by Yachad Staff

Happy Chanukah, 4th Grade!

Reminder that you’re invited to our Chanukah party, just a few days away, on Dec 20 — just sign up here:  https://cbebk.shulcloud.com/holidays/hanukkah-youth-family-celebration-2019

Our 4th Grade scholars are taking a historical tack on Chanukah this year. Through games, discussions, and illustrating a book together, we learned about the military history of this holiday: what’s supported by historical research (the Jewish uprising against the Syrian-Greeks! Rededicating the Temple! Guerrilla warfare!), and what legends were probably added in afterwards (the miracle with the oil! dreidls!). We talked about why we teach these cool legends, even the parts that probably didn’t happen that way historically.  According to one 4th Grade scholar — and I agree — “We can learn true things, even from stories that aren’t true.”  In this case, we’re learning about standing up for what is right.  We’re learning that great stories can inspire our people towards peace, and towards uprisings, too.

We focused on who was an upstander in the Chanukah legends.  We’re ready to stand up for what’s right even today – whether that’s protesting, talking to people in charge, emotionally supporting somebody who needs help, or other ways to help create change when change is most needed.

We also enjoyed knowing that we can love our non-Jewish friends, while also being proud of who we are; our uniqueness and our diversity.  (In my humble opinion, that’s the True Meaning Of Chanukah – though I’m sure the kids consider snacks and modern presents to be much more significant factors, hah!)

To continue these conversations at home:

  • For a historically-fascinated, war-and-peace child: The Talmudic sages told a friendly story of oil to encourage peace, and they deemphasized the military story of the Maccabees (which would’ve encouraged a too-dangerous uprising – they super wanted to keep their young people safe).  It takes wisdom to know what kinds of stories to tell, and when.  Do you think the sages made the right call? Today, how might we choose when it’s the right time to tell a story of peace, and when to tell a story of war?
  • For a social, loving, proud-of-diversity child: What makes us special and unique? What do we love about our non-Jewish family, friends, neighbors, etc? Isn’t it cool how different we all are? What are you proud of?
  • For a political activist child: If somebody was telling somebody not to be Jewish, how can we stand up against that nonsense?  How can we stand up for other people, when something wrong is happening against them? We need all kinds of people to help!

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Lauren’s classes did that too, but also, focused on the sheer joy and excitement of the holiday!  To celebrate Channukah being only a week away, we made edible dreidels out of marshmallows, pretzel sticks, Hershey kisses, sprinkles and frosting — the kids had a great time making them and they turned out great. We also illustrated a book of the story of Channukah with both sections together; it turned out wonderfully and is hanging in room Vav. The kids would love for you to check it out!
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For the Saturday holidays classes, rather than flood the kids with even more Chanukah, the students continued their unit on Havdalah. They made lovely, sweet-smelling b’samim out of clementines, anise, cinnamon, and cloves.  The students learned about the mitzvah to not only keep the holidays, but to make the holidays beautiful — much to the delight of our artistic students.
To continue the B’samim conversation at home: the one game we didn’t get to, was that b’samim can use our sense of smell as a way to travel through time, as if led by the nose. If you’re an imaginative family, feel free to play together, smelling their b’samim and pretending that you’re both traveling through time, to be connected with Jews in all different eras.
(For more time-travel reading, for grownups only: I highly recommend ‘The Sabbath’, by Abraham Joshua Heschel. It’s poetic, and short. I haven’t been able to find a book for kids quite like this, as the words are just too big and abstract, but the mystical ideas are super enticing — plus, if you read this in front of your kid, it’ll be a rather bulletproof demonstration that we can keep learning about these same holidays, even as fancy, knowledgeable adults. There’s just always more to explore!)
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Today and on Wednesday, we’ll play a game to find out how much they’ve retained about Chanukah from all of our super fun activities.  I’m sure they’ll get rather competitive, but we’ll keep it friendly in here!
We’ll check in again when we get back from Winter Break.  Please enjoy some hot chocolate together, and talk to you soon!
in Fourth Grade / What's New B'Yachad