Hello All!
We had a lively week this week! I will not repeat our
beginning rituals every week, but each week we begin with the same structure
that I outlined in last week’s blog post. The point of this is to DRILL
(literally) into the kids, these concepts. I know, then, that whatever
their attendance, attention span, vacation/holiday gaps, or mood, that by the
end of the year – THEY GOT IT! Plus, it begins the class with in a fun,
interactive, physical, mental, left brain – right brain kind of a way: and
that’s all good.
This week we moved from our intro to our new subject of
being really PRESENT and LISTENING and how that relates to Judaism. In
the Torah, we read the story of Abraham getting ready to sacrifice his son,
Isaac, at God’s command. I love how there is a lot of Rabbinical commentary on
why Abraham willingly – without argument – offered to sacrifice his son.
The great Sages have a list a mile long of reasons about Abraham’s faith,
intentions, or inner struggle. Not to undermine our great Patriarch, but
really? I bet Isaac just had colic. I know that after 36 hours of
sleep deprived 24/7 crying hysteria with my son, that I would have been like :
“here. He. Is.” I might have even offered a thank you. My sweet Sam was
quite a challenge way back when. But that’s another story. For another
day. And luckily, the good Lord didn’t ask me to build an alter and
sacrifice him. Because he’s a good kid now, and he eventually stopped
crying at age 4. And my Girl Scout training was a total fail, so I really can’t
build a fire. But alas, I digress….
So anyway, the story goes that Abraham was so focused on what
he was doing with Isaac, that when God called out to him to stop, God had to
say his name 2 x. “Abraham… Abraham…” the Torah reads. The Rabbis
tell us that God had to nag.. if you will… Abraham. God had to break his focus,
as Abraham was so present in the moment of what he was doing, that he couldn’t
hear. When Abraham heard God, finally, he replied “Hineini,” or “here I
am. “ Those words mean more than just answering “present” to a school
role call. In Hebrew, those words mean that I am LITERALLY – body and
soul – 100% HERE. I am present and open to what you are saying and what I am
experiencing. Judaism tells us to “Listen” when we recite the Shema
and to “be present” for all that we do. While we hustle in our daily
lives, we need to stop and Listen. We need to consciously BE HERE.
We instilled this lesson in our kids in a really fun
way. While I thought of recreating the whole sacrifice scene in a
skit, there is the insurance and liability issues to contend with when
playing with knives J …. Instead, we
played a game. Each student has a slip of paper and they must 1) listen
for something and see something, and then 2) do something when that
happens. For instance, when someone says the ABC in rap music version,
another kid must stand up and do jumping jacks, then another must walk on
her/his hands, and another would jump up and down. In order for it to
work well, you really need to pay attention. The kids had so much fun,
and they took it seriously. WE only had one hiccup. I have a short video
from part of the activity up on our CSZ Religious School Facebook page.
“Like” us and you can follow all of our pictures and videos.
We then went over the structure of the TaNaKh and I
explained what each book stands for, what is IN each book, and how it is put
together. This is all new information for the kids, so it will take a
while to sink in. Their original sketch with the notes is on a Football
field, so each yard line has a Book and information on it. We will work with
this all year. We were going to play a game of football to help get the
information to sink in, but the call of the 12:15 bell was beckoning, and
spirits were a bit high. We will play Football soon. We did,
however, get to see Rabbi Starr’s Michigan football – a bit deflated from 8
years on a bookshelf – which inspired a “Tom Brady and the Jewish dilemma of
deflatgate” Because Judaism is indeed – everywhere.
*** full disclosure… I am writing this Monday morning, so
Tuesday has not happened yet. It COULD go down quite differently, but
let’s pretend that it goes down as planned. **
Tuesday was fantastic. Your kids were super well behaved,
every part of the lesson went off without a hitch, Morah Leah looked 10 years
younger and phenomenal while teaching. All of the parents had no traffic and
Starbucks was giving out free lattes to all parents, your neighbors delivered
dinner to your house as a surprise and the kids actually ate it all without
complaint, and scientists discovered that ice cream is really calorie free and
quite healthy….. You know: the usual.
Anyway, back on the ranch:
The kids learned how to navigate the Tanakh by recognizing:
Book, Chapter, Verse and Line numbers. So, when I say “Find Genesis
7:8-10,” they know how to pick up a Torah and find it. While it seems
easy, since the advent of on-line Dictionaries and Wikipedia, and the slow
death of the physical Dictionary and Encyclopedia Britannica, this skill is
actually challenging for many kids. Their brains are not programmed to think in
the way that our brains were with the years of Library Sciences drilled into
our elementary heads. It is, however, a very important skill. It also
demystifies the Torah a bit, which makes it feel more accessible for the
kids. After a quick lesson on what each word and number means, we went
for a shul wide scavenger hunt to find our way through the Torah. For instance,
the kids were given a line number, which correlated with water. They then
needed to think of WHERE in the shul this might be (water fountain) and there
was another clue / Torah verse that would lead them to the next spot.
We will begin our next session learning our Torah narrative
for this semester, Vayera. We will look at it for several months, and
Rabbi Starr will lead us in a month long D’var Torah workshop to help the kids
navigate the system, to make their B’nai Mitzvah experience a bit easier.
Housekeeping:
1)
Please “like” our Congregation Shaarey Zedek
Religious School page on Facebook
2)
In October we only have class on October 16th
and October 30
3)
We have all kinds of family services and
programs for the high holidays. Please take a moment to look through your
service sheet in your high holiday packet.
4)
Please RSVP for our Family Taschlich at the
Franklin Cider Mill on Sunday, October 9th. Free cider and donuts if
you register at: www.shaareyzedek.org
5)
Please come to our family Simchatoberfest on
Monday, October 24th at 5:45 pm. Fun for all ages: rootbeer
floats, pizza, craft beer, caramel apples, lawn games etc…
Have a great week and a happy and healthy New Year,
Leah
