Preparing for our Edot Chamsa Family Workshop

During the past week day sessions, I completed our "tour" of Babylonian/Iraqi Jewish history, with a lesson about the rise and spread of Islam and its effect on the Babylonian Jews. Again, I used the "Heritage: Civilization and the Jews" dvd-rom program to bring the history to life.

Now that we've finished learning about the major events, eras, and personalities of Babylonian Jewish history, we are using the information we learned to prepare for our upcoming Edot family workshop (Sunday, February 23rd, during regular Religious School hours). This workshop will give the students an opportunity to share what they've learned with their families about the very first edah (Jewish Diaspora community) to be established. The final activity for this workshop will be to have each participant make his/her own copper foil Chamsa - an amulet in the shape of a hand with five fingers which Jews borrowed from Muslims sometime during the 8th century C.E.  The Chamsa is a perfect example of how Jews, living among other peoples and cultures, often borrowed symbols (as well as other cultural elements), giving them a "Jewish twist."

Our first order of business, which we began yesterday, is to summarize this history in the form of skits depicting scenes of four of the major events and eras - the destruction of Jerusalem and the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian army, the arrival of the exiles to Babylon, the development of Judaism in Babylon, and the Talmudic Academy era. A fifth skit will share the Muslim belief about the origin of the Chamsa, also known as the "Hand of Fatima."

After dividing the students each session into small groups, I assigned each group one of the skits. I distributed a "Babylonian Jewish History Outline," which summarized what we had learned, and then gave each group a questionnaire to fill out relating to their specific assignment, to help them organize their thoughts.

It was during this activity, that the students began to realize how very different the ancient world was from their world today. To keep as historically accurate as possible, I had to explain that no one back then would have been named "Genevieve" or "Marvin" (just two of the many examples). I took a minute to share with the class what kind of names the Babylonians would have had, and what kind of names Judeans would have had. I had to remind the students that there was no electrical or gas power back then, and that Rabbis and their students didn't study in classrooms with whiteboards and desks.

For 45 minutes each session, the classroom was filled with what I like to refer to as "learning noise." Ideas were thrown back and forth, and by the time we had to wrap up the activity, every group had completed its questionnaire, and had a clear idea of what would be included in its skit.

A very big thanks goes to Michael, my T.A. first session, who works so well with the students!

Following our writing activity, we moved over to Room 202 for our weekly Hebrew Through Movement session. I'm focusing now on Shabbat vocabulary. I've also begun to introduce flashcards with the commands on them. Now that the students are familiar with the basic oral commands, they are slowly being given the opportunity to recognize what the commands look like in writing. I also hung up Hebrew signs around both classrooms, showing the Hebrew names for objects in the room such as "aron" (closet), "loo'ach" (board), "keeseh" (chair), and "shoolchan" (table). Gradually, I'll begin to introduce this vocabulary as well as "Jewish life vocabulary" (mazal tov, yasher koach, etc.) each time we meet.

La'lechet (Walk)

La'koom - Stand up

Zack, la'seem bakbook ya'een al rosh shel Rebecca; Rebecca, la'seem ner Shabbat ba'pamot al rosh shel Zack (Zack, put a wine bottle on Rebecca's head; Rebecca, put a Shabbat candle in the candlestick on Zack's head)

L'varech al neirot Shabbat (Bless Sabbath candles)

Leeshfoch ya'een l'toch kos keedoosh (Pour wine into kiddush cup)

L'varech al ha'ya'een (bless the wine) (Note - to introduce the Hebrew word for bless - l'varech - I covered my eyes. Of course, we only do this when we bless the Shabbat candles, but for now I want to use this hand symbol until I'm sure the children understand the word

Jordan, la'seem kos keedoosh al ha'beten shel Rachel; Rachel, la'seem bakbook ya'een al ha'rosh shel Jordan (Jordan, put the kiddush cup on Rachel's stomach; Rachel, put wine bottle on Jordan's head)

Jake, leeshfoch ya'een l'toch kos keedoosh (Jake, pour wine into kiddush cup)

On a very different note, Joel Siegel, our wonderful music director, has been out for a few weeks, suffering from back pain of unknown origin at present. On Wednesday, and again yesterday, our Edot students shared how much we all miss him on a card. We also all participated in saying a "Mi She'beirach" prayer (a healing prayer) for Joel during our Sunday morning t'fila session.

And finally, a very big YASHER KOACH (job well done!) to our Edot students who participated in putting together and presenting the Creative T'fila theme for this week's Sunday t'fila session. The theme they chose was school!