the terminology that we’ve been learning in our more formal class sessions applied in real life to their projects.” Friedman continued, “I think it’s very exciting to see how much easier of a time students are having finding an ancient source, and being able to see how it connects to today’s world."

Hannah Fineman is a writer for Paw Print Now and has been published on the site since November 2021. Hannah is currently a junior at the Schechter School of Long Island and can be reached at the following email address: hfineman25@schechterli.org