My Hebrew School class today
Dec. 14th, 2003 02:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasWe've started emailing out summaries of what we taught in class to the parents, to keep them updated, so I thought that, instead of writing that all over again, I could just post here what I sent out.
Hello, everybody. Today, we had a split day, with the first half being in our classrooms, and the second half
being an all-school event. I know that some of you are aware of what went on in that second half, as I
distinctly remember several of you being driven out of the Temple before the children re-dedicated it. So,
let me tell you a bit about what we talked about in the first half.
The title of my lesson today was, "Everything you know about Channukah is WRONG! (okay, maybe not
everything, but some stuff.)" And I just wanted to let you know why your children are telling you
that you don't have menorahs and that the Channukah story is a lie, and give you some ways to continue the
conversations that we started.
We discussed the difference between a "menorah", and a "channukiah". The "channukiah" is what we light on
Channukah. The Menorah was the seven-branched lamp that was in The Temple.
This led to a discussion about what the Temple was, and why there isn't one. They wanted to know why we don't
rebuild it, and I told them that one of the major reasons was that the Dome of the Rock, a holy site for
Muslims, was on the only spot that the Temple could go. They said that wasn't fair, that WE were there FIRST,
and I pointed out that THEY are there NOW. Which they thought was a good point. So then, because it is
developmentally appropriate for third- and fourth-graders to think this way, they wanted to know why we
couldn't just go and kill all the Muslims. This is an appropriate question for this age group -- the question
is only a developmental problem when one reaches voting age.
I explained that I felt that genocide is wrong, and gave them a further, practical reason: I wrote the
following on the whiteboard:
NUMBER OF MUSLIMS IN THE WORLD: 1,300,000,000
NUMBER OF JEWS IN THE WORLD: 14,000,000
I believe one of the comments was, "That's a lot of zeroes."
Because some of the students asked, here is the rest of the chart
CHRISTIANS: 2,000,000,000
MUSLIMS: 1,300,000,000
BUDDHISTS: 360,000,000
HINDUS: 900,000,000
NO RELIGION: 850,000,000
JEWS: 14,000,000
All these estimates are from http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html. These are only the ones
that students had asked about.
Then we discussed the actual story of Channukah that they've all learned over their lifetimes, and how much of
it was just plain made up. Naturally enough, they wanted to know who made it up, and why.
I explained that the story we tell is what SHOULD have happened. The story we tell is one about the ideals
that we have, and about how people should act. It's about our dreams.
I suspect that you are going to hear about how the Channukah story is just made up a few times in the next few
days, and I'd like to suggest a conversation that you might want to have with your children about that.
It's true that the story was made up -- but why did we make up this story? What did the rabbis who
made this story up want to teach us? Stories are important, and they don't just come out of nowhere. They
teach lessons. There's something, or maybe a lot of things, in the Channukah story the way that we all know
it, that the rabbis thought was even more important than just what happened historically. I'd like to
encourage you to think about that with your children, so that, next week, they can explain it to me, because
I'm confused by it.
Shavuah Tov!
- Y'honatan
Someone from Young Judea ran one of the activities in the second half, and, after school, he and I fell to talking about various stuff. I ended up giving him a ride to Brookline, because he needed to get a bunch of stuff there before the pre-Channukah party that Young Judea is throwing at the shul this afternoon at 4.
His name is Brian, and he looked really familiar to me. Just before I dropped him off, I asked him if he'd gone to Brandeis. He had. So we tried to figure out where I knew him from at Brandeis.
Brian Eisenstein. He was one of the major people at the Boris's Kitchen Tenth Anniversary Show. So, that's where I knew him from.
Anyway, I thought that was nifty.
Hello, everybody. Today, we had a split day, with the first half being in our classrooms, and the second half
being an all-school event. I know that some of you are aware of what went on in that second half, as I
distinctly remember several of you being driven out of the Temple before the children re-dedicated it. So,
let me tell you a bit about what we talked about in the first half.
The title of my lesson today was, "Everything you know about Channukah is WRONG! (okay, maybe not
everything, but some stuff.)" And I just wanted to let you know why your children are telling you
that you don't have menorahs and that the Channukah story is a lie, and give you some ways to continue the
conversations that we started.
We discussed the difference between a "menorah", and a "channukiah". The "channukiah" is what we light on
Channukah. The Menorah was the seven-branched lamp that was in The Temple.
This led to a discussion about what the Temple was, and why there isn't one. They wanted to know why we don't
rebuild it, and I told them that one of the major reasons was that the Dome of the Rock, a holy site for
Muslims, was on the only spot that the Temple could go. They said that wasn't fair, that WE were there FIRST,
and I pointed out that THEY are there NOW. Which they thought was a good point. So then, because it is
developmentally appropriate for third- and fourth-graders to think this way, they wanted to know why we
couldn't just go and kill all the Muslims. This is an appropriate question for this age group -- the question
is only a developmental problem when one reaches voting age.
I explained that I felt that genocide is wrong, and gave them a further, practical reason: I wrote the
following on the whiteboard:
NUMBER OF MUSLIMS IN THE WORLD: 1,300,000,000
NUMBER OF JEWS IN THE WORLD: 14,000,000
I believe one of the comments was, "That's a lot of zeroes."
Because some of the students asked, here is the rest of the chart
CHRISTIANS: 2,000,000,000
MUSLIMS: 1,300,000,000
BUDDHISTS: 360,000,000
HINDUS: 900,000,000
NO RELIGION: 850,000,000
JEWS: 14,000,000
All these estimates are from http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html. These are only the ones
that students had asked about.
Then we discussed the actual story of Channukah that they've all learned over their lifetimes, and how much of
it was just plain made up. Naturally enough, they wanted to know who made it up, and why.
I explained that the story we tell is what SHOULD have happened. The story we tell is one about the ideals
that we have, and about how people should act. It's about our dreams.
I suspect that you are going to hear about how the Channukah story is just made up a few times in the next few
days, and I'd like to suggest a conversation that you might want to have with your children about that.
It's true that the story was made up -- but why did we make up this story? What did the rabbis who
made this story up want to teach us? Stories are important, and they don't just come out of nowhere. They
teach lessons. There's something, or maybe a lot of things, in the Channukah story the way that we all know
it, that the rabbis thought was even more important than just what happened historically. I'd like to
encourage you to think about that with your children, so that, next week, they can explain it to me, because
I'm confused by it.
Shavuah Tov!
- Y'honatan
Someone from Young Judea ran one of the activities in the second half, and, after school, he and I fell to talking about various stuff. I ended up giving him a ride to Brookline, because he needed to get a bunch of stuff there before the pre-Channukah party that Young Judea is throwing at the shul this afternoon at 4.
His name is Brian, and he looked really familiar to me. Just before I dropped him off, I asked him if he'd gone to Brandeis. He had. So we tried to figure out where I knew him from at Brandeis.
Brian Eisenstein. He was one of the major people at the Boris's Kitchen Tenth Anniversary Show. So, that's where I knew him from.
Anyway, I thought that was nifty.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-14 11:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-14 12:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-14 12:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-14 12:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-17 07:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-14 12:41 pm (UTC)Indeed. Stories are one of the central acts of being human, and it matters how we do it, and that we do it well and mindfully.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-14 01:27 pm (UTC)A.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-14 02:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-14 05:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-14 02:55 pm (UTC)Heh, I read through that first paragraph abut YJ, and said to myself, "hm, wonder if the YJ person was B, well it must not have been, because if that was B,
In other weird and random things, going through my tapes I still have the Name Witheld Coffeehouse from 16Dec94... Maybe I'll listen to it in next!
Sources??
Re: Sources??
Date: 2003-12-14 05:52 pm (UTC)So the most primary source that exists (the book of Maccabees) doesn't mention the story, nor does Megillat Ta'anit. (Actually, I think that 1 Maccabees, chapter 4 also mentions the rededication was celebrated 8 days, no mention of a miracle.)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-14 03:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-14 08:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-15 05:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-15 06:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-15 03:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-15 06:41 am (UTC)