Mah Nishtana

During our Hebrew Through Movement, Tefillah, and Music sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, we focused on learning the Four Questions - the "Mah Nishtana" - section of the Pesach (Passover) Haggadah, which the youngest child (who is capable of doing so) in each family chants at the seder ceremony each year. Though many of our Edot students have younger brothers or sisters, it does not remove the obligation for them to become teachers and/or help correct mistakes that may be made in the chanting. I compared their roles as older brothers and sisters to those of the clergy and congregation members up on the bima during the chanting of the week's Torah portion, who often chime in with corrections if the reader (even a very experienced one) may make some errors. It helps us to create a sense of community when we know that there are others who will help us and support us if we do make mistakes.

We reviewed the hand gestures we had learned the previous Sunday for the first two lines of the chant, then practiced them several times over before it was time to go to tefillah. 

Just prior to the start of class on Wednesday, Rabbi Greninger asked if Edot students could help lead the chanting of the "Mah Nishtana" during the 3rd-5th grade tefillah, which they did.

During our music session with Ben each day, we had a chance to review once more the lines that we've been practicing, and still had time to enjoy singing "Our Passover Things" song (sung to the tune of "My Favorite Things" from the "Sound of Music").

During our own Edot studies, we continued to learn about the Jews of Spain. This week, we focused on those Jews who opted to remain in Spain following King Ferdinand's and Queen Isabella's Edit of Expulsion, issued on March 31, 1492. After a brief review of what we had learned about them on Sunday, I introduced a video called "From Toledo to Jerusalem." This is a one-hour video, narrated by the famous Israeli singer Yehoram Gaon, who narrates the story of what happened to those Jews who left Spain (including members of his own family), in the Spanish-Judeo language called "Ladino." Interspersed throughout the video are Ladino songs that were sung by these Jews, as they spread out across northern Europe and the Ottoman Empire, searching for a place to settle. The video begins in Toledo, Spain at the height of the Spanish Inquisition, in the 1490's. I showed the first 15 minutes of the video, which showed how these Crypto-Jews (hidden Jews) secretly performed Jewish rituals as they observed the Havdallah ceremony and Pesach seder. They were able to see what the Inquisition's soldiers and the King's soldiers looked like, and how, even in modern Israel Sepharadi Jews still follow customs begun during the days of the Inquisition to protect themselves in case soldiers should break into their homes during the seder ceremony (for example, holding the haggadot on their knees to quickly hide them in secret compartments under the table).

This video used to be available on YouTube. Unfortunately, YouTube cannot show it anymore because of copyright issues; thankfully, I still had the videotape I had purchased many years ago, and we still have a TV/VCR tucked away in a corner of the teacher supply room, so I was able to share the video, even as the students were asking questions about how the VCR worked. There are some online sites (as the one above) that show short snippets from the video.

With the viewing of this video, I am beginning to prepare the students for a "Crypto-Jewish Seder" that we will be re-enacting in class (students only) a week from this coming Sunday - on March 25th. We will be joined during this re-enactment by Shira students, since they are also studying about the Sepharadi Jews.