Hello all!
It was good to be back
and see the kiddos. Sorry I missed last week, but my son thought that it was a
good idea to Peter Pan off of the choir bleachers and split his head open. Win
some; lose some….
Alas, we are all
stitched up and back to the grind.
A few housekeeping
items:
1) NO FOOD OR CANDY OR
DRINK is supposed to go into the religious school. Please tell your child
to finish his or her hot cocoa and food before going downstairs. We have
this beautiful new carpet and every week I am cleaning up wrappers and spills.
Thanks.
2) Please RSVP for
November 7, Friday night dinner and learning and services. We are hoping
to pack the house and it is a great evening planned. Allison has all
details.
Because of timing, we
have split mifgash (our welcoming rituals) into two parts. The kids come
for a quick little talk and then head to Hebrew and then come back for our
activity and class. Sunday we spoke about Noah, the parsha for the
Saturday before, and we talked about how Noah was considered "a righteous
man for his time." We talked about what that meant. The kids
had some great ideas for why the rabbis did not just call him a righteous man.
Someone said "because he did not talk to God." We spun
that a bit and discussed that he did not WRESTLE with God. God told him he was
going to destroy the world and to build a ship, and Noah was "like …
ok." He did what he was told, but his relationship with God did not
allow him to discuss, finagle, argue, like Abraham or Moses did. We are about
to read the Sodom and Gemorah story (abridged, of course), and the kids will
see first hand how Abraham negotiates with God to save lives. Part of our
mantra in the morning is that we strike a wrestlers pose, because we wrestle
with God. Jews don't lie down and submit, our relationship with our God and our
religion is one of action and we are integral players in our relationship with
God.
I also explained that
the word for ark is TEYVAH - and that the only other place in the Torah this
word is used is to describe the basket that little baby Moses is in. Both
flotation devices had no means of navigation, other than God's will. Food for
thought.
The Sam Squared
contingent then lead the rest of mifgash. We had a wonderful Monsters Inc quote
that related back to Judaism and our need for our tribe and then they lead us
in a game of Noah charades to tell the story.
We quickly reviewed the
laws of kashrut that the kids had learned the week prior and we headed outside
to play a game of Angry Birds Kashrut Style. We knocked non-kosher foods off of
chairs with Angry Birds dolls and we looked up our phone --technology in Morah
Gawel's class .. heavens open.. angels sing… -- and figured out that dinosaurs
are NOT kosher, amongst other things. Ask your child if SHARKS are kosher. This
game, while a bit rowdy and muddy.. much to my chagrin… was fun and the
kids were all engaged and excited.
We then headed back to
the classroom, busted open our TANAKHS and looked up our section of Torah from
Vayera. We will work each and every week on the skill of finding a book,
chapter and verse in the Torah. This section is when the guests tell
Abraham that Sarah will get pregnant and she laughs. We talked briefly about
WHY she laughed. I told them a story about when my mom died and I was in
the funeral home looking for the bathroom, and let's just say I opened the
WRONG DOOR. My sister and I (we were young. I was 23 and she was 18) busted out
laughing and we got admonished by the funeral director about "serious
business…" I was, naturally, horrified. As an adult, I can see
how the family of the occupant of Room Number Not A Bathroom must have felt
about 2 young ladies opening the door and laughing, but there was no disrespect
meant by it. We were nervous, emotional, undone … and it was just an emotional
release. We had to pee and we ended up coming face to face with a very restful
looking Mr. Jones. WE laughed. So the question was: why does Sarah
laugh? IS it an emotional release? Is she LAUGHING AT GOD or in his face?
What is her purpose and can we defend her?
After a few questions on
"did you really see a dead body," the kids got back on track
and they really "got it," in terms of why Sarah might have laughed.
Finally, ask them about
our Jewish Primal Scream. We have added it to our lineup of Torah Strong
warmups. It signifies sometimes we get frustrated and we need a release.
Sarah laughed. We screamed. :) Why not scream every once and a while in
Hebrew school. There is a time and a place for everything and now there is a 15
second place and time to scream! The kids' got some lungs on them :)
NExt week we will learn
with some Monsters Inc and some courtroom drama. Fun fun.
Have a wonderful week
and thanks for sharing your loved ones with me!
- Morah Leah
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