First B'nai Mitzvah Preparation Workshop

Yesterday morning, our fifth and sixth grade students gathered in the Social Hall with their families for the first B'nai Mitzvah Preparation Workshop of the year. The fifth grade families met first session; the sixth grade families came second session. It was a wonderful turnout which was pretty amazing, considering the fact that it was raining cats and dogs outside for all of the fifth grade session and a good part of the sixth grade one. On top of that, the Lafayette Reservoir Run was taking place (there were a few brave runners in the rain, I was told!), and the detour set up to allow Isaiah families to drive down Mt. Diablo Blvd. took quite a bit of time for some families.

Bill caught a shot of this beautiful rainbow - ironically, it appeared in the sky just minutes before the rain started around 8:30 a.m.!

Of course, we'd never expect anyone to brave such elements and detours without preparing a table filled with bagels and all kinds of shmears and, of course, hot coffee or tea to sip on while drying out.

The focus of the fifth grade workshop for the students is to share how they will be researching their assigned Torah portions using a printed version of the Torah given each year by the Women of Isaiah as a gift to each fifth grade student. Unfortunately, the books didn't arrive in time for the workshop, so instead, Rabbi Greninger shared Google links for appropriate sites to find their Torah texts, discussing why these sites are appropriate and why other Google link sites relating to the Torah and its study may not be (they may be set up by non-Jewish groups such as "Jews for Jesus" which will offer a very different interpretation of the Torah than Jews accept, or perhaps they are set up by ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups such as Chabad, which will give a different interpretation than Reform Judaism does). 

Bimbam (formerly known as "Godcast" is one appropriate site...

...and ReformJudaism.org is another.

Then it was time for parents to remain in the Social Hall, to learn more about how to choose a date for their child's Bar or Bat Mitzvah, while all the students went with Rabbi Miller and the teachers into the Oneg Room to have a fun review of the people and stories they've learned about over the past two years in the Torah. The review took the form of a "Torah Olympics." Judaism encourages us to put the Torah into action in our everyday lives, and we certainly took this advice literally.

After Rabbi Miller gave the students a chance to ask questions they may have about the Bar/Bat Mitzvah process, we divided them into 3 teams for the "Olympics".

The first few races provided a review of the first book of the Torah - Genesis. Students shared what they recalled of the main characters in the Book, and then Rabbi Miller explained that each of the first few races would have something to do with one of the Patriarch or Matriarchs.

For example, here is how she introduced the relay race relating to Abraham:

On your marks, get set...

GO!

The Abraham relay race was followed by a Sarah jumping jack contest (which team could do 127 jumping jacks fastest, one for each of the years of Sarah's (Abraham's wife's) life. This was followed by a wheel barrow race (one student "running" on his/her hands with the feet held up by a second student), in honor of Isaac's wife, Rebecca, having brought a lot of water from the well to give the camels of Isaac's servant, Eliezer, water to drink when he came looking for a wife for Isaac.

The "Genesis" races were followed by a Book of Exodus "Trivia Contest," in which the three teams sat on the floor in separate corners of the Oneg Room, and wrote down the letter of multiple choice answers offered by Rabbi Miller to review questions she posed relating to Moses and the Exodus story. For the Book of Leviticus, which describes how the Israelites were expected to make their lives holy through holy acts, each team was asked to act out (without speaking) a holy act. Below, one team is acting out "feeding the hungry."

For the Book of Numbers, which describes how the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, during which time they complained a great deal to Moses, each team had to think of as many complaints as possible in a 1-minute period:

At this point, our time ran out, and we joined the parents in the Social Hall. After a brief wrap-up with parents and students, all the fifth grade families went to the Sanctuary for tefillah, as did the sixth grade students, arriving for their workshop during the second session. While sixth graders were in tefillah, their parents stayed in the Social Hall and were given the opportunity to get to know each other better.

Rabbi Miller led the parents in a game of "4 corners" to help them find out interesting information about each other. From the look on their faces, it was a very enjoyable activity!

Once the sixth graders joined their parents in the Social Hall after tefillah was over, Rabbi Miller introduced the focus of the workshop, which was, for the students, to consider what becoming an adult means in our Jewish community as well as beyond. In order to do this, each family was given two worksheets - one had questions for the students to ask their parents and write down the answers, the second had questions for the students to ask other parents. The questions all related to the focus of the workshop. Here are some Edot students and their parents:

Zach and his Mom...

Max and his Mom...

Joey with his brother, Robert, and Dad...

Abby and her Dad...

Emma and her Mom...

Allie and her Mom...

Jeremy with his Mom and Dad...

and Matthew with his Mom and Dad.

Once the interviewing was over, the families divided into two groups, one meeting with Rabbi Shanks in the Social Hall, the other meeting with Rabbi Miller in the Oneg Room. Each group was provided with an outline relating to Bar and Bat Mitzvah preparation requirements. After the requirements were reviewed and families had a chance to ask questions about what was expected of them and their children, the adults all gathered in the Social Hall again, while the sixth graders joined Maimone and myself in the Oneg Room to play some games helping them to review what we had just discussed. We ran out of time again, but had a good time, and when we realized the session had ended, I realized that the sun was shining brightly. I didn't see a rainbow after the storm, but I'm sure there was one there, just out of sight!

Thank you again to all the families who came yesterday. If you weren't able to join us, the school office will be sending you materials that were handed out during the workshops. Please feel free to contact Rabbi Greninger or Rabbi Miller if you have any questions.

Fifth graders - your Torah books are on their way, and should arrive very soon. We'll give them out to you in the classroom as soon as they come!

Edot families - remember that next Sunday, November 6th, I'll be leading 5th and 6th grade families on a field trip to Sonora and Columbia, to learn about the Jewish experience during the Gold Rush era. Those of you who can't join us will NOT have class that day.

Writing Letters Home

During the past two weekday sessions, each of our Edot students "became" a Jewish pioneer who is either buried in the Sonora Pioneer Jewish Cemetery or who ran a business in nearby Columbia. I assembled "archives" for each pioneer several years ago, with the help of Dr. Ava Kahn who was once the chief archivist at the Magnes Museum's Western Jewish History Center (which archives are now part of UC's Bancroft Library), and who visited my classroom several years ago to speak to the students about how archivists assemble materials and use them for research.

Using a summary sheet of what we know at this point about the life of the pioneer, as well as other documents written by or about the individual, and some photographs if any were taken, the students took time to get to "know" their assigned pioneers. Once this was accomplished, I asked them to write a "letter home" to one or more family members they had to leave behind in Europe. This assignment (which will be completed next week) will allow each student to review what we've learned in class about the reasons young Jewish men (and later women) left their homes to embark on a dangerous journey to California, how they coped during the journey, how they tried to maintain their Jewish identity and faith during the trip and once they settled in California, and what their lives in Sonora or Columbia were like - how they earned their living and participated in the Jewish communal life they established in the mining towns.

This letter, I explained to the students, can be classified as "historical fiction." We have a lot of information about a handful of the pioneers, but for many others we know precious little - in some cases, only what was inscribed on their gravestones (or at least, what is still legible on the stones). In order to write the letters, the students are being asked to "fill in" missing information using facts we learned along with their imaginations. These letters will be read by students going on the Gold Rush field trip on November 6th, as they stand next to the grave of the pioneer in the cemetery, or in front of the store run by the pioneer on Columbia's historic Main Street.

Michael is "becoming" Hartwig Caro, the very first Jew to be buried in Gold Rush country - he was only 17 years old when he died.

Joey is "becoming" Phillip Schwartz," who ran the "New York Fancy Dry Goods" store on Columbia's Main Street.

And Max is "becoming" Aron Jacob, a Jamestown merchant, who succumbed at the age of 34 to a cholera epidemic that swept through the town in 1862 (his wife, Mary died 4 months later at age 33 from the same cause). The children they left behind (we're not sure how many) were sent to San Francisco to be cared for by relatives - a pattern not uncommon in the Gold Country.

These letters will become part of a "documentary" bulletin board I'll be putting up in the hallway outside our classroom after our field trip, sharing what we learned about the Jews of the Gold Rush with other students and teachers, as well as visitors.

We only had a short amount of time to begin writing the letters on Tuesday and Wednesday, since the first part of each session was dedicated to the second of our 8 scheduled cooking classes with Karen (on Tuesday) and Stephanie (on Wednesday). This time, they led us in preparing a light and delicious "Seemaneem" fruit salad. Hopefully, you've received an e-mail from the school office with the recipe attached by the time you read this post. "Seemaneem" means "symbols" in Hebrew, and the fruits we sliced and diced for the salad are all grown in Israel. It's a popular recipe for the Sukkot holiday, which commemorates the harvest of the first fruits in the Land of Israel in ancient days.

We began the session each day by gathering around the demonstration table so that Karen (pictured above) and Stephanie could show everyone the safe and most effective ways to slice and dice the fruit.

Here's Stephanie sharing the recipe with us on Wednesday.

Then the students divided up to work at separate tables - no more than 4 to a table. They divided the work between themselves so no one stood idly by. Here's Gabe separating the seeds of the pomegranate.

The trick is to separate them in a bowl of water, so that the heavier seeds sink to the bottom while the lighter inside skin floats to the top and can be easily picked out of the water.

Then, it's a simple step to scoop up the seeds (as Jeremy is doing here) and let them drain in the hands...

...then put them on a paper towel to dry off and transfer them into the fruit salad bowl, as Jack is doing here.

Here, Joey is working on separating the date pit from the meat of the fruit.

Here's Callen slicing the dates.

Michael is working on slicing the apple. The first cut is the hardest, as many students quickly discovered.

Each student found his/her own method for slicing and dicing. Here's Joey demonstrating his apple slicing technique.

You have to put some muscle into that first cut, as Abby is demonstrating here.

Peeling oranges wasn't as easy as some thought it would be. Michael is working on his orange peel here, piece by piece.

Abby decided to peel her orange section by section.

The sliced orange is now ready for Abby to put into the fruit bowl.

Once the fruits were all sliced and diced and transfered to the fruit bowl, it was time to squeeze lemon into a plastic 2 oz. tasting cup.

Then one tablespoon of the juice was measured out, to be poured over the fruit.

Then it was time for one student from each table to go to Karen for the final ingredient - 1/2 cup of orange juice, which was poured over the salad as well.

Stir it all together, and voila - seemaneem fruit salad ready to eat!

Divide it up into bowls for each member of the group...

...bring it over to tables in the back of the Oneg Room that had copies of the b'racha (the blessing) we say over fruits that grow on trees...

...recite the blessing together, and eat and enjoy!

As a final note, a few students noticed pomegranate juice stains on their shirts. If it's not too late, I found this website with steps to follow to remove the stains. It's not guaranteed, but it's worth a try.

B'TEYAVON!  BON APPETIT!

Simchat Torah Celebration

Yesterday afternoon and evening, all of JQuest met for an hour of class, and then we all went up to the Social Hall to have a pizza dinner followed by a community celebration of this final holiday of the month of Tishrei.

During our classtime together, I read "A Torah is Written," to the class, which describes in great detail how a trained "sofer" (scribe) prepares the materials used for copying a "sefer Torah" (Torah scroll) - the parchment, ink and quill - and shares all the laws a sofer must follow to produce a "kosher" sefer Torah for a community. I wanted my students to be aware of the skill and time and patience it takes a sofer to copy a sefer Torah, so that they could truly appreciate our Isaiah Torah scrolls during the Simchat Torah celebration.

Once we joined everyone upstairs in the Social Hall, we found tables laden with wonderful things to eat for our dinner, brought by JQuest families

Every table set up in the Social Hall had two boxes of hot pizza waiting to be gobbled up

The tables filled up very quickly - and there were a lot of tables! Fortunately, there were more tables set up outside where families could dine 'al fresco'

Once dinner was over, it was time to move to the Sanctuary to joyously celebrate our having completed reading all five books of the Torah, and to symbolically begin reading them again.

But before we began unrolling the Torah scrolls, all the JQuest kindergarten students and other new students to JQuest were asked to come to the bima and help lead us all in chanting the "Sh'ma" prayer.

Then Rabbis Shanks, LaVine and Miller and Cantor Korn pronounced the priestly blessing in Hebrew and English over the children as they stood under a "chupah" (canopy) created by a tallit (prayer shawl) held over them.

Finally, it was time to unroll the Torah scrolls:

Rabbi Shanks pointed out the special place in the Book of Exodus (the second book of the Torah) where the pattern of the words on the parchment is designed to reflect the description the words share of the crossing of the Israelites on dry land between the walls formed by the waters of the Reed Sea as they parted:

I managed to snap photos of two of our Edot students as all this was going on -

Callen (with his brother) and...

...Zach (with some friends).

Once the Torahs were rolled back up and "dressed" again, they were taken to the Oneg Room where we continued our Simchat Torah celebration by dancing -

First the Hora (with the Torah)!:

and finally, led by our DJs Dennon and Doyle, in other forms of joyous dance!

CHAG SIMCHAT TORAH SAMEACH!

Preparing for the Journey

Now that I have shared the first 200 years of the history of Jewish presence in the United States, we're beginning to prepare for our upcoming field trip to Sonora and Columbia in the Mother Lode country. Last Sunday, we divided into four groups and each group was assigned a particular problem that new Jewish immigrants to the American West had to confront and solve.

Once each group had listed solutions to the problem with which they were presented, we discussed the solutions and made a list on the white board. I typed up the solutions the students came up with, and the worksheet will become part of an "archive" each student will receive for a project we'll be working on next week - stay tuned!

During the last two weekday sessions, we prepared for our trip in a very different way - we prepared hardtack and 1-2-3-4 cake (so-named because many pioneers were illiterate, and could only follow simple recipes that were easy to memorize). This cake is made by mixing together 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour and 4 eggs, then baking it in a 350 degree F oven for an hour. Jewish peddlers learned to make these from farmwives and miners whom they encountered as they peddled their wares. We made enough of both to share with everyone who will go on the field trip; those students not able to participate will get pieces of hardtack to take home next week, and we'll enjoy a taste of the cake next Tuesday and Wednesday, while I read "Out of Many Waters" at the start of each session.

Did I mention that the batter for the 1-2-3-4 cake is sticky?

I warned the students to keep one hand free of the bowl...

...because it's hard to get the batter off your hands if both are "involved."

Luckily, there were a few clean hands left in the room to help get most of the batter off the hands...

...and into the pan!

Finally, I added three more stumpers to the holiday bulletin board in honor of Sukkot:

1.) Who is the "Hatan Torah'? Who is the 'Hatan Beraysheet'?
2.) What is another name for Sukkot in the Bible?
(you can find the answers to the above 2 stumpers in the "Jewish Holidays and Customs" book on the window sill in our classroom!)
3.) Which American holiday, founded in 1621, is based on Sukkot?

MOADEEM L'SEEMCHA - ENJOY THIS WONDERFUL SUKKOT HOLIDAY!