4th Grade: Jacob, Rebecca, and Isaac, oh my

Hi 4th Grade families! We’ve been spending the last couple classes on the dramatic trickster stories of Jacob, Esau, Rebecca, and Isaac.  Our scholars have written and performed skits about these dramatic stories, often complete with costumes, and had various deep discussions about it.  I hear some of the students are retelling the stories to you at home, which is so awesome!   If you’d like a 5min rundown of the plot, here’s one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGs1WfRKIoM .

And here are some quick pictures of some of the students hard at work on their scripts:

(Sorry MW parents that I tend to have more pics of the Tues/Sat students; your kids also look super great, but I sometimes run out of hands to snap pictures of their greatness.  They’re doing the same things, though.)

For all our 4th Grade scholars, Jacob, Esau, Rebecca and Isaac are mainly about how families get along (or how they don’t).

Which twin does your child most relate to? Younger-sibling Jacob is quieter and more thoughtful, he mainly likes to be indoors, cooking, making crafts, caring for goats, and helping his mom Rebecca… but he’s also tricky, and he usually gets away with everything, too.  Or, perhaps your child relates to the bigger, much more athletic sibling, Esau, who loves to run around outside, and comes home super hungry, plus his little brother is totally trying to take his stuff.  Perhaps your child relates most to Rebecca — the representation for our Only-children and Middle-children, because she’s watching when the people she loves are very diffferent, and she’s the only one who knows the prophecy that her younger son Jacob will rule over her older son Esau.  (The Torah never mentions that Rebecca tells anyone that prophecy. Why would she keep it secret?)  We had some kids who related far more to one character than the other, usually based on their birth-order — but most of the students decided they were balanced mixes of the two notable siblings.  It would be fun to continue that comparison at home with all of your family members.

For the story of Rebecca & Jacob tricking Isaac, we also talked about, hey, it’s not okay to trick a blind old man!  Much later, our sages teach us “don’t put a stumbling block before the blind,” which can be taken as, “don’t play tricks on blind people, that’s not cool, what are you even doing”.  Isaac is their loving dad, just trying to give them blessings, he doesn’t deserve to get tricked.  Could Rebecca have gotten the blessing for Jacob without tricking her husband, could Jacob have gotten it for himself without tricking his dad?  Or, you might go even deeper into their motivations: was Isaac actually tricked, or did he know all along, so that he was switching up the blessings on purpose?

More Questions for 4th Grade scholars:

• Did Isaac really get tricked? He’s old, and he’s blind, but he’s a smart guy, with all his other senses.  Can you read the story in a way where maybe Isaac totally knew what was going on, all along?
• If Isaac wasn’t actually tricked, that’s tricks within tricks; why might he pretend he was getting tricked?
• What do you think our Torah-hero Jacob might have learned from growing up in this tricky family?
• As for us, the moral of this story is NOT “good idea, you should trick people all that time”, because that would be a terrible moral.  What other morals might we come up with, from this story?
• Maybe this story doesn’t have a moral at all yet, but instead, it’s a description of a family dynamic between our Torah-family.  How do *your* family dynamics work?  Is there a crafty little Jacob who gets away with everything? Is there a strong Esau who loves to run around outdoors?  Is there a perceptive, knowledgeable Rebecca?  Or do your family members have mixtures of all these traits?
• An opening for prepubescent questions: We began the story with Rebecca’s unusually difficult pregnancy. (Rebecca and Isaac were excited to have children, and they were expecting Rebecca’s pregnancy to be lovely and special. However, her pregnancy was weirdly difficult, it felt like there was a war going on in her womb. Turns out, because her twins were already fighting each other; cue the prophecy.) This could be a useful opening for any prepubescent questions about pregnancy, without making it sound scary.  Likewise, Esau’s hairiness (which we present as nice and soft, not gross/dirty; Esau likes his hair) could be an opening for any body-positive familial chat about growing new hair.
• What is your birthright — a specific privilege that you get, just by being born? Would you ever trade it away — and if so, for what?
• What blessings can your parents give to you?  (Luckily, we learned from Jacob and Esau; nowadays we make sure not to play favorites, and we always have enough blessings for everyone.)

Meanwhile, on Monday Am Yisrael classes with Elal, students are enjoying getting introduced to important people in modern Israeli history and culture, and building a timeline of what they’ve learned. Last week’s Israeli leader was Ben Gurion. Politically-minded students were curious about the difference between a Prime Minister and a President, and all were delighted to see Ben Gurion standing on his head in the sand.

In Saturday Holidays classes, students have been learning about Tu B’Shvat.  Our Tu B’Shvat Inventors’ Conference involved students learning about some Israeli ecological solutions (planting trees to improve the soil, drip irrigation, and desalination plants). Then, our young scientists began to design their own technological solutions to environmental problems in the world.  Ask them about how they want to help the environment: they are tremendously passionate and have a lot of great ideas!

Next up, on Monday Feb 3 and and Tuesday Feb 4: the beautiful dream of Jacob’s Ladder.

Here’s the art we’ll look at and discuss, and we’ll paint our own.