4th Grade: Ki Tavo, the mountains of Blessings and Curses
In 4th Grade, we learned that, each week, all the synagogues in the world are reading the same chapter of the Torah together. (A chapter is called parsha, or portion.) This week’s Torah portion is a real doozy: Ki Tavo, the mountains of blessings and curses.
In this portion, Moses is at the very end of his life, and sends the People of Israel up two mountains, to read beautiful blessings from lovely Mt Gerizim, and terrible curses from barren Mt Ebal, so that everyone can hear everything and learn from each other. Moses says that, if the People of Israel, as a whole, keep their promise to listen to God, then all these wonderful blessings will happen. But, if the People of Israel do not keep their promise to God, then they’ll be cursed, oh no! We read the blessings and curses to each other, as if we were on the mountains. (I edited out the most scary curses, to make it age-appropriate, while keeping in the drama.)
We had a great class discussion about this difficult text, especially in light of God loving the People of Israel, and that it makes sense for God to bless us, but it’s really strange that God might threaten us. (We were also very sure to discuss that, actually, good things don’t always happen to good people, and bad things don’t always happen to bad people, it’s not nearly so simple like that in real life.)
So, together, we explored some interpretations about what the Torah portion might actually mean. (For example, it could be that God was simply informing the people of logical consequences, such as, if we take good care of the environment, we get to live in a lovely place, but if we take poor care of the environment, it can eventually lead to environmental disasters. We even tried out a radical text-based interpretation, that maybe Moses made up the blessings and curses, himself. Why might he do that?) Go scholarly thought, go!
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Discussion topics for families:
To explore the world: Look at pictures of Mt Gerizim and Mt Ebal. You can still see them to this very day.
What do they notice about it?
Can they find more?
Here’s an illustration of what this place might’ve looked like, back in the day: https://www.intouch.org/-/media/intouch/magazine/2017/0317/walk-this-way/gospel_04_750x460.ashx?la=en&hash=C8219348C1D4ED4119AC6CE64B586520A04A043C
To create: If you were able to bless people, what wonderful blessings would you make?
To reinforce: Do good things happen to good people, all the time? If something bad happens, is it always somebody’s fault? (Nope.)
To thrill: Many students were excited about the edited curses that we read to each other. A few were hungry to see even scarier curses, without my kind edits. So, if your adventurous scholar googles Ki Tavo, in search of really scary bits, please be sure to keep their fun going by acting *totally shocked* at what they find — while reassuring them, as needed, that God isn’t actually going to curse them. 🙂
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Next Week: Nitzavim.
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In Hebrew Through Movement, 4th grade worked on these verbs – to stand, to sit, to walk, to stop, to run, to jump, to spin, to point. Nouns: everyone, team, door, table, chair, teacher, helper, board, window, head, hand/s, leg/s, book/s, pencil/s. Additionally they were introduced to the adverbs slow, fast, in place, and connecting words: to, and, no, yes.
We also noted that some students had already experienced Hebrew immersion before, and were quite fluent. We’re pleased to introduce Barry to our 4th Grade team, to work with these more fluent students, to practice reading, using the Torah portion of the week.