Shabbat Shalom

Just prior to our Thanksgiving holiday break, I introduced the Edot students to a unit of study about Shabbat. We talked about the holidays we are commanded to observe in the Torah, and then learned that Talmudic era Rabbis considered Shabbat to be the holiest of them, referring to Yom Kippur as "Shabbat ha'Shabbatot," the Sabbath of Sabbaths. Shabbat is the only holy day to warrant being included in the 10 commandments - the fourth commandment, to be exact.

In order to share how revolutionary a concept Shabbat was, and still is, I introduced the students to the concept of the Hebrew root letters - shorasheem - from which Hebrew words are built. I shared how many words - in some cases hundreds of words - can be built from one shoresh (singular of shorasheem). Most shorasheem are made up of 3 letters. An important thing to keep in mind, I told the students, is that all the words which can be built from the same shoresh must have a meaning in common. With that in mind, we began to take a close look at the true meaning of the Friday evening greeting, "Shabbat Shalom."

Once we had determined that all the words that can be built from the shin-vet-tav (sh-v-t) shoresh had to have something to do with rest (Shabbat is the "day of rest", la'shevet - which the students recognized as one of our Hebrew Through Movement commands - means "to sit," etc.), we had a lively discussion about why and how God "rested" on the seventh day. The consensus, by the end of the session, was that God rested after Creation by "stepping back" and appreciating the universe which had just been created. "And God saw that it was good." So Shabbat, for us, is a time for rest - but not to sleep late or sit around all day doing nothing. Instead, it's a day to be set aside to appreciate the universe as it was created, as well as to look back at the previous 6 days to determine if we did our best to help keep our "balance on the timeline" (help to make ourselves, our friends and families and other peoples, as well as the environment more "balanced") and to look ahead to the next 6 days, to think about how we could continue to make the world a fairer (more balanced) place for all life forms - fulfilling our Jewish obligation to become God's partners in effecting "teekun olam" (repairing the world).

We then looked at the 3-letter shoresh for the word "shalom," and learned that all the words built from the  shin-lamed-mem (sh-l-m) shoresh must have something to do with "complete." The Hebrew verb "l'shalem," which means "to pay," is reflecting the fact that when you pay, you are "completing a transaction." "Shalom," which we've always learned meant "peace" (and is also a greeting), more accurately refers to a "sense of completeness." Thus, when we wish each other "Shabbat Shalom" each Friday evening, we are wishing others that sense of completeness that can only come when you've tried your best to do what needs to be done to make this world a better place for all living things, and the "rest" that results when you can step back and appreciate how you have helped and how beautiful the universe is.

As we continued our Shabbat unit studies after the Thanksgiving break, I introduced more shorasheem relevant to the holiday, and will continue to do so throughout the unit of study which will continue through the end of January. We learned that 500 or so years ago, Lurianic Kabbalists (Spanish exiles who were followers of Rabbi Isaac Luria in Tz'fat in Israel) determined that if we perform certain rituals on the holy days which God commanded us to observe in the Torah, and perform them in a certain order and with "kavana" (intention), we will be allowed to "taste" Absolute time (the end of time when we will enter into the same dimension of time in which God exists - also referred to as the Messianic Age in Reform Judaism). We listed the 10 rituals the Kabbalists designed for welcoming Shabbat on the board - preparing for Shabbat, lighting the candles, singing "Shalom Aleichem," blessing the children, Kiddush (blessing the wine), washing the hands, Ha'Motzee (blessing the challah), eating a special Shabbat meal, saying grace after the meal, and singing Shabbat songs and telling Shabbat stories (usually from the Talmud). We learned that "order" is important in Judaism - we can't have freedom without establishing a framework of order around it. We learned that all the words built from the sin-daled-resh (s-d-r) letters must have something to do with order - siddur is our prayer book telling us the order to say the prayers for each service, and a special holiday meal with certain rituals which must be performed in a certain order is called a "seder." Thus, it's not only for Pesach (Passover) that we have a seder, but also for Shabbat every week, and for Tu Beesh'vat (the "birthday" of trees).  As a closing activity, the students decorated a "Seder Shabbat" page, creating symbolic drawings for each of the Shabbat rituals.

Last Sunday, I introduced the shoresh vet-resh-chaf (v-r-ch), from which we build words having the meaning "bless" in common. The words "barooch" (blessed) and "b'racha" (a blessing) are built from this shoresh. I then introduced two of several blessing formulas which Roman-era Rabbis designed - a short blessing and a command blessing formula - which we use for the Shabbat seder rituals. The short form is composed of six words - "Barooch Ata Adonai, Eloheynu melech ha'olam..." ("Blessed are You Adonai, Ruler of the universe...) and the command form adds four more words to the short form - "asher keed'shanoo b'meetzvotav v'tzeevanoo...." (...Who has made us holy with His commandments, and has commanded us to...). We use the command form for any ritual commanded to us by God in the Torah, while the short form is used for other actions or rituals not specifically commanded to us - thanking God for food we eat, for the lightning we may see in the sky, for any number of things. Blessings are the Jewish way of pausing in our busy lives to appreciate aspects of God's universe. As a closing activity for this lesson, we learned to recite the "Kiddush" blessing, and then decorated a page with the blessing written on it.

Eventually, the "Seder Shabbat" page and all the blessing pages for each Shabbat ritual will be put together into a "Shabbat Seder Booklet," which the students will bring home to share with the family upon completion.

Decorating "kiddush" blessing page

Since we don't teach Hebrew decoding, this is a fun way for the students to learn that Hebrew has no vowel letters - dots and dashes make up the Hebrew vowel system.  By coloring in the bubble letters, they get a "feel" for the shape of the letters and vowels. I'll be incorporating these blessing pages into our Hebrew Through Movement program, asking the students to touch or point to specific words of the blessing formula. Hopefully, they will begin to recognize these words as we use them more frequently in our lessons.

We continued exploring Hanuka vocabulary in the Hebrew Through Movement program during the past few weeks, finishing with our final Hanuka vocabulary session on Sunday.

Alexia, l'hareem sefer shel Hanuka. (Alexia, lift up a Hanuka book.)

L'hareem et ha'sefer me'al ha'rosh. (Lift up the book over the head.)

Michael, lees'vov s'veevon al ha'sefer al ha'rosh shel Alexia. (Michael, spin a dreydl on the book on Alexia's head.)

Alexia, leen'go'a ba'meelot "chag same'ach" al ha'loo'ach. (Alexia, touch the words "happy holiday" on the board.)

Joey, la'shevet al ha'beerkayeem al ha'reetzpa. (Joey, sit on the knees on the floor.) By the way, the word in Hebrew for "knee" is "berech," which is built from the v'-r-ch shoresh all of which words must have something to do with "bless." We bend our knees when saying a form of the word in our prayers (for example in the , "Barechu" prayer and in the first blessing of the "Amidah" prayer.

Callen, lees'vov s'veevon al ha'shoolchan. (Callen, spin a dreydl on the table.)

Abby, leen'go'a ba'oteeya "hey" al ha's'veevon. (Abby, touch the letter "hey" on the dreydl.)

Max, l'hareem hanukeeya me'al ha'shoolchan shel Hanuka. (Max, lift a Hanuka menorah over the Hanuka table.)

Emma, l'hadleek neyrot shel Hanuka eem ner shamash. (Emma, light Hanuka candles with a servant candle.)

During the final 15 minutes of each of our Sunday sessions this past week, we joined the other 5th and 6th grade tracks in Shira's classroom, to learn Hanuka songs. Below is a video of us learning to sing "Mee Y'malel" ("Who Can Retell") - a song celebrating the heroes of the Hanuka story and other Jewish heroes who have saved us in each generation.