March 28, 2024 |

Grade 5. Kitah hey. April 4, 2016

Posted on April 4, 2016

I hope you are all enjoying the pretty and very cold snow!

Our day began with a Special K breakfast (chocolate of course!) , followed by tefillot and song in our sanctuary with cantor Ken and Robin and our whole Hebrew school community……

      always energizing!
Back upstairs in the classroom we continued with our Torah talk.

The cereal of choice this week was special K, because…….K is for kosher!   
The parsha, “shemini” lists kosher and unkosher animals.
Also In this portion, God punishes Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Abihu for misbehaving.  This led to a lengthy discussion about behaviors, punishment, discipline.
What is fair and just?  What is not?
How do children feel about punishment?  Is it the same as discipline?  What about when an adult misbehaves?  Students shared some amazing maturity and wisdom!
I love when they can really relate to our Torah!
We worked in the Passover Haggadah, reading as well as singing both old and new melodies.  
We, the children of israel, were able to escape from slavery in Egypt.  
Mitzrayim, in Hebrew, means “from a narrow place”.  In what way is a life of slavery a “narrow place”?
Everyone thought quietly for several minutes…… And then expressed such wonderful ideas.
We all love our discussions.  My students can be so deep and philosophical!  Truly!  
Getting back to “b’chol dor vador” (=in every generation………), and combining that with “the four sons” – representing the many different types of people in our families or in the general world, or even within ourselves at various times, we did some fun dramatizations:  
A 5 th grader explaining Passover to a 4 year old;  a young teenager explaining to a rebellious older sibling;  a college student explaining to his very brilliant and curious non- Jewish professor……..
More Hebrew school F-U-N to come!
L’shalom
Cindy Nelson