. . . tired . . .

[xiphias]

So: Cathy, the usual Grill Bar day bartender, is sick, meaning I covered her shift today instead of tending bar at the short event in the morning. She's going to be out the rest of the week. So I'm covering her shift tomorrow and Saturday, too.

Tomorrow evening, I'm working a function. So I'm going to be there from 10:30 AM to, oh, maybe 8, maybe 10 PM. Depends how late the function runs. Saturday day I'm working a function. So I'm going to be there from 11 AM until midnight. Well, if they let me close the bar early, I might just be there 11 to 11.

I don't mind: I get overtime for over eight hours.

The bits which I DO mind is that, well, first, I'm not going to get to the gym until Sunday afternoon after Hebrew School -- I was going to go tonight, but I got off at the wrong train stop -- I got on an express train instead of a local -- and had to walk an hour home. I figured a one hour walk counted as exercise.

And second . . . right now is the only time I've got to do class prep for Sunday, and I'm tired.

So, what should I teach? We decided not to talk about Channukah until Kislev, and, since we had off for Thanksgiving weekend, next Sunday's going to be the first Hebrew school class in Kislev. We don't want to overemphasize it, but we've got two sessions before the holiday starts, so I could start doing stuff -- brachot, history, and so forth. I'm trying to figure out what kinds of things I WANT the kids to learn about Channukah. I mean, like, the fact that the entire story of the oil is made up because the rabbis hated the Maccabees, that's important to know.

The fact that the Christian Bible has the story of Hannukah in it, but the Jewish Bible doesn't, that's important to know -- but I'd need to go into a lot of background for that. Which I want to do, but I need to figure out a clear way to get it across to eight and nine-year olds.

Then, of course, there's songs and prayers. . .

Comments

[gingicat]

I think that the Bible thing and the oil story being made up is a bit much for kids that young unless they're particularly good at politics for that age.

One thing you *could* do is talk about the history. The Hebrew school teacher I had at that age told a wonderful story about how Alexander the Great came to Judea, and how people lived in peace with the Greeks, but it was the assimilation that really worried them. Even young kids can get into the discussion of "how do we stay Jewish while being a part of the greater culture?" thing. Which is why the Maccabees rose up -- not because Antiochus was particularly oppressive (at least, not till zealots ticked him off) but because they were worried that the Jews would be assimilated out of existence. Kinda like the haredis.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I think that the Bible thing and the oil story being made up is a bit much for kids that young unless they're particularly good at politics for that age.

It went over well when I taught it to the first graders last year. . .

[gingicat]

Well then, you're just better than me. :)

[cellio]

I agree with the suggestion to spend some of the time talking about assimilation and ractions to it.

[gilana]

It's made up? Seriously? I had no idea. When was it made up?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

When the rabbis were formulating the holiday.

See, the story of Channukah is, "Our repressive theocracy beat up their repressive theocracy." After kicking out the Syrian-Greeks under Antiochus, Mattathias set up his own dynasty and founded the Hasmodean dynasty.

Channukah was set up as a celebration of the dynasty's victory, really. It was a political thing.

The rabbis of the Talmudic era HATED the Hasmodeans passionately (partially because of the rabbinic/priestly power struggle). But they couldn't do away with a holiday that people liked.

So they subverted it. They made up the story of the oil, and claimed that the holiday ACTUALLY celebrated that miracle, and not the dynasty at all.

This is also why the Books of Maccabees aren't in the Jewish Bible.

[brooksmoses]

Heh. That puts a whole other layer on the idea of having Channukah become a "Jewish equivalent to celebrating Christmas" holiday....

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Well, good. Now I can feel perfectly fine about subverting the holiday to be a sort of extra Winter Solstice celebration in addition to being one of my two yearly nods to my family traditions.

I think many people like this holiday so much because it has that nature--just about every culture has a festival of lights during the cold season. The slowly increasing candles are especially nice for that; a reminder of the slow progress back towards summer.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I suspect that that has something to do with why the rabbis just couldn't stop it. The way it ended up being celebrated spoke to people.

[goljerp]

The rabbis of the Talmudic era HATED the Hasmodeans passionately (partially because of the rabbinic/priestly power struggle). But they couldn't do away with a holiday that people liked.

Indeed. I think another reason why the Rabbis hated the Hasmoneans was that it was a Hasmonean ruler who first invited the Romans in. (And we all know how much the Rabbis hated the Romans...)

Another example of the Rabbis trying to subvert the Hasmoneans: Despite everything that other people taught in Hebrew School, for the most part the Maccabees weren't really successful in battle. They had only one real battlefield victory; it happened on the 13th of Adar. So, of course, this day was turned into a holiday of feasting and celebration. (I forget the name of the holdiay - the feast of X, where X is the name/location of the battle.) Do you think that it's just a coincidence that the Rabbis turned that day into a fast day (the "Fast of Esther")?

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

The fact that the Christian Bible has the story of Hannukah in it, but the Jewish Bible doesn't, that's important to know -- but I'd need to go into a lot of background for that

Well, yes and no. The story of the Maccabees is contained in the Apocrypha. Which means it is Holy Scripture for Roman Catholics. For people of other Christian denominations, the Apocrypha are either totally unimportant (i.e., for fundamentalist/evangelical types) or are spiritually instructive, even if they are not considered Scripture (e.g., Episcopalians). (I have a reading in church from the Apocrypha this Sunday, as a matter of fact -- from Baruch).

The Apocrypha were part of the Septuagint, which was a translation of the Hebrew Bible made before the Hebrew canon was set (which I think happened about 100 CE, but you would know more about that than I would). The Roman Catholic Church bases its Old Testament canon on the Septuagint, but Protestant churches base their Old Testament canon on the Hebrew canon.

On the other hand, you may know all this already.