Interim Week

The Cardin School spends a week between the 2nd and 3rd trimesters engaged in a single-focused experiential and interdisciplinary learning program. Regular classes are suspended so that all members of the community, students and faculty alike, learn together in a manner that crosses disciplines and curricula. This is a time of challenge, creativity, and community building. Topics of past Interim Week programs have included:

Interim Week 2010

...BUT WE CAN TELL THE STORY...

This year, Interim Week focused on stories and how to respond to them artistically:

When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.

Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Maggid of Mezritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: "Sovereign of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer," and again the miracle would be accomplished.

Still later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say: "I do not know how to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient." It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.

Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: "I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient." And it was sufficient.

God made people because God loves stories.

-- Elie Wiesel, The Gates of the Forest

Interim Week 2009

MEGILLAH / EVOLUTIO: Unscrolling the Genesis of Life on Earth
In honor of the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin, MEGILLAH / EVOLUTIO: Unscrolling the Genesis of Life on Earth was an intensive week-long journey through the origins of species on this planet, the convergence and divergence of science and religious thought, the politics of teaching evolution, and the future of life on earth.

Interim Week 2008

In the Footsteps of Prophets: Heschel, King, and the Civil Rights Journey
Cardin students were joined by students from Western High School as they traveled south to examine together the struggles of African-Americans to gain equality in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Along the way, they discovered how Jews were involved in the Civil Rights movement, with a focus on the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. The week-long program allowed the students to explore historic sites in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee while engaging in conversations with individuals who were directly involved in the Civil Rights struggle. The students acquired an understanding of why both Jews and African-Americans, as peoples who have known oppression, must act when others are oppressed.

Interim Week 2007

Six Days Plus Forty Years: The Six-Day War
The week-long experiential project simulated the Six-Day War from multiple viewpoints using innovative activities. It provided a keen understanding of the causes, events, characteristics, and global consequences of the War – and strengthened our students’ connection with Israel. At Kibbutz Cardin, a communal retreat setting, students re-enacted Israeli life according to a timetable and daily theme that paralleled the corresponding day of the War.

Interim Week 2006

Space/Time University: Einstein 101
The Cardin community celebrated the 101st anniversary of Einstein's "miracle year." Students explored different ways of looking at space and time from the vantage points of science/math, philosophy/religion and arts/culture through study, activities and trips to the National Radiometric Astronomy Observatory and New York City. Students participated in an all-school Shabbaton in which sacred time was explored.

Interim Week 2005

Ultimate Road Trip
Students researched the lives of Jewish American pioneers and planned a five-day road trip along the East Coast tracing the history of American Jewry. Students and faculty explored the first synagogue in Rhode Island, early Jewish leaders and communities in Philadelphia and Jewish immigration in New York.

Interim Week 2004

Purim Pandemonium
Faculty and students together participated in a week of study, drama and games culminating in a school-wide celebration of Purim. Students chose mini-courses centering around the theme of Purim, including conceptions of beauty throughout history, probability in games of chance and the derivations of weird and wacky words. Students ended the week by presenting the megillah story through plays that they had written in troupes and genres assigned by lot.