Simchat Torah

On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, I introduced the students to the Torah. During our Hebrew Through Movement session, they became familiar with vocabulary relating to the Torah (sefer Torah, yad shel torah), and immediately after our tefillah time with Rabbi Greninger, I read a book to the students about the laws and customs a scribe must follow when copying a Torah, called "A Torah is Written".

The final holiday of the Hebrew month of Tishrei is Simchat Torah (celebrated by Reform Jews following the 7th day of Sukkot). This year, the celebration of what is essentially the constitution of the Jewish People and its earliest history text fell on Wednesday evening, and it was my hope that before the students joined the rest of the congregation in celebrating the holiday, they would have enough information to appreciate the skill and patience a scribe must have to copy a "sefer Torah" (a Torah scroll). In just one or two years, the students will be chanting from the Torah on the bimah as they achieve an important milestone in their Jewish lives by becoming Bar/Bat Mitzvah. As they learn to read each letter and word and line of their parashot (Torah portions) on the scroll itself, I hope they can appreciate the love and joy and pride in our heritage, transmitted through the ages through the pens of the scribes.

We reviewed previous holiday vocabulary first - Josh, leet'ko'a ba'shofar. (Josh, blow the shofar.)

Lee'tol lulav v'etrog. (Shake lulav and etrog.)

Then we practiced Simchat Torah vocabulary I had just introduced - Gabe, l'hareem sefer Torah me'al ha'rosh. (Gabe, lift up a Torah scroll over the head.)

And finally, we put all the Simchat Torah vocabulary I had introduced together with new basic Hebrew vocabulary I also introduced this week: sefer Torah gadol, sefer Torah katan, yad shel Torah gadol, yad shel Torah katan, l'hatzbee'a, and leen'go'a. (a big Torah scroll, a small Torah scroll, a big Torah pointer, a small Torah pointer, point to, and touch.)

Immediately following our hafsaka (recess), which unfortunately had to be held indoors on Wednesday due to the poor air quality resulting from the fires raging in the counties north of us, I read from "A Torah is Written."

The students seemed to be fascinated by the process of copying a sefer Torah: learning how the skin of the kosher animal is soaked for 9 days in lime water, then stretched on a rack before being sanded for a smooth surface...

...how gall nuts (from the Kermes Oak) are ground and added into the ink mixture to give the ink a shiny gloss, and how the scribe must continually make new ink - just 2 teaspoons at a time. And what really took their breaths away, was when I read how a scribe must go through the process of proofreading each letter and word of the entire Torah he has just copied with the aid of another learned scribe THREE TIMES before the separate parchment pieces can be sewn together to create a sefer Torah that is fit for the community for which it was copied.

This coming Sunday I will formally introduce to the students the first edah (Jewish Diaspora community) we will be studying this year - the Beta Yisrael (House of Israel) of Ethiopia.

Thanks to the novel I've been reading aloud to them ("The Storyteller's Beads"), they will already be familiar with where and in what conditions the members of the Beta Yisrael were living in the year 1984, when this novel takes place. They know how the non-Jewish tribes of Ethiopia felt about the "falasha" (aliens) which is what they called the Beta Yisrael, and how these superstitious tribes believed that the Beta Yisrael were "sons of the buda" (the evil spirit) and could morph into hyenas at night and poison food by just looking at it.

And we've been learning Amharic vocabulary as well, spoken by the Beta Yisrael and all other Ethiopians. And here everyone thought we would only be learning Hebrew in our Edot class! In a few weeks, we'll be learning Amharic phrases as well as individual words. Stay tuned!

Rick Recht Concert

Yesterday morning, during what would ordinarily have been our tefillah service at the end of first session, we enjoyed an hour-long Rick Recht concert in the Sanctuary. Rick had already performed for our Spring Fling (last day of school) back in 2013, and I can happily report that his concert this time was just as energetic and engaging as in 2013.

What was most enjoyable for me was the fact that he included us all in singing his songs. For each song he performed, he asked one of our JQuest grades to join him up on the bima. From the moment he was first introduced by Cantor Korn, to the final song, he engaged the entire audience.

Here's his rendition of "Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu" with the sixth graders:

He performed a very moving "Halleluya" with our Shira track students as, in the background, images were projected of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his peaceful protest movement:

He even managed to include his own son, Tal, as he sang the song he wrote about him:

And our own music director, Ben, joined Rick onstage for a beautiful rendition of "For All You Are, For All You Do":

In class, before the concert, I introduced the students to the concept of the "Edot." Many of the students, when asked to offer their definition of "edot," said that the word meant "culture." It's not surprising they came up with this definition in that our school description of the Edot track uses the word "culture" as translation for the term. Actually, the Hebrew word "edah" (singular of "edot"), is best translated to English as "an ethnic group," and, even more specifically, as a Jewish Diaspora community.

Once we had established the definition of "Edot," I handed out color photographs of people from different parts of the world:

These photos represented people from almost every continent, and I asked the students to try to figure out what part of the world each person came from.

 After they shared their guesses, I asked if anyone could tell me the one thing all these people had in common as far as where they came from. A few students had already guessed that all these people were Jews living in different parts of the world. I then asked the students the same question I had asked them the very first week of school: "How can you tell any of these people is Jewish?" A few photos showed men wearing a tallit (prayer shawl), keepa (skullcap), and/or studying a Hebrew text, so we started by listing those clues. But when it came to a female Israeli soldier or a Yemenite woman wearing a traditional Jewish wedding headdress, or an Afghani man wearing a turban and sporting a very wild beard, it was much harder to say why they thought s/he was Jewish.

At this point, I introduced the fact that because Jews live all over the world and have so many different customs, three "umbrella" groups have been defined over the centuries to include "edot" following similar customs: Ashkenazeem (European Jews) originally came from the Rhineland region of Germany and eventually most moved to Eastern Europe; Sephardeem (Spanish/Portuguese Jews) came from the Iberian Peninsula; and Mizracheem (Eastern Jews) never left the Middle East or North African areas where they settled over several centuries following the Babylonian and Roman exiles. I explained to the students that as we learn about specific edot this year, they'll come to understand how all the Jews everywhere read the Torah and followed the commandments and upheld similar values, but developed different cultural customs depending upon where they lived.

To end the lesson, I asked the students to suggest specific edot that would fit under each of the three "umbrella" groups, which they did very well.

Before it was time to go to the Sanctuary for the concert, we had about 20 minutes for our Hebrew Through Movement session.

With all the Tishrei holiday vocabulary that I had already introduced, this was a good time for a review, as well as to introduce Simchat Torah vocabulary in time for this coming Wednesday evening, when Reform congregations begin its celebration. Before class began, I had set our "holiday table" (shoolchan shel chageem, in Hebrew) with the major symbols for each holiday.

As always, we began the session with some basic vocabulary review and a chance for everyone to move around after sitting for the first part of the session:

Then it was time to introduce Simchat Torah vocabulary:

Maddie, l'hareem sefer Torah me'al ha'rosh. (Maddie, lift up a Torah scroll over the head.)

Billy, l'hatzbee'a al Michael eem yad (shel Torah) gadol; Ella, la'seem shofar al ha'rosh shel Michael; Michael, la'seem yad (shel Torah) katan al ha'rosh shel Ella. (Billy, point to Michael with a large Torah pointer; Ella, put a shofar on Michael's head; Michael, put a small Torah pointer on Ella's head.)

And finally, putting it all together:

Hopefully, your family can join us on Wednesday evening at 6 p.m., after our regular Wednesday JQuest session, for a free pizza dinner followed by our Simchat Torah celebration with the entire congregation. We'll all have a chance to welcome our kindergarten and other new students to our JQuest community, and see several of our Isaiah sifrei (plural for sefer = scroll) Torah completely unscrolled as we listen to Cantor Korn chant the final line of the Book of Deuteronomy, then, immediately after, chant the first line from the Book of Genesis.

As a postnote, one of the Edot students asked me yesterday how long a Torah scroll is, after I described to them how we unroll the scrolls during our Simchat Torah celebration. I finally found this website that answers the question as best as possible. At the very end, there is an excellent suggestion:  

The next time your Temple’s Torah is re-scrolled you should ask someone to measure the length of a sheet and count how many sheets were used to make your scroll!

It may not be convenient, but someday it would be interesting if some of our clergy and/or congregants (or perhaps our Noar Night students) could do so with perhaps just one of our sifrei Torah.

Chag Sukkot Sameach

The holidays of the Jewish month of Tishrei are racing by. Beginning with Rosh Ha'shana (which is actually just one of 4 Jewish new year celebrations!), and followed ten days later by Yom Kippur, we focused on our connection to God, God's universe and to our Jewish community. These were somber days of reflection about our roles as individuals and as Jews, and how we could work to improve our own lives and, in so doing, help to repair the world.

Now it's time to look around ourselves and appreciate God's universe in a more joyous fashion. Last night, the first of three major harvest festivals began - Sukkot. It's the harvest of the first fruits and a time to look forward to the start of the rainy season both in Israel and in our own California.

I introduced the holiday to the students by asking them to define what a "symbol" is and to name important Jewish symbols. We reviewed what we had learned about the major symbol for Rosh Ha'shana - the shofar (see 9/18 post). We then began to discuss Sukkot and its two major symbols - the lulav (a bundle made of a palm, willow and myrtle branch tied together) and etrog (a citron), and the sukkah (a 3-walled hut with a roof made of branches through which we are able to view the stars in the sky at night).

Showing the students the three types of branches making up the lulav

Discussing the date of the holiday - the 15th day of the month of Tishrei

While still in the classroom, we discussed the meaning of each of the two symbols and how the Rabbis determined the rituals associated with them, based upon the commandments in the Torah to sit in the Sukkah for 7 days and to take the lulav and etrog and be joyous. I shared with the students that the Roman-era Rabbis (at that time new leaders of the Jewish People, who had taken over from the deposed Judean monarchs and from the kohaneem - the Temple priests) were not only responsible for clarifying confusing or missing pieces of information in the commandments (how do we use the lulav and etrog to show our joy, for example), but also took up the burden of keeping the nation together by creating a sense of common history and purpose.

We visited the Sukkah built by the Bonim students and their parents this past Sunday, and continued our lesson about the symbols of Sukkot there.

Thus, the sukkah (plural = sukkot, the name of the holiday) became an important symbol to keep our earliest history fresh in the minds of the people. After we escaped from Egypt and crossed the Reed Sea, we wandered in the Sinai wilderness for 40 years, they taught. During that time, God commanded the ancient Israelites to live in sukkot. At this point, I asked the students to describe what a wilderness (arava in Hebrew) is like. Not surprisingly, they all described a desert. I explained to them that a desert (meedbar in Hebrew) is different from a wilderness in that a desert is land that was once fertile but became barren thanks to humans cutting down trees and never re-planting, and draining the land of all its resources. A wilderness, on the other hand, is land that has always been mountainous and stony, and where only the hardiest of plants and animals can survive. I described how people have drowned in flash floods in the wilderness, and how they have to watch out for snakes and scorpions and other dangerous animals there.

So why did God command the Israelites to build sukkot with only 3 walls and a fairly open roof? A few students realized that it would build faith in the Israelites for a God they couldn't see or hear, but knew only through Moses, their leader. God would protect them from flash floods and other dangers. Thus, the sukkah becomes a symbol of faith in God, even as it's reminding our people of our earliest history as a nation. It's also a reminder of when we finally settled in the Land of Canaan, where many of us became farmers and harvested fruits and grains in their seasons. During the seven days of the harvest, the farmers slept and protected themselves from the harsh sun in sukkot. Here, the sukkah reminds us of a time when we were farmers in our own land. When we are commanded to live in the sukkah for seven days, it is to remind us about what life was like when we were farmers and dependent upon God's nature for our survival.

This is where the lulav and etrog symbol comes into play. How do we show our joy with the symbol? The Rabbis determined we should shake the lulav and etrog in the four directions and up and down. Originally, the shaking was to re-create the sound of rain falling, since the farmers depended upon the rainy season beginning around the time of the Sukkot holiday. But over a period of two or three hundred years, Rabbis who taught both in Roman Palestine (as the Romans had re-named the land) and in Babylonia (where a very large Jewish community existed by Roman times) suggested other reasons behind the symbol of the lulav and etrog.

One Rabbi and his disciples taught that the palm branch represented the human spine, the myrtle leaves represented human eyes, the willow leaves represented the human mouth and the etrog (the citron) represented the human heart. Thus, with all our body we praise God.

Another Rabbi taught that each part of the lulav and etrog symbol represented a geographic area in the Land of Israel, reminding us where we came from and that we would return there once again.

A third Rabbi taught that each part of the lulav and etrog symbol represented a different type of Jew: one who studied Torah but didn't do good deeds; one who did good deeds but didn't study Torah; one who did neither and one who did both. Thus, by shaking the lulav holding all the parts together, we are united as one nation, praising God together.

Different Edot (Jewish Diaspora communities) developed their own customs for following the commandments of living in the sukkah and shaking the lulav and etrog, but these rituals were an annual reminder of who we were, where we came from, and of our role as partners to God in tikkun olam - repairing the world.

As we go through the Jewish holiday calendar during the school year, I'll be sharing other symbols and the rituals associated with these symbols that the Rabbis devised relating to each holiday, all designed to keeping a dispersed nation together by reinforcing a memory of a common history and purpose.

This week, we ended each session with learning songs taught by our new music director, Ben. 

Y'tzira and Shira students joined us in our Edot classroom...

...which filled up very quickly!

Of course, Sukkot songs were on the menu. Ben introduced the students to the songwriter and folk singer Woody Guthrie, and to a song he wrote back in the 1930's. We learned the chorus quickly, and then Ben led us in singing the verses, the lyrics to which he changed to describe the Sukkot holiday:

Then Ben, at my request, taught us a song that many of the students already knew from previous years, but which I wanted to be sure all my Edot students would know - "Am Yisrael Chai." He taught us a version sung in Africa, and I wanted to be sure all my students knew it since we'll be singing it during an Ethiopian Jewish Sigd Festival we'll be re-enacting on Sunday, November 12th on our Isaiah campus. Much more information to come about this event in a few weeks!

I'm looking forward to seeing you all this coming Sunday, when we will have a regular session, but then enjoy a special concert by Rick Recht, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. (half an hour longer than when our tefillah session usually ends, at 11:00). I hope everyone can stay for the full concert!

And for those students who are participating in the Stumper/Challenge program, I hung up 2 new Sukkot stumpers and 1 Simchat Torah stumper, as well as two worksheets - one for Sukkot and one for Simchat Torah.

    

 Stumpers:
1.) Which American holiday, founded in 1621, is based on Sukkot?
2.) Who is the "Hatan Torah?"  Who is the "Hatan Berayshit?"
3.) What is another name for Sukkot in the Bible?

 CHAG SUKKOT SAME'ACH!

HAPPY SUKKOT HOLIDAY!

T'shuva: Return Again

We used our Edot time together on Tuesday and Wednesday to wrap up our introductory discussions about the shape and purpose of Jewish time by exploring the question, "What happens if you lose your balance and fall off the timeline?"

Just before asking the above question, I reviewed the image that Talmudic era Rabbis created of a timeline on which we are all balancing as we follow the commandments and do good deeds, our role in partnering with God to create a just universe for all living things. After asking the question, I added, "Do we even know when we are losing our balance and falling?" To help answer this second question, I reminded the students of the Roadrunner cartoons we all watched, when Wiley E. Coyote is chasing the Roadrunner. They all recalled the images of Wiley Coyote following the Roadrunner off a cliff and continuing to run with no ground beneath him, until suddenly he would look down, realize he had just gone off a cliff and then fall crashing down to the ground. This is the image I wanted the students to have as we discussed whether we could always tell if we had "lost our balance."

As students began to share what they might have done to "lose their balance" during the previous year, a few shared that they may have unwittingly said something that hurt a friend's feelings or forgotten to do a chore their parents had asked them to do. Neither example was done on purpose, but everyone agreed that they "lost their balance" in those cases without realizing they had done so.

We then went back to my original question, with students sharing how they thought they could "get back on the timeline." At that point, I introduced the Hebrew word, "t'shuva" which literally means, turning around or returning. What are we "returning" to? To the timeline, to where we fell off so we can continue to "balance" on it.

I then divided the students into 4 groups, and each was assigned a "case study" relating to someone who had "lost his or her balance." Each group was asked to read the case study and then determine if the subject had achieved "full t'shuva" (i.e., if they successfully returned to the timeline and found their balance again).

From our discussion of these case studies, the students understood that just realizing you did something wrong (turning around) did not necessarily mean that you "got back on the timeline and found your balance." To do so, the Rabbis taught, there are four steps you must follow:

1)  You have to realize you did something wrong and determine exactly what it was you did;
2)  You have to ask forgiveness from all the injured parties, including yourself (after all, it's you who "lost your balance"). Ideally, asking for forgiveness face-to-face is the best way, according to the Rabbis, but if it's not possible, then anyway you can is acceptable;
3)   If possible, you have to try to immediately correct the situation that made you "lose your balance";
4)  And finally, you have to make a plan of action that will help you avoid making the same mistake in the future.

Once these steps were discussed, I pointed out a wall poster I had made several years ago with the 4 steps of T'shuva written on it, so we could all remember them throughout the year.

I also shared that if, for some reason, anyone in our class had trouble being responsible for his or her own actions during our class time, I would give them two warnings, but if a third warning was necessary it would come as a request for the student to write a "t'shuva essay" at home.Very simply, I would ask that student to go home, think carefully about what s/he had done, then write one or two sentences  for each of the four steps we had just discussed. If that ever happens, I will write to the parents to let them know I've assigned the essay, and will share the 4 steps in the note. This "t'shuva essay" will be the student's "ticket" back into the classroom.

As a final activity for our discussion, I gave each student a "T'shuva Worksheet" on which they were asked to list two things they had done in the previous year for which they felt sorry. Then, for each of those things they filled in the 4 steps for how they could achieve full t'shuva.

They were then asked to fold the worksheet into thirds, to fit into an envelope I gave them, and seal the envelope. They put their full names on the front of it, and then I gave each student a Magen David (Star of David) sticker to put on the flap of the envelope as a seal, and told them that this sticker would be counted toward the 20 stickers they could accumulate in the "Stumper/Challenge" program (see my previous post).

I will hold onto these envelopes during the year until the final week of school, at which time I'll return them and the students will be able to open them and check to see if they were successful in following their "plan of action" (step #4) to avoid making the same mistakes again.

We also participated in a whole-school "T'shuva" activity:

Rabbi Greninger arranged to have 26 large pieces of paper hung on the walls in our upstairs hallway. Each page had a letter of the English alphabet printed on its top.

Our students were asked to think of something they were sorry for which began with the particular letter on the page, and write it on that page.

Our Edot students took this activity very seriously.

Though I told them they could choose just two or three pages to write what they were sorry for, many wrote several things on each page, or chose multiple pages to share actions they felt they should atone for.

Here are two examples of what they wrote:

Our Hebrew Through Movement session was a review of vocabulary introduced to date, including "leetko'a shofar" (blow a shofar), and introduced the Hebrew word "sleecha" (forgive me; I'm sorry). Of course, to have fun, we didn't only blow the shofar...

I didn't even think about the result when I commanded the boys, "La'seem shofar al ha'rosh shel Charlie." ("Put a shofar on Charlie's head.")

Who ever said that learning Hebrew had to be boring?!!!

G'MAR CHATIMA TOVA. MAY YOU BE SEALED (IN THE BOOK OF LIFE).

Stumpers and Challenges

A week ago yesterday, I introduced an optional incentive program to my Edot students. It's called the "Stumper/Challenge" program, which evolved over some two and a half decades from my frustration at not having enough class time to share as much of our Jewish world with my students as I would have liked.

Very simply, I am offering my students a chance to earn as many $10.00 Toys 'R Us gift certificates as they can; they receive one certificate for every 20 stickers earned. (Yes, I know the company has just declared bankruptcy, but I checked and they are still honoring the certificates!)

How can the students earn the stickers? There are 3 ways:
1)  For every stumper they answer, they earn one sticker.
2)  For every challenge they do, they earn 5 stickers.
3)  For each book report they write, they earn 10 stickers (with a limit of 4 reports allowed).
And, of course, they can earn the stickers through a combination of the above.

The stumpers are questions written on sentence strips, relating to information the students can learn from newspaper articles hanging near the sentence strip containing the question, or relating to holiday questions, the answers to which can be found in a book on the window sill in our classroom called "Jewish Holidays and Customs." (It was a Bat Mitzvah gift I received over half a century ago!). The questions and challenges belong to the following categories: Jewish World, Jewish History, Jewish Values, Jewish  Holidays, Israel, Tana'ch (the Hebrew Bible), and Biblical Archaeology. They all hang on the bulletin boards at the rear of the classroom, or, when I run out of space (as I often do), on other walls in the room. The challenges are also written on sentence strips and relate to the above categories.

Here are some of the stumpers hanging on the Jewish History bulletin board...

...and a few hanging on the Jewish World bulletin board. As you can see, there is some crossover between categories, since the above two questions relate to the Ethiopian Jewish community we're about to start studying.

Since we don't have much free time during our Sunday and weekday sessions, I've told the students that they can e-mail me or call me with the answers to stumpers, or take home worksheets on our holiday board to do at home (if you don't have my e-mail address or phone number, just call the JQuest office and they'll be happy to give one or both to you). If any of the students can come early to class on Sunday or during the weekday session, and if I'm in my classroom then (which I usually am), they're welcome to join me and I'll be happy to listen to their answers.  Since challenges often involve memorization, they have to do the challenge in class in front of me.

Since the stumpers and challenges often have something to do with what we'll be learning in class or with an upcoming holiday, I usually change them every 3-6 weeks. But I'll be putting all the stumpers and challenges in posts on this blog, so even after I take them down, the students have been told they can always answer them until the end of the school year.

One final note. By accepting the stickers from me, the students agree that they will become teachers of the information. So anytime another student comes up to them and asks if they know the answer to the stumper, they have to share the information they've learned with the other student. (It's my sneaky way of "spreading the news," so to speak.)

Here are the stumpers and challenges hanging on the walls at this writing:

Jewish Holidays:
Challenge:  Memorize the 12 Hebrew months in order, beginning with Tishrei. (See Jewish Calendar poster hanging on wall)
Stumpers:
1.  The Talmud says, "Intelligence, no work." What does this have to do with blowing a shofar?
2.  Why are we not allowed to blow the shofar on Shabbat?
3.  How might you not fulfill the mitzvah of hearing the shofar?
4.  When and why did "Kol Nidre" come to have a greater and deeper meaning for Jews?
5.  Name the major Jewish holidays which fall in each Hebrew month.

Jewish History:
Challenge:  Name 3 Mesopotamian events or innovations which had a direct influence on the Jewish culture in ancient times.(See chart on bulletin board to find answers)
Stumpers:
1.  What did Prof. Hershkowitz consider to be "treasures," and where did he find them?
2.   In which city did God contact Abraham for the first time?

Jewish Values: 
1.   How did 9 Temple Isaiah young people connect to their Jewish homeland, heritage and community?
2.   What question does Judge Weinstein ask Judge Scheindlin when he sees her?
3.   What did Simone Veil survive, and how did it affect how she treated society's weakest people?

Jewish World:
1.   Who are the "Falash Mura"?
2.   Which is the oldest congregation of Jews in the U.S., and which is the oldest synagogue building in the U.S.?
3.   What is a "Ques" and why won't Israel's Rabbis accept them?

Israel:
1.   Why have so many great empires wanted to conquer Israel/Canaan/Judea? (such a little country!)
2.   Who are the peoples who live within Israel's borders with the Jews? (What other nationalities live in Israel?)
3.   Who is Israel's Prime Minister? Who is Israel's President?
4.   What is the Knesset?
5.   How many Nobel prizes have been won by Israeli citizens?
6.   What is "Birthright Israel" and why is it so important?

TANA'CH: (Hebrew Bible)
Challenge:  Name all 13 tribes of Israel. (You can take a copy of the Tribal Map hanging next to the sentence strip.) (Yes, 13! Joseph did not have a tribe named after him, but each of his 2 sons had a tribe named after them. Jacob had 12 sons; take away Joseph, it leaves 11. Add the 2 sons of Joseph, and you have 13 tribes.)
Stumpers:
1.   Which were the first 3 cities in Canaan attacked by the Israelites under Joshua?
2.   According to Ethiopian Christians, how did the Ark of the Covenant find its way to Ethiopia?
3.   What do the Arabs call the Queen of Sheba?
4.   Where is the "Lost Ark" being kept, according to some?

Parents, feel free to share any answers to stumpers you may know! Again, we're "spreading the news!"

The Shape of Jewish Time

Yesterday, we continued our discussion begun last Sunday about  the Rabbinic teachings relating to "tikkun olam" (literally, reparation of the world), using the focus of the Rosh Ha'shana holiday and the shofar, its major symbol (RAMBAM's alarm clock).

I began the lesson by asking the entire class a series of questions which were very easy to answer. Ella, my very able TA, wrote the answers to the questions on the board in two columns.

The answers in the left column were "day, week, month, year, spring, summer, fall, winter and lifetime." Those in the right column were a bit more involved: "Creation, Noah's Ark, Abraham Moves to Canaan, Sarah gives birth, Jacob marries Leah, Joseph is Sold into Slavery, Joseph interprets Pharaoh's dreams, and Joseph is Reunited with his Brothers."

Once all the answers were written on the board, I asked the class, "If you were asked to draw a geometric figure which described the words written in the left column, what figure would it be?" It didn't take long for most of the students to realize the periods of time in that column could be described by a circle. I asked the same question about the phrases written in the right column.Very quickly, several students came up with "a line" (and, indeed, one very clever "geometrist" in our group said, "a line segment").

I shared with everyone that most ancient cultures saw time as an ever-repeating cycle. No matter what they did or believed, time would continue in this circular pattern. About the time of the Biblical prophets (ca. 1000-500 B.C.E.), a revolutionary concept of time developed which described time as a human progression of events which was superimposed upon the circular pattern of natural time. The prophets taught that every action undertaken by humans had moral consequences; every historical event that befell the Jewish nation was a result of whether or not we fulfilled God's commandments.    This Jewish "linear" concept of time was adopted, through Christianity and then Islam, by western civilization. It was God, the Rabbis taught, who created time. Since everything God creates must have a purpose, these Rabbis taught, then time must have a purpose. What is that purpose? Tikkun Olam. God created the universe, but now our role is to act as God's partners to bring justice to the universe.

The Talmudic Rabbis envisioned a "timeline," if you will, upon which we all must balance. How do we balance on it? By following the commandments and doing good deeds. They believed it was the responsibility of the Jewish nation to be role models for all the peoples of the Earth. And they believed and taught that when every individual, every community and every nation was perfectly "balanced on this timeline," time will end and we will enter the dimension in which God exists - they called this dimension "Absolute Time." We also refer to this period as the Messianic Era.

Now it was time to connect what we had learned last week about Rosh Ha'shana and the shofar to our original question:  WHY did the Jewish Diaspora communities, the Edot, maintain their Jewish national identity so fervently for at least two millenia?  They all assumed the responsibility for upholding the words of the Biblical prophets to be "a light unto the nations." They all believed each Jewish individual and community had a moral obligation to follow the commandments and pursue justice - "tzedek, tzedek teerdof" ("justice, justice shall you pursue").

As for HOW these Diaspora communities did so - well, that's what we'll be learning during the coming year as we study the history and cultures of four representative edot (Jewish Diaspora communities): the Beta Yisrael of Ethiopia, the Babylonian Jews of Iraq, the Jews of Spain, and the Jews of Yemen.

We ended our lesson about the "shape of Jewish time" by making our own individual timelines. These will be kept in each student's folder, and as we learn about specific events and eras in history, we'll note these on our timelines. I introduced the terminology used by most historians today of B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era), and to give it context, I shared the Christian belief that Jesus is the Messiah, but that his appearance on Earth about 2,000 years ago was temporary, to remind people to continue our efforts to bring about tikkun olam. I shared the Christian belief in the "Second Coming" and how Christians began counting the years all over again from Jesus' birth, to help the students understand why those years before Jesus was born (B.C.E.) are counted backwards from "year 0" when Jesus was born, and why they are counted "forwards" after his birth (C.E.).

Yesterday, I introduced the historical novel I'll be reading this semester at the start of each Sunday and weekday session, called "The Storyteller's Beads." We'll be starting to learn about the Beta Yisrael of Ethiopia next week, and this story provides wonderful background history and descriptions of this edah's unique culture.

 And, of course, we continued to have lots of fun with our Hebrew Through Movement commands. This time, I reviewed what we had learned about the sounds of the shofar last week, by introducing commands to blow the different sounds we learned about.

First, I introduced the command "leetko'a ba'shofar" ("blow the shofar").

Then I asked for volunteers to model the same command.

Lots of volunteers to choose from!

Then it was time to put the shofar through its paces (not to mention the boys!). "David, la'seem shofar al ha'rosh shel Brody; Brody, la'seem shofar al ha'rosh shel Myles; Myles, la'seem yad al ha'rosh shel David. Achshav, la'shevet al ha'reetzpa b'yachad." ("David, put a shofar on Brody's head; Brody, put a shofar on Myles' head; Myles, put a hand on David's head. Now, sit on the floor together.)

Using the same formula as I had for the boys in the photo, I gave a series of commands having the students put their hand or a shofar on the head of the student next to them, then asked individual students in the group to blow certain sounds - in the video snippets above and below, I commanded them  "leetko'a tekiah g'dola" ("blow a big or great tekiah). I can now say with full confidence that all our students are familiar with all the sounds of the shofar blown on Rosh Ha'shana and Yom Kippur!

During the coming weekday sessions, we'll be finding out what happens when we "lose our balance and fall off the timeline." Stay tuned!

G'MAR CHATIMA TOVA L'CHOOLAM.

MAY WE ALL HAVE BEEN SEALED (IN THE BOOK OF LIFE). 

The Sounds of the Shofar

Last week, we learned that the Jewish People fit the definition of a nation -  a group of people with a language, a set of laws, a land, and a history in common. We learned that we are the oldest surviving nation on Earth, and because of certain historical events we were, for about 2,000 years, a nation without a land - a Diaspora nation. 

Yesterday, I continued our discussion by asking the students, "If we couldn't live together, how is it that we always remembered who we were and where we came from, and kept our national identity? How did we preserve it and, even more importantly, WHY did we do so?  To help begin to discover the tie(s) that have bound us together through space and time, and continue to do so, I introduced a quotation from Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, who lived about 1,000 years ago (also known as RAMBAM and Maimonides). 

“Awake, awake, you slumberers from your sleep, inspect your actions and return.” 

We discussed what Rambam meant in this statement, realizing that he was speaking metaphorically. I then asked the class to listen very carefully to the sounds of the shofar on this link (I played minutes 1:56 to 3:18). When we had finished listening, I hung up two posters on our whiteboard, describing the shoresh (root letters) for each of the following words: shofar, t'ru'ah, sh'vareem and t'kee'ah. 

Very briefly, the word shofar is built from the 3-letter shoresh "shin-fey-resh." All words built from these 3 letters must have something to do with "improvement." The shofar is an instrument of improvement. All words built from the 3-letter shoresh "tav-resh-ayin" must have something to do with "alarm." The 9 staccato sounds which we blow on the shofar are named t'ru'ah - a sound of alarm. All words built from the 3-letter shoresh "shin-vet-resh" must have something to do with "broken." The 3-beat sounds we blow on the shofar are named sh'vareem. Finally, all words built from the 3-letter shoresh "tav-koof-ayin" must have something to do with "repair." Thus, the shofar, the instrument of improvement, is speaking to us - "Alarm! Something is broken and must be repaired." 

We discussed how the sounds of the shofar related to RAMBAM's quotation and agreed that we listen to the shofar on Rosh Ha'shana (Jewish new year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) because we want to "be awakened" by the sound of the shofar (our Jewish alarm clock, if you will) to look around ourselves and in ourselves and "repair" and strengthen our relationships with the people around us, with our community, and with God and God's Universe. 

I shared that it's not just on Rosh Ha'shana and Yom Kippur that we are commanded to listen to the shofar, but during the entire previous month (Elul) as well. Every day of Elul, except for Shabbat, we are all asked to "look back at our deeds" from the previous year and "take stock" of how we've treated ourselves, our fellow human beings, God and God's Universe. We're asked by the Rabbis to form a plan for improving these relationships over the coming year.

I finished this part of the lesson by having the students listen to the sound of t'kee'ah g'dola (literally, "big tekiah") (minutes 3:19-4:39 of the above link), which is the final sound we hear blown on Rosh Ha'shana and Yom Kippur (it's blown in this link for an impressive 40 seconds!!!). 

Next Sunday, we'll continue to explore WHY our Jewish nation has maintained its national identity in both good times and bad, and tie what we learn to yesterday's lesson. Stay tuned!

We used the remaining quarter of an hour of our session yesterday for our first Hebrew Through Movement lesson of the year. So many students - both 5th and 6th graders - recalled a good deal of the vocabulary I reviewed with them!

Baneem, la'shevet al ha'shoolchan. (Boys, sit on the table.)

Baneem, la'shevet al ha'beerka'eem, al ha'reetzpa. (Boys, sit on the knees on the floor.)

Baneem, la'seem yada'eem al ha'reetzpa. (Boys, put hands on the floor.)

Achshav, baneem, la'lechet al ha'beerka'eem v'al ha'yada'eem al ha'reetzpa. (Now, boys, walk on the knees and on the hands on the floor.

 After spending almost 15 minutes walking, running, jumping, turning around, getting down on the floor and up on the tables, I decided to finish the session with some deep breathing - "leenshom pa'am achat" ("breathe once"), "leenshom sh'nei p'ameem" ("breathe twice"), "leenshom shalosh p'ameem" ("breathe three times").  Then all the students followed the command, "La'koom v'la'seem ha'keeseh mee'tachat la'shoolchan. Achshav, la'lechet l'beit ha'meekdash b'yachad." ("Get up and put the chair under the table. Now, walk to the Sanctuary together.") It was time for our tefillah service.

Let me take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and healthy 5778.

L'SHANA TOVA TEEKATEIVOO! (MAY YOU BE WRITTEN FOR A GOOD YEAR!)