Hi All!
We had a FANTABULICIOUS Sunday. The kids were on task,
excited, and learning. Always fun.
Our fearless madrichim, Sam Squared, led us in a fun mifgash, and
the kids played 3 lies and 1 truth. They also had some cool quotes on
lying.
Then I led the kids in a little mental logic puzzle. Annie
was the first person to get the right answer. See if you can:
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A
logic problem: What question should the princess ask?
A princess
visits an island inhabited by two tribes. Members of one tribe always tell
the truth, and members of the other tribe always lie.The princess comes to a
fork in the road. She needs to know which road leads to the castle so as to
avoid the fire-breathing dragon and rescue the prince from the wizard holding
him captive in the castle. (Although the princess doesn't know it, the south
road leads to the castle and the north road leads to the dragon.)Standing at
this fork in the road is a member of each tribe, but the princess can't tell
which tribe each belongs to. What question should she ask to find the road to
the castle? Simply asking which road leads to the castle won't help. The
answer won't tell us which native is lying and which native is telling the
truth. However, we really only need to talk to one of the natives. The
trick is to ask a question where the response will be the same from both
natives: a question that incorporates how a member of the tribe not answering
would respond to the same question.
For example,
what if we say to one of the natives, "If I asked a member of the tribe
you don't belong to which road I should take to get to the castle,
what would he say?"
In both cases
we'll get the same response. We should do the opposite of what we have been
told because, regardless of whether we are speaking to a liar or a
truthteller, our question will always produce the wrong answer to which road
we should take.
It brings back really scary GRE memories of logic
problems. But, it also helped frame our day, which was about JEWISH
LIES.
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- Lying to preserve the cause of peace, not to hurt another person’s feelings, or to provide comfort.
- Lying in a situation where honesty might cause oneself or another person harm.
- Lying for the sake of modesty or in order not to appear arrogant.
- Lying for the sake of decency
- Lying to protect one’s property from scoundrels.
We practiced our MAD TORAH SKILLZ and the kids had to find a
line and chapter number in the Chumash. It took a few minutes, but each
group was successful! We will practice this skill each week. The line
they were looking up was the one in our narrative, where Sarah lies to God:
" Sarah lied, saying'I did not laugh,' for she was frightened. But
HE replied, 'You did laugh.'" We talked about why Sarah laughed: she
was scared, and why God was not angry?! We then went on to discuss lying
and lying in Judaism. According to a Cornell research group, people lie
on average 2x a day, and people lie most often on the phone, least often via
email.
So wait… this the part where I say that my children are perfect,
my house is tidy, and I only eat nutritious food?! Because via email, I
can't lie? :)
We learned the times in Judaism where it is "ok" (of
course, as always in Judaism, there are TONS of strings attached) to lie.
The kids loved the decency one. This is where your child is
upstairs pooping and a friend calls on the phone and we say that they are
outside/doing homework/busy with chores and will call back. The kids were
on board with parents not using any kind of radical honesty in this situation.
See: it is a JEWISH thing for us not to say the kids are in the potty :)
We also did a little Talmud study. So, if your best buddy is
getting married to a woman and she is not so beautiful, do we say that she is
beautiful?!
"The Rabbis
taught: How does one dance before the bride [i.e., what does one say in praise
of her]? The School of Shammai says: We praise the bride as she is. The School
of Hillel says: We say that she is a beautiful and graceful bride. The School
of Shammai said to the School of Hillel: If she was(ugly), does one say about
her that she is a beautiful and graceful bride? But the Torah said (Exodus 23:
7): "Distance yourself from a false matter." The School of Hillel
said to the School of Shammai: According to your opinion, if someone made an
inferior purchase in the marketplace, should one praise it or deprecate it in
his eyes. Surely, one should praise it. From here [the latter statement of the
Hillel School] the Sages said: A person’s disposition should always be pleasant
with people.
This brought us back to
2 weeks ago and our mitzvah of being CHEERFUL. In Morah Gawel's class, we
go with the school of Hillel: The bride is beautiful. That is why I am
going to ask the kids every week if I look gorgeous :)
Finally, we watched a
small video clip from the show Lie To Me. I talked to the kids about the
micro expressions that show if we are telling the truth or not. Don't worry, I
will share them with you too, so that if your kid says he brushed his teeth,
did his homework etc…, you will know if he is lying!
I can't wait until next
week to finish the lesson. The kids were excited and interested. Hmm..
6th graders want to know about lying more. Who knew?!? I'll blame it on
that undeveloped frontal lobe :)
Looking forward to
another week with some good psychological forensic scientists with a Jewish
twist. We will have a Lying Lab :)!
Be well and see you Sunday.
Morah Leah
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