Hello all! We had a very productive week. On Sunday we
learned about the rules of kashrut. In our text, it says that Abraham
gave his guests meat and milk, which elicits a big eyebrow raise? Hmmm…
why not kosher. Now many people say that this is because the Torah was
not given to the Jewish people at the time of Abraham, but the rabbis tell us
that the Torah is not a linear text. However, our sages tell us that
Abraham was SUCH a good host, that the proper amount of time went by between
the eating of the milk and meat. This always makes me smile. Hopefully we
all get to sit around the thanksgiving table long enough for the proper time to
go by to have dairy ice cream for dessert. And may we all have room in our
bellies for that ice cream!
We watched a quick program on Keeping Kosher in LA. The kids
were fascinated. I was too, but more because I want to go to LA to eat at
KosherTaco! The program showed a kosher meat market, butcher, wine shop,
bar, restaurant and home. It was a great way to learn about the complex
laws of keeping kosher. We also spent a few minutes talking about ecokosher and
what it means to be kosher today. Should we only eat organic? Vegetarian?
Eat items that are not individually wrapped? The kids were full of ideas.
On Tuesday we continued our D’var Torah workshop. The kids
had Miles, our Ramah fellow, talk a bit about parsha Toldot (his actual bar
mitzvah portion), we studied the text some more, and they got a D’var Torah
sample that I wrote a few years ago. This Sunday we will look at a
new portion with Rabbi Starr and begin writing. Your child will have
several class periods to work on his/her d’var torah, but he/she will also need
to work on it at home. We are aiming for the middle of December to have
this project completed. They don’t need to be long, but they need to include:
1) an explanation of a portion of the text 2) a connection to that text 3) an
insightful question about the text 4) an insightful possible answer to this
question. We will be talking about this at length in class. I think that this
unit will really help prepare the kids for writing their own d’vrei torah on
the big day!
Be well and have a great Shabbat,
Morah Leah
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