Dear families: March 27, 2016
I enjoyed being at the 25th
anniversary celebration for Rabbi Liben yesterday. Two of the best parts were seeing all the
children taking part in the service and assisting Margie Matross in her Purim or
Pesach workshop. Eleven of our students
were with us. You can be proud of how
much the children remember.
Today we began with breakfast and a
brainstorming session on what we know about Pesach. After our delicious Cocoa Puffs, we took part
in tefillah. The challenge today was to
find words with the vowel .
“ee.”. Canto Ken led us in some
Hebrew songs, including the Four Questions.
Our Hebrew letter this week was ח “het”--the first
letter of Hanukkah and hallah. After
doing the lesson in our two groups, the children partnered to find some Hebrew
letters. Then brachot and
snack!
We continued our study of Pesach with the
story of the Seder and the Exodus. Each
year, we relive the slavery of our ancestors with the services on the first two
nights of Pesach. We eat the special
foods, ask questions, and tell the story because "WE were slaves unto
Pharaoh in Egypt." We looked at one of my Seder plates, afikomen bag, and a
haggadah.
STORY: We read The Story of
Passover on the Seder and how Moses helped free the Hebrews from
slavery. Pharaoh was afraid that a
Hebrew baby would grow up to lead the Jews from slavery, so he ordered all the
baby boys to be killed. Moses' family
saved him by putting him in a basket to float on the Nile. The princess found him and brought him up as
her own son, with the help of Moses's own mother as his "nanny." Moses learned that he was Jewish, saw the
vision of the burning bush, and told Pharaoh to let the slaves go free. Ten plagues struck Egypt until Pharaoh
agreed. At the Red Sea, the Hebrews
crossed on dry land, but the Egyptian army drowned.
We discussed what it
was like to be a slave and follow someone else’s orders and
schedule.
We saw how a family prepares, explains the symbols and
“order” of the Seder, and celebrates.
CRAFT:
Each child worked on a Seder clock, which shows highlights of the
Seder in pictures to help the children keep track of the order of the
events. Move the clock hand as the Seder
progresses. I hope you will use it at
your family table. Lois, our secretary, will laminate them so that they will
last for years.
We closed with Dayenu and one
of my favorite songs, the silly Don’t Sit on the Afikomen!
More on Pesach next week! Shavua tov! (Have a good week.)
Judy and Cheryl (Esther and
Tzipporah)
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