Hello All!
I hope that you had a
wonderful, peaceful and meaningful holiday break. I, however, did not. As
always, I had high hopes of transforming our family vacation to see the
relatives out East into some kind of Little House on the Prairie meets
The Waltons kind of an affair, yet somehow I ended up with more of a Griswold
Family Vacation that morphs into The Simpsons. It is possible that there is a
body still attached to the roof rack of the car. Heck: It could be mine :)
As always, my list of preparing for my taxes, cleaning out the closets,
sending out all my thank yous, reading a few novels etc… fell flat. I
did, however, gain enough weight to warrant a trip to TJ MAXX to buy elastic
waist band pants AND I actually organized my son's room and found out that he
has CARPET as his flooring. So at least one win! And while: tired,
broke, ready to kick my kids to the curb and overweight, I am alive at the end
of break, which means a big win!
What I did do over
break was come up with some new lessons for this spring (it just keeps getting
funnier each time I write that word) session. I have a ton of fun things
in store for the 6th grade, and I have told them that I want their input.
I am open to creating our lessons to fit around what they like, so bring
on the popular culture. I have suffered through watching Divergent,
learning the ins and outs of Fantasy Football and even acquainted
myself with Teen Beat Magazine, so I am working hard at ingraining myself
in the 6th grade culture! Oh: the minds of the young. Wowzers! It
is a brave new world out there.
So back to Sunday.
We had a spectacular day. We had a little less than half the class,
and everyone was motivated and excited. We began by playing a little
digital headbands! I was cracking up, because the clue was
"Santa" - so apropos to nothing in Hebrew School - and our
grand volunteer took A LONG TIME to figure it out. Nothing like a room full of
Jews trying to act out Santa. Epic Fail. Maybe that's a win?! We all had
a good laugh, we learned a few quotes about being strong and courageous, via
Divergent and Joshua and then moved on to: MINECRAFT! For those who
wanted something less techie, they used Legos.
The kids were paired
up and each had a mission: build a castle, mall, movie theater, sports stadium
etc… However, one person had a specific goal and another had a different one.
The kids could not speak or communicate in ANY WAY what their goals were.
For instance, one student had to make the castle strong and another
had to make it pretty. The kids had to complete the mission, and try as
hard as they could to achieve both their goals. ALL of the kids were able
to do this. How: they payed attention to the actions of their partner.
The kids were great
sports: about half of the kids figured out what their partner's goal was,
and for those who could not, they allowed their partner to work on their
goal without interference. It was frustrating (it is supposed to
be), but they stuck it out.
Why? We are talking
about being a partner with God. God is testing Abraham to see if he is a
worthy partner and arguably, Abraham is doing the same with God. What
makes a good partner? The kids said: respect, communication, equality, open
mind to name a few. So how can we be partners with God when he doesn't
speak to us directly? We look for clues: where? The Torah. The
world. Within ourselves. Even though we are a partner with God, and we
cannot directly speak to each other, we CAN be effective partners in life.
Similarly, when the
kids were creating their projects, they could not directly communicate
with each other, but they could communicate with their partner by
LISTENING, really listening and paying attention to the needs and actions
of their partner.
The last time we met
we talked about wrestling with God, but any wrestling match is a poor one, if
the partners are poorly paired. WE will learn more this semester about
partnering with God through the story of MOSES in Egypt. We spent all
first semester on Abraham, and now we are ready for the Big M! I can't
wait.
Have a cold,
yet productive week back in reality!
Be well,
Morah Leah
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