Campuses

9Adar for Young Adults (Age 18-35)

Traditional Fast Day Customs (Minhagim)

Fast (ta’anit) – Forgo your daily latte and instead donate your $5 to an organization of your choice, helping other in need.
Fast from destructive speech (ta’anit dibbur) – For a week before 9Adar, observe when you say things that aren’t so positive or necessary. Keep a journal. On 9Adar, replace those tendencies with only positive speech or silence.
Contribute (tzedakah) – Hold a student fundraising event. Organize students prior to 9Adar and help them donate to an organization that they feel creates more peace in the world. Teach students about the value of being a rodef shalom for others in the process.
Self-reflect (teshuvah) – Create a list of the colleagues you work with on a regular basis. Identify areas of potential conflict between the 2 of you and decide how you will work to pursue more peace/harmony within those relationships.
Pray (tefilah)
Cook/eat (se’udah)

Create a Rodef Shalom Agreement (haskamah) – Hold a staff meeting where the goal is to create a list of 8 interpersonal agreements that will make your staff work together more harmoniously. Pick one of your student internships/fellowships with which to create an agreement.
Greet others as a rodef shalom – Smile at people you don’t know today. Take the time to be present and listen during all your conversations.
Be a rodef shalomin your own conflicts – Revisit an unresolved conflict with a colleague. Take that person out for coffee and try to resolve it.
Be a rodef shalom for others in conflict – Identify 2 students who have conflict between them. Make a meeting with them and sit down with them and try to help them work through the conflict.
Be a rodef shalom by facilitating a constructive conversation – Pick a student group that has been experiencing a great deal of conflict lately. Hold a meeting where the goal is for them to create empathy on both sides, with the goal of helping them to understand each others positions by the end of the meeting.
Invite a professional rodef shalom – Identify someone in your community who you feel is working professionally to create more harmony for others in society. Invite that person to come speak with students.

Write
Study/read/listen – Set up an hour of staff development time to study some classic Jewish texts on Jewish peacemaking. Include quotes or articles from conflict resolution theory.
Give a dvar torah (words of Torah)
Teach
Announce/share/tell
Create