Sigd Festival

Our Edot unit of study about the history and culture of the Beta Yisrael of Ethiopia culminated yesterday morning when we re-enacted an abridged version of their annual Sigd Festival on our Isaiah campus.

As soon as the first students entered the classroom a little before 9 a.m., they were directed to one of four tables on which were spread out dresses and tunics and vests of all colors, similar to what Beta Yisrael members might have worn in Ethiopia for a special occasion.

One table was devoted entirely to the white robes and turbans and colorful, fringed umbrellas that are the traditional garb of the Kessim (their religious leaders)...

...while two tunics and plastic swords and daggers awaited the two "shiftas" (highway robbers) who would be "attacking" our group as we "climbed the mountain."

As the classroom began to fill with the "actors" and costumes were donned...

... as scripts were looked over and "kessim" could be seen walking past "shiftas..."

... a (relatively) quiet calm "kissed the crowd" and within 15 minutes we were ready to begin our procession down to the courtyard between the Talmud Torah Building and the Temple House.

Very quietly, we all proceeded through the upstairs school hallway, then down the stairs where we gathered by the courtyard gate.

From the courtyard, we began to go down to Risa Road, singing "Am Yisrael Chai" (the "African" version) as we descended.

Led by our three Kessim (singular, Kes), we then began our "climb up the mountain," as we listened to a CD recording of a song written by Shlomo Gronich called "Ha'Masa l'Eretz Yisrael" ("The Journey to the Land of Israel"), which describes the hazardous trek the Beta Yisrael had to take in 1984, in order to reach Israeli cargo planes waiting for them in the desert of Sudan, to take them to the "Promised Land." The song describes the dangers - extreme heat in the day and cold in the night, lack of food and water, and "shiftas attacking with swords and daggers."

As we began our ascent, we passed through a "Beta Yisrael village" where a young basket weaver was plying her trade along the path.

Even before leaving the mountains of Gondar Province, there was hidden danger lurking in the underbrush...

...two shiftas were waiting to pounce on our unsuspecting group, though all the valuables they might come away with were the little bits of food we took for our journey.

Still listening to the song on the CD, we climbed the highest "peak" of our "mountain."

Finally, we reached our destination (not Jerusalem, but the Oneg Room!). There, we all stood facing east as our three Kessim led us in reciting two prayers and a song taken directly from the Torah (or the Orit, as the Beta Yisrael call it) - the Sh'ma, V'Ahavta and Mi Chamocha. Following the Mi Chamocha song, we sat on the rug (while parents sat on chairs set up behind us), as the Kessim read the first 8 verses of Chapter 8 from the Book of Nehemiah, recalling how Ezra the Scribe gathered all the people in Jerusalem to hear the words of the Torah.

We then came to the verse in the Book of Nehemiah where the name of this Festival is derived from - "And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their bodies and faces to the ground." The Ge'ez word "sigd" ("seged" in Hebrew) means "prostration or bowing down."

The final verses read by the Kessim read, "And Nehemiah and Ezra the Scribe and the Levites that taught the people said unto all the people - This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law. Then Ezra said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither should you be sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength." (Nehemiah 8:2-8)

At this point in the Sigd Festival, the Beta Yisrael, who would fast all morning before climbing the mountain, would "break their fast."

We broke our fast just like the members of the Beta Yisrael, with slices of Yemarina Yewotet Daabo (Honey Yeast Bread)...

... and with pieces of Dabo Kolo (Sweet Snack Bread) which we prepared in class last Sunday. To wash it all down we drank traditional Ethiopian beer (OK, it was apple juice).

While we were still eating and drinking, the students performed the Proverb Skits they had written several weeks ago (with the Proverb posters they painted  during our previous week day sessions as backdrops). These skits taught the value the proverb was created to teach, by setting the proverb in a modern-day context.

WHEN TWO ELEPHANTS FIGHT, THE GRASS BENEATH THEM IS BENT AND BROKEN

IF YOU DON’T KNOW THE WAY, EVEN A PLAIN IS LIKE A JUNGLE

SLOWLY, SLOWLY, THE CHICKEN’S EGG WILL GET ON ITS FEET AND WALK

ONE STRING BRAIDED WITH OTHERS IS STRONG ENOUGH TO TIE DOWN A LION

When the skits had all been performed, it was time to celebrate with traditional drum circles and shoulder dancing. Unfortunately, we had no drums or drummers to form the drum circle, so instead I played the YouTube videos of the drum circle and shoulder dance that I had shown in class the previous Sunday (see November 6th post to view them). With the shoulder dance video playing on the screen we had set up, I tried to get my students and even their parents to join me in trying out the shoulder dance. But while the students did a wonderful job getting into character for the rest of the Sigd Festival, they somehow couldn't even be "noodged" (one of my favorite Yiddish words!) into trying it out by me or my TAs.

That's OK - our Festival was just about over, and it was time to remove the costumes and throw them and the props into a large, plastic bin I had set to the side in the Oneg Room for that purpose. As parents and students moved into the Sanctuary to join the other 3rd-6th graders for tefillah, my very able TA's began the clean-up process, while some parents stayed behind to help as well. A very big thank you goes to Jill and to Tom for helping out!!!

As a post note, the Sigd Festival is always held on the 29th day of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan. This year, that date falls on November 18th when we are scheduled to hold our very first JQuest session on Shabbat morning! I'm hoping to see you all then.

In the meantime, pack your bags and put on your traveling clothes. We're about to take a big jump in time and space, from 20th century Ethiopia back about 2100 years to 167 B.C.E., when a group of very unhappy Jews living in Judea are about to begin a revolt against a seemingly overwhelming enemy, with very long-lasting results for the culture and beliefs of our Jewish People!


 Post Note:  During the weekday sessions following our Sigd Festival, I asked the students to write down their responses to the following two questions:

What did you learn about the Beta Yisrael that you found interesting and would like to share with others?

Which activity did you enjoy the most during our unit of study about the Beta Yisrael and/or during the Sigd Festival?

I used their responses to create a documentary bulletin board in the hallway outside our classroom. I invite you to come up and read their responses.

Final Preparations for the Sigd Festival

Since mid-October, when we began our unit of study about the Beta Yisrael edah (Diaspora community) of Ethiopia, we've accomplished quite a bit in our exploration of its history and culture:

• Watched YouTube videos to learn what little we know of their early history, and much more about their recent history in the 20th century in Ethiopia, and their rescue by Israeli forces in 1984 (Operation Moses) and 1991 (Operation Solomon);
• Read "The Storyteller's Beads" novel, learning their versions of Biblical stories and how their Christian neighbors called them 'Falasha' - aliens or strangers - believing that they turned into hyenas at night, could poison food by just looking at it, and were the embodiment of the buda (the evil spirit);
• Listened to CD's to hear their religious chants; 
• Practiced speaking Amharic (their everyday language) and read a line from the Book of Enoch in their ritual language, Ge'ez;
• Tried out our skills as basket weavers to develop an appreciation of their craftsmanship;
• Discovered how their proverbs reflected their environment and values, writing skits in which we created scenarios to teach those values in more modern day settings; and
• Prepared a sweet dough snack called Dabo Kolo which they ate to break the fast during the Sigd Festival 

Our final project this past week was to design four posters - one for each of the proverbs we discussed in class. These posters will serve as scenery backdrop for the skits the students will be presenting during the Sigd Festival this coming Sunday, the culminating event for this unit of study.

First there was a brainstorming session within each group, to figure out how best to depict the proverb they were assigned:

Then it was time to execute the ideas generated during the brainstorming session.

There were a lot of materials I had set out for the students to use, and part of the brainstorming session involved figuring out which materials would best convey their assigned proverbs.

Since the Gondar Province where the Beta Yisrael lived is mostly composed of mountainous jungles, it wasn't surprising to see most of the groups using the plastic vegetation I had set out. The problem was figuring out the best way to make sure the relatively heavy foliage would remain on the poster board after it was hung up. One group decided to staple it on...

...while another group put their faith in scotch tape.

While some students were dealing with how to get the foliage to stay on the poster board, others were already beginning to create life forms found in the jungle relating to their assigned proverb.

Here's a body of water to break up the jungle scene - do you think there's enough glue to attach it?!

Once they had decided on the design of their posters and the materials to use, the students all worked so well together to execute their ideas.

They quickly figured out who would perform each task.

The result was quite impressive.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at the Sigd Festival on Sunday. May the day live up to its name so we can look forward to good weather for our "climb up the mountain."

Post note:  Following our Sigd Festival, I brought the posters back to the school building, and hung them up on one of our Edot hallway bulletin boards. If you didn't get a chance to see them at the Festival, you can now see them outside our classroom:

Preparing Dabo Kolo

Yesterday morning, we continued to explore several cultural elements of the Beta Yisrael edah - specifically, some aspects of its music, dance and food.

After a review of what we had learned to date about the Beta Yisrael history, I focused in on how some historians believe the group had likely separated from the main body of the Jewish community immediately prior to the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E.. This is how they explain the fact that the Beta Yisrael celebrate all the holidays mentioned in the Torah, but not Hanukkah. The Maccabean Revolt took place over 400 years following the Babylonian Conquest of Jerusalem, so the Beta Yisrael wouldn't have known about it.

On the other hand, the Beta Yisrael celebrated a holiday around this time of year which no other Jewish community in the world celebrated - the Sigd, which is a combination of Yom Kippur and Shavuot in a way. On Yom Kippur there is personal introspection and request for forgiveness of sins which is then followed by 50 days of communal introspection. This culminates, on the 29th day of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, in a day of fasting followed by joyous celebration. In 2008, the Sigd was added to the list of Israel's national holidays.

There are quite a number of descriptions of how the Sigd was celebrated in the Gondar Province of Ethiopia where most of the Beta Yisrael lived. It's a mountainous region, and the descriptions share how on the morning of the Sigd the entire community would fast and then climb to a higher altitude. There, they would listen to their religious leaders, the Kessim, read excerpts from the Book of Nehemiah that describe how Ezra the Scribe gathered all the returned Babylonian exiles in Jerusalem each week, to read to them from the Torah. Then the Beta Yisrael would break their fast with breads and stews and beer. During the remaining hours of the day they would celebrate joyously with singing and dancing until it was time, at dusk, to descend back to their villages.

At this point, I shared with the class that we will be re-enacting our own Sigd Festival on the Isaiah campus this coming Sunday, November 12th. I reminded them of how we've already begun to prepare for it by learning about the Beta Yisrael proverbs and writing skits based on four of them. I described how after the community broke their fast, they sang and danced all afternoon in joyous celebration of the Torah and our Covenant with God. Since our Sigd Festival on Sunday will take place during our regular Sunday session, we'll obviously be re-enacting a very abridged form of it, but a joyous one, nevertheless.

In order to give the students a taste of the music and dance of the Beta Yisrael, I shared two brief YouTube videos - the first shared a Beta Yisrael drum circle, and the second shared a shoulder dance - the Beta Yisrael borrowed both from their African neighbors. We all had a lot of fun copying the beat of the drums on our tables and then standing up to try to follow the dancers performing the shoulder dance (it's not as easy as it looks!).

Then I shared a YouTube of a Sigd Festival that took place in 2009 in Israel (one year after it became a national holiday there), to give the students an idea of what the Sigd Festival looks like. The video shows a group of Beta Yisrael leaving Pardes Hannah in the early morning hours, going by foot (for elderly and disabled by bus) "up" to Jerusalem where they continued the celebration with other Israelis.

When the lights came back on in our classroom, Ella and Kyra, my two wonderful Avodah T.A.'s, handed out a packet to each student. The packet consists of a copy of the Ge'ez alphabet and a sample quotation from the Book of Enoch. We read the transliteration of a line from the sample, noting that several words were very similar to Hebrew (e.g., the Hebrew word for blessing is "b'racha," and the Ge'ez word is "barakat"). A final page of the packet shared common Amharic greetings, which we all practiced on each other. We'll be greeting each other at the "top of the mountain" at our own Sigd Festival on Sunday with these phrases.

Our final activity of the session was to prepare a special treat that the Beta Yisrael eat to break their fast - Dabo Kolo. These have been described as "flat peanut-shaped" pieces of sweet dough, and it's hard not to like them - in fact, students in previous years have gobbled them up!

Since it's somewhat tricky getting the dough to the right consistency, I prepared it at home. Each student took a golf-sized piece and rolled it and kneaded it a bit.

Then they had to roll it into a long "snake" form, about 1/2" thick. It was tricky, since the dough is very elastic and kept "shrinking" each time it was rolled out.

Eventually (after a couple of minutes or so of rolling), the dough stopped "shrinking."

Then it was time to take an ordinary pair of scissors and cut the "snake" into several pieces about 1/2" thick.

Each piece would become a "Dabo Kolo" (literally, "sweet bread" in Amharic).

After the pieces were cut, you had to press down on each with your thumb to create the "flat, peanut" shape.

Each student developed his/her own style for pressing the dough.

Once the pieces of dough had been "pressed," they were placed in a plastic bowl.

The bowls began to fill up very quickly.

Pretty soon, once everyone developed his/her own rhythm, the tables were busy with students rolling the dough, cutting it and pressing it. Thankfully, I had prepared a lot of dough. For the final 20 minutes of our session, before going up to the Sanctuary for tefillah, there was a Dabo Kolo assembly line at each table. By the time we went upstairs, there were 11 plastic bowls filled to the brim with Dabo Kolo waiting to be fried on a hot pan.

The Dabo Kolo has now been fried by me at home (with a few pieces missing - I had to taste a few and for a very important second  opinion my husband, Peter, had to do the same!). And still there is so much more left for us to enjoy when we "break our fast" at the top of our Isaiah campus "mountain" this coming Sunday.

Now, there is just one more project to complete to be ready for our Sigd Festival - making posters to serve as backdrops for the "Proverb" skits which the students will be acting out. We'll make these posters during our two weekday sessions. Stay tuned!

B'nai Mitzvah Prep Workshop

Yesterday morning, during first session, the fifth graders and their parents from all three tracks met in the Social Hall for the first of two B'nai Mitzvah Prep Sessions scheduled for this year. Some families have attended the workshop in previous years with older children, but for most this will be the first leg of their journey through Temple Isaiah's Bar and Bat Mitzvah preparation process. 

Following Rabbi Greninger's introduction, all the students joined the teachers and Avodah TA's in the Oneg Room, while the parents met with Rabbi Greninger and Cantor Korn, who shared important information, not the least of which was the process relating to the choosing of Bar and Bat Mitzvah dates. They were also given a checklist and timeline in order to know what is expected of them beginning a year before the service up through 1-2 weeks before it.

In the Oneg Room, students and teachers began our own "journey" - this one looking back at the past, reviewing Torah stories taught in the 3rd and 4th grades. The focus of this workshop for our students was the Torah itself, since very soon each student will be assigned a "parsha" (portion) of the Torah to chant and explain during his/her Bar/Bat Mitzvah. Our review took the form of a "Torah Olympics."

Erin, our Shira teacher, introduced the purpose of the activities, then divided the students  into 4 groups: their first task was to decide upon a "team name" relating to the Torah.

The team names decided upon were the Maccabees, the Escapists, the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs. (OK - we didn't quibble with the fact that the Maccabees aren't in the Torah - in fact, they're not even in the Hebrew Bible, and we didn't ask how the "Escapists" got their name.) Maimone, our Y'tzira teacher, is looking over the 4 teams, like a general reviewing his troops.

The first contest reviewed the story of Abraham's journey to the Promised Land (as told in parshat "Lech L'Cha" which we just read this past Shabbat). It's doubtful that Abraham raced to follow God's command to "go to a land that I will show you," but some liberties were taken here in order to have as much fun as possible during our review!

Abraham's wife, Sarah, lived to be 127 years old. So to represent each year of her life, our next competition asked each team to try to be the first to complete 127 jumping jacks, either having each member of the team doing 127 of them, or sharing the responsibility.

The Torah tells us that Abraham's and Sarah's son, Isaac, became blind in his old age. What better way to review this fact than to have a Blindfold Race!

Isaac's servant, Eliezer, was sent to Haran to search for a wife for Isaac. As soon as he reached a well there, Rebecca came and gave him and all his camels water to drink. He chose her to be Isaac's wife. The important question for us in our review was "How did she carry all that water?" In a wheelbarrow of course!

Our third patriarch, Jacob, had to flee his twin brother, Esau, after he stole Esau's birthright inheritance by fooling his blind father, Isaac, into thinking he was Esau, and receiving Isaac's blessing as his firstborn son and rightful heir. As he fled, he stopped overnight in a place named Beth El, and there he had a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder that reached up to the heavens and down to the Earth. Our students were asked to assume the role of the ladder and to "pass an angel up and down the ladder." (The angel took the shape of a JQuest staff T-shirt.)

Leaving the Book of Genesis, in which all the above stories are written, we held a Book of Exodus "Trivia Contest" during which I asked the entire group questions relating to stories in that book, then offered multiple choices for the correct answer. Almost everyone knew the answers without even waiting to hear all the choices!

Since we were beginning to run out of our allotted time for the Torah Olympics, we quickly segued into the Book of Leviticus. In the middle of the book (which itself is in the middle of the Torah, being the 3rd of the 5 books of the Torah), is a passage called the "holiness code," which teaches us how to be a holy people. For this part of the Olympics, one person from each team was given an act of holiness written down on a strip of paper, and was asked to act it out charades style (no words - no props!).

DO NOT DO MAGIC! (Tell that to Houdini, a very famous Jewish magician!) 

When it was finally time to return to the Social Hall and join the parents, a very special gift was handed out to each fifth grader. It was "The Five Books of Moses", an easy-to-read Torah translation by Sol Scharfstein, which will hopefully prove to be helpful to our students as they prepare their assigned Torah portions.

In order to familiarize our students and parents with how to find passages in book forms of the Torah, we held "the World's Shortest Torah Scavenger Hunt," in which families were given specific passages to find using the "Book Chapter: verse" method (e.g. Genesis 1:1-31 = the Book of Genesis Chapter 1: verses 1-31 is where you can find the story of Creation).

Torah Scavenger Hunt worksheets were given to each family to fill out together.

This is my favorite part of the workshop - getting to see my students together with their parents.

It provides an added dimension for me to watch parents and children interacting, to help me form a more complete picture of each of my students.

I'm happy to report that almost all our Edot fifth grade families participated in the workshop.

Finally, we all moved into the Sanctuary for our usual 3rd-6th grade tefillah session led by Cantor Korn and Ben.

Our sixth graders and their families met during second session, for the first of their 3 scheduled B'nai Mitzvah Prep sessions this year. The goal of this workshop was to give the students and parents an opportunity to share their ideas of what becoming an adult entails, as well as to review the schedule for requirements. While the students moved into the Oneg Room with the teachers for community games which would allow them to get to know each other even better, clergy and parents met to discuss the importance of community building, the Kiddush luncheon and partnering of families sponsoring the Kiddush together, as well as to share ways to get more involved in our Isaiah community.

Please be sure to keep the following dates open for the upcoming fifth and sixth grade family B'nai Mitzvah Prep workshops this year:

Saturday, February 3 - 6th grade
Sunday, February 4 -   5th grade
Sunday, April 29 -       5th grade family visit to Contemporary Jewish Museum
                                     6th grade BMP Workshop

If You Don't Know the Way, Even a Plain is Like a Jungle

I used our weekday Edot time together to discuss Beta Yisrael proverbs. The dictionary defines a proverb as a short saying that is widely used to express an obvious truth. More often than not, the truths expressed in these proverbs reflect the core values held by a society.  This is certainly true of Beta Yisrael proverbs.

I reminded the students of some proverbs we had encountered in "The Storyteller's Beads" novel that I'm reading to the class, and we went over them, discussing the truth expressed in each one as well as how the proverb conveys the message using metaphors. These metaphors, we discovered, are reflections of the environment in which the Beta Yisrael lived for centuries in the mountain jungles of the Gondar Province of Ethiopia. I then shared 4 proverbs of the Beta Yisrael with the class:

"If you don't know the way, even a plain is like a jungle."
"One string braided with others is strong enough to tie down a lion."
"Slowly, slowly, the chicken's egg will get on its feet and walk."
"When two elephants fight, the grass beneath them is bent and broken."

We discussed the "obvious truth" conveyed in each proverb, identifying the metaphors used to convey the message in each one, and how the metaphors reflected the physical environment of the Beta Yisrael. Then, as a closing activity for the lesson, the students worked in small groups to write short skits that would dramatize the message of each of the above 4 proverbs. These skits will be performed at our upcoming Sigd Festival * on November 12th. The skits also provide me with evidence that the students understood the "truths" conveyed by the proverbs and why these "truths" were valued by the Beta Yisrael.

As all good writers know, finding a comfortable position is the first step to producing a work you can be proud of!

To start the process, each group was given a worksheet with questions to fill out. The answers create an outline for the skit they've been assigned to write.

And once the group had determined the characters and scenario that would convey the truth of the proverb they had been assigned, it was time to brainstorm the dialogue:

Now that the holidays of the month of Tishrei are behind us, I began to introduce new holiday vocabulary during our Hebrew Through Movement session:

After reviewing basic nouns, verbs and prepositions which we have been using up to this point, I introduced a new movement - "leekpotz al regel achat." ("jump on one leg" - i.e. hop)

Then it was time to introduce the new holiday vocabulary. I directed the students' attention to what has become our "shulchan shel chageem" (holiday table), and asked them which holiday we would be focusing on for the next few weeks. The answer is, of course, Shabbat - the holiest holiday on the Jewish calendar after Yom Kippur (which itself is referred to as "Shabbat ha'Shabbatot" - the Sabbath of Sabbaths).

Much of the vocabulary associated with Shabbat is already familiar to the students - challah, kiddush, and, for most of the students, ner (candle) and "l'hadleek" (to light) from the blessing we say over the candles. Using our Hebrew Through Movement props, we reviewed this vocabulary and I introduced "kos" (cup), bakbook (bottle), ya'een (wine) and l'varech (bless).

 We also reviewed two of the blessings we say Friday evening, at the start of the holiday - "...l'hadleek ner shel Shabbat" (...to light the Shabbat candle) ...

...and ..."borei p'ree ha'gafen" (over the Kiddush wine):

(Once the students show me that they can successfully recite the words for the candle lighting ritual blessing, I'll teach them the chant melody for it that we use at Temple Isaiah.)

Now that we're focusing our attention on Shabbat vocabulary, I hung up new Stumpers and Challenges relating to the holiday on our Holiday bulletin board

Challenges:
Name all the things that were created on each day of Creation. (without notes!)
Name the 10 parts of the "Shabbat Seder" (Kabbalat Shabbat) by heart.

Stumpers:
1.  What is "Kabbalat Shabbat" and when was it first introduced?
2.  Where exactly in the Torah are we commanded to observe Shabbat?
3.  Name the 6 "Special Sabbaths" and tell why each is "Special."
4.  What is "Lechem Mishneh" and what does it remind us of?
5.  Why is it important for Dr. Arpadi to honor Shabbat?

* Please note that a letter will be sent to all Edot families very soon with details relating to our upcoming Sigd Festival. I'm  hoping that as many of our students as possible can attend to make it as meaningful a ceremony as possible, as this is our concluding event for this unit of study. Please let me know ASAP if your child will attend or not, so that I can assign those who come roles to play.