Playing Dosa and Qileblebosh

On Tuesday and Wednesday this past week, I introduced the students in each session to two games played by members of two different Edot. The first game I introduced is a card game played by the Babylonian/Iraqi Jews every Purim, called DOSA.  

As you can tell from the photo, it's a betting game. No strategic skills are required - only a lot of luck. After all, according to the Book of Esther read on Purim, the Jews survived Haman's plot to kill them all because luck was on their side (or was it God?). First, the King chose Esther to be his queen from all the hundreds of women brought before him. Second, when Mordechai told Esther to tell the King about Haman's plot, she fasted and then took a chance that the King wouldn't have her executed, the punishment for anyone (even the queen!) who dared to approach the King without first being invited. And finally, when Esther accused Haman of the plot, the King could have decided to follow his chief advisor's advice, rather than executing Haman instead of the Jews.

One deck of cards is laid out on the table for each player, and another deck is the Dealer's deck. Each player is given a certain amount of money, and places part or all of the money on any one of the card decks on the table as the bet. 

Once all the bets have been made, the dealer turns over his/her deck to see what card is at the bottom. Then, one by one, each player identifies which deck they placed their bet on and turns  it over. The goal of each round of play is to have placed your bet on the deck with the highest value card. There are some "magic" cards involved which have a higher value than others. Numbers 1-9 are simple - if only those numbers are in play when the decks are turned over, whichever player placed the bet on the deck with the highest number card wins all the bets placed by the other players. If the dealer's deck wins, the dealer gets all the money (though dealer never bets any money).  A face card (Jack, Queen or King) wins over the number card, but is not "magic." A number 10 card is "magic," so it has a higher value than the number or face cards, and the player who wins gets 2x the amount of the initial bets of all the other players. An Ace card is "magic," and wins 3x the amount of the bets, and the Joker has the highest value of all the cards, winning 4x the amount of the bets.

The game was a roaring success with the students!

And when the Joker appears, someone gets very rich and happy!

The second game I taught is played by children in the Beta Yisrael (Ethiopian Jewish) edah, and resembles "Jacks."

The rules are simple, but it takes a lot of practice to play well. Each student is given 5 stones. I gave the students a choice between small pebbles (in the plastic bag) or larger oval-shaped glass stones used in gardens (in the plastic bowl). 

Ideally, one hand is held (or even tied) behind the back during play. The game begins with the 5 stones on the ground, then one is picked up and thrown in the air. As it comes down, the player has to quickly pick up another stone from the ground and catch the stone thrown in the air. With the two stones in the hand, the player throws one of them into the air and follows the same steps already described, until all 5 stones are in the player's hand. Much easier said than done!

Again, the faces light up with success!

For the second week in a row, the sixth graders and I went down to the Youth Lounge during tefillah, to learn more about what happens in JQuest's seventh grade program. Since a few students from each track had missed last week's visit, Ian quickly summarized what he had shared last week about what they would be learning and doing during the year. The focus for this week's session, was to emphasize to the students how important it was for them to build a strong sense of community - learning to work with and trust each other.   

To demonstrate how they would have to learn to rely on each other, Ian asked them all to stand on a boards he laid down on the floor. Then he explained what they would be doing.

The first reaction most of the students had after hearing what they were expected to do was to say, "That's easy!" But after a few attempts failed, Ian told them to take 30 seconds, to strategize together how they could achieve the task. 

Their strategy proved successful, and slowly, but surely, they saw positive results.

Just before we had to return to our classroom, Ian shared the point of the exercise one more time:

We finished each day's class with our final music session of the year with Ben. First, he reviewed a song we've been singing frequently during tefillah - "Heenay Mah Tov" ("How Good it is").

Then he taught us a new song in preparation for celebrating Shavuot on Sunday, May 20th (our Spring Fling final JQuest session!). Another name for Shavuot is "Z'man Matan Torataynoo" ("The Time of the Giving of our Torah) since the Rabbis taught that it was on Shavuot that we received the Torah from God on Mt. Sinai. The song is called "Torah Tzeeva Lanoo Moshe" (Moshe commanded us Torah," literally):

I'll miss our music sessions with Ben - I love singing!

We don't have school this coming Sunday, Mother's Day. I wish all our mothers a very happy day with your families, and I'm looking forward to seeing all my Edot students again next Tuesday and Wednesday, May 15th and 16th.