Morah Gawel Update

Hello All! 

We had a happy, if somewhat small class today.  I hope everyone else was hitting the slopes or hanging out on a beach or doing something fabulous!  It looks like we hit the negative digits again this week.  The 50 million dollar question: WILL THERE BY SCHOOL?! Is -20 degrees at 6 am a cold day?  Inquiring minds wanted to know….

After our very serious weather conversation, the kids were led in Mifgash by our fabulous Sam Squared Madrichim Dream Team. Today they spoke at length about paparazzi, celebrities, and movies.  Most of the kids did NOT want to be a movie star.

We then saw a brief video on brick making in Egypt -- looks like no fun - and looked at some pictures of the process.  We then went back to the text and read about the Jews enslavement and how Pharaoh made the slaves make a lot of bricks, BUT he did not give the slaves the appropriate materials to make the bricks. What happened?  The Jews did not make enough bricks. So: the Pharaoh complained to the foremen, the foremen complained to the task masters, the taskmasters complained to the slaves, the slaves complained to Moses… AND Moses complained to GOD.  Moses had a basic child temper tantrum: " why me!" "You did this!" yadi, yadi.. heard it all before. And God takes it in stride. Because: he has a plan. And let's face it, God is used to cranky, complaining Jews. :)

We then saw some video clips of: Woody from Toy Story, Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, Shrek from Shrek and Harry from Harry Potter.  We used Percy Jackson as an example and we discussed how Percy was an unlikely hero.  What traits did he hold: bravery, belief in a higher power, willingness to make sacrifices and a clear goal. Next week we will have the kids break up into groups and discuss the unlikely heroes mentioned above, and figure out what traits they hold AND what they have in common with Moses.  

Moses did NOT want to be a leader.  We have already seen that he ran away when he was scared, that he whines and points fingers at God, and he continually tells God that God has "the wrong guy." And yet: he is arguably our greatest leader.  I love that Moses is so human.  I can just imagine all of the charismatic leaders in our history pounding their fists at the sky and yelling at God. We are human. And yet: we don't need to be born leaders; leaders can be made.

Alas, I won't get into an existential Tolstoyian argument, but we will do a bit more learning on the subject next week.

Please bring in your items for our Purim Parcel project next week.

Stay warm!

Morah Leah