Hello Havurah Families!
We had a wonderful time during Havurah this past Saturday introducing the ideas of a Havdalah and Solomon and his temple to our class.
We began by making Havdalah Besamim, or “spice pouches”. We discussed what the Havdalah ritual is and how it means “separation” in Hebrew. Havdalah comes at the end of Shabbat as a way to separate the special day from the rest of the week. Our Besamim pouches will help us remember the sweet smell and feelings of Shabbat throughout the week!
Next, we had a visit from Joyce, a returning Havurah rockstar who greeted many familiar and excited faces for our second cycle’s holiday specialty: storytelling. We learned about the story, values, and meaning of Chanukah; and how Chanukah, which means “rededication” got its name. We discussed the importance of standing up for yourself and listening to yourself, and how we know what the right thing is to do is. Some students pointed out that it’s also important to understand that people who seem like mean bullies may have their own problems, a lesson we learned together during David and Goliath.
After storytime with Joyce, we woke our bodies up with some breathing and stretching excercises. We discussed the judgment of Solomon and how he was a wise ruler who was good at making decisions, or knowing the right thing to do. We talked of the importance of compromise and working together to come up with a decision and Solomon’s famous judgment of splitting a baby into two to find out who was the baby’s real mother.
To see just how hard- and silly- it was to work with only half of something that we normally use as a pair, we had a one-shoed relay hop-a-thon. Though we had so much fun hopping with one shoe on, we found that sometimes things work a bit more smoothly with the help of friend, or partner.
After our hop-a-thon, we said our Shabbat blessings for the candles, Challah and grape juice and rested our bodies. During Shabbat downtime, we described the things we had experienced at the Metropolitan Museum for friends who were not there. Our students did a wonderful job of reviewing and explaining the different peaceful and pattern filled places that we had visited, like the Chinese Garden and the Mihrab. We thought together about what made them important, and what we would want in our own special peaceful synagogue.
We ended with music time with Megan which was very special today as we joined the rest of the First Graders to preform our Maccabee song for the Kindergarten class. We also got to see the Kindergardens perform a dreidel song just for us. Check out the video of our concert below! I’m sure some of the kids will want to see it, so please share!
Wishing you all a wonderful week and a Happy Chanukah.
As a reminder, next week will be our last class before winter break!
Best
Oliver and Ali
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