Life for high schoolers is extremely busy, with sports practices, rehearsals, school work, and maintaining a social life. Teens have trouble finding time to rest. For the Jewish people, Shabbat is a time to rest and reset for the week to come. However, in our modern world, many teens find it difficult to perform the mitzvot associated with the day, or even to spend the day resting and relaxing.

That is where the Level Up Shabbat, hosted by the Shul of Belaire, came from. The head Rabbi of the Shul, Rabbi Yossi Zaklikofsky, and his wife, the Rebbetzin of the Shul, Esty Zaklikofsky, wanted to see teens participating in Shabbat each week and getting excited about the tradition. 

They created a system to incentivize teenagers with money, a certain amount for each ritual they completed each week, including lighting candles, not using technology, and more. Then, the teens were invited to a mega Shabbat dinner hosted at the end of three weeks, and depending on how many rituals they did each week, they could cash out a certain amount.

This Shabbat not only allowed teens to celebrate Shabbat for multiple weeks in a row, but also to connect and have a meaningful night together. Additionally, the Zaklikofskys asked Emery students to help plan the event, giving them meaningful leadership experience and an opportunity to show fellow students what Shabbat is about. Emery student, Annie Katz, was one of the people asked to help.

“There were a lot of teens there, and it was really fun to have the community together to celebrate Shabbat,” Katz said. “It was a really meaningful event.”

Annie also explained that there were plans to continue with similar events in the future, and that they’re hoping to grow the event to larger sizes like other similar shabbats across the country. 

Annie concluded that she “feel[s] like the shabbat succeeded in its goal to give people the opportunity to celebrate shabbat and connect with their community.”