Crossing the Red Sea, Manna & More!
Jewish Studies
Andrew’s Monday/Wednesday Class
The journey of Moses continues (quite literally) right into the Red Sea. On Monday we followed Moses and the Israelites into the split sea on the run from Pharaoh and his army of six hundred chariots. The students divided into teams and made beautiful murals you can find hanging up in our classroom! We flowed into Wednesday to learn about manna and imagined what is must have been like to receive food from the sky! (A modern day version of “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs?”) When we return from break we will delve into the 10 Commandments and follow Moses’ life!
Lee’s Monday/Wednesday Class
This week we continued our “magnetic poetry” exploration of the meaning of the word ‘Israel’, and turned it into decorated poetry to hang in the classroom. Students did beautiful, thoughtful work that we were excited to display. We then got ready for the next part of our story by talking about a time we had a crazy or surprising dream, and we began a family tree of the figures we’ve learned about so far from Abraham and Sarah to Jacob, Leah, Rachel, their maidservants, and their children. After a discussion of how we treat words from the Torah with special respect, which led to some interesting and insightful thoughts and questions about the importance we give to names of God, students were given copies of the text to look through and find which new children were introduced and who their parents were. As we developed our family tree together, we arrived at the birth of Joseph, preparing us for the next stories we will be learning.
David’s Tuesday/Saturday Class
This week we completed the stories about Joseph, which the children seemed to love! We tried to understand each character’s motives. We explored Joseph’s declaration revealing his identity to this brothers and whether or not the brothers’ actions throughout the story were for better or for worse. In conclusion, students examined how Judaism is an optimistic religion and sees Judaism is religion optimistic and sees light and goodness when things appear dark and difficult. Students went deeper into certain symbols of the story through pipe cleaner sculptures.
Lee & Marna’s Tuesday/Saturday Class
On Saturday we started class with some review trivia and students having a chance to share one interesting thing about their name. After reviewing where we left off in our story of Jacob, Leah and Rachel, we picked back up with Jacob and the family journeying back toward his homeland. Students took different parts, and we read the story of Jacob traveling, meeting and wrestling a stranger, having his name changed, and then finally encountering Esau again after so many years. Jacob’s struggle led to a wonderfully rich discussion among the students about the nature of God: whether God could or would take human form, whether Jacob was actually wrestling with God, and why God is often depicted or referred to as being male. Students offered thoughtful ideas and debate about these questions and their own perspectives on them. We then went back to talking about Jacob’s name change to ‘Israel’, and how we might learn more about the meaning of the word by breaking down its roots (in preparation for a creative activity we will pick up after the break). Finally, students were given a short worksheet to bring home to their parents and find out more about the history and meaning of their own names (this ‘homework’ is mostly optional, but we hope students will get excited to learn about their names and share more about them with the class).
On Tuesday students reflected on the theme of struggling throughout our stories so far and the question, “If God is all powerful, why does God make life hard for some people?” Their introspective and philosophical responses led to the idea of winning versus losing and how it feels to win vs. lose. Almost everyone agreed that losing creates challenges that help us grow, opportunities to learn, offers courage to persevere, and one beautiful response was “all you need is love, regardless of whether you win or lose. If we’re loved it doesn’t matter if we lose.” Students split into pairs and each person was assigned winner/loser and they needed to defend why theirs was the better path.
Students listed the names of all our characters on the board, analyzed who was a “winner,” who struggled and with what. Struggled discussed included sibling rivalry, parental favoritism, difficulties giving birth, to name a few. We concluded that not a single character in the stories went without some kind of struggle.
Students then watched a video describing the competition between Rachel and Leah re giving birth to the 12 tribes. This was a bit challenging for them to grasp, but I think it was mostly because it’s hard to imagine giving your handmaiden to your husband to conceive a child on your behalf…:) They got it to the extent that any 4th grader in 2019 might be able to grasp it!
Richard’s Tuesday/Saturday Class
This week we continued our story of Moses. The story takes us farther to the splitting of the Red Sea and the crossing through to the other side, toward the Promised Land. A few volunteer students acted out the story as we read it as a group. We also learned about the midrash (commentary) about Nachshon- how his courage and faith in God led the Israelites to take the first steps forward into the water. Learning about his actions prompted a discussion about other individuals who may have taken the first steps to make a positive impact in the world. Building on our earlier discussion around the question- “Are transitions easy or hard, and what can make them easier?”- we wrapped up the class with projects visualizing the splitting of the Red Sea through illustration, writing or skits.
On Saturday students reviewed our guiding question about transitions and related it to whether or not they thought the Israelites’ transition from slavery to freedom was easy or not. Students charted pros and cons for slavery and freedom and came away with some very insightful thoughts which you can see in our photos. Students then returned to the story through a drama exercise to find out how the Israelites reacted to their new freedom. Many were surprised to hear that they almost immediately turned to complaining to Moses and God about how hard life is traveling in the desert and wanting to return to Egypt!
Hebrew through Movement
Monday/Wednesday
This week we reviewed previous vocabulary of colors, body parts and directions, and practiced it through different songs and games. We will begin our Purim unit when we return from break!
Tuesday/Saturday
We are starting to prepare for Purim! On Tuesday, students learned Hebrew vocabulary heard on Purim but also frequently heard in tefllah (prayer). Students were commanded to color small picture cards of melech achashverosh or malkat Ester, describe their drawings in Hebrew and reviewed Hebrew positional words by following commands where they manipulated their self-illustrated cards. Finally, we tossed around our kadur olam/world ball),
מלך – melech – king (Melech David, Melech Shaul/Saul, Melech Achashverosh/Ahasuerus, melech haolam)
מלכה – malkah – queen (Malkat Shabat, Malkat Ester)
כתר – keter – crown (ex. Keter Torah)
עולם – olam – world/universe (Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech haolam)
על – al – on
תחת – tachat – under
על-יד – al-yad – near
שחור – shachor – black
לבן – lavan – white
In upcoming classes, we will coordinate HTM vocabulary with three Jewish studies and continue to build our Hebrew Purim vocabulary.
Announcements
1. Upcoming Closures | Presidents’ Week
Yachad will be closed this Saturday Feb 16- Saturday Feb 23 for Presidents’ Week.
2. RSVP: Installation of Rabbi Rebecca Epstein
Friday, March 1 beginning at 5:00 PM
Friends and families of all ages are invited to join us for a special dinner and Shabbat service to officially welcome Rabbi Epstein to the CBE family! Yachad students present will help lead the service together! Please RSVP at this link.