Lifnei V'lifnim – the “Inner Sanctum”

The Lifnei v’Lifnim (“Inner Sanctum”) program is intended for educators who are interested in deepening their understanding of their emotional world to help them understand the inner and spiritual world of their students, and the interpersonal interactions that occur in the classroom. As part of the Lifnei v’Lifnim program, the students experience workshop learning and acquire diverse tools from content worlds such as: playback theater, creative writing, group facilitation, and group dynamics. Recently, Lifnei v’Lifnim has partnered with Creating Memory to expose student to a new tool of Holocaust remembrance via playback theater. For many students, Holocaust narrative is irrelevant to their inner world because it is seen as inaccessible, and one of the ways in which to create accessibility to the traumatic Holocaust narrative is via playback theater. Based on current narratives, it allows the narrator and the audience to create a narrative for themselves that combines the Holocaust (the past) with the student’s inner world of here and now. In light of the program’s experience in recent years with many audiences, this appears to be a significant possibility for deepening the memory process and thawing the frozen and buried memories both personal memory and in the collective memory. The connection between creative theatrical work combined with stories and personal memories enables an experience of renewed and relevant recollection even for painful moments that occurred without words. The creative process allows the participants to engage in intimate discussion, even regarding narratives that have been silent over the years.