Noach

Most of our students over the age of 7 or 8 have heard the story of Noah, probably more than once if they attended a Jewish preschool program. So I'd like to focus in this post on the 'rest of the story' - the story of the Tower of Babel.

Many people wonder what the great wrong was that this generation committed. In the opinion of Dr. Isaac Gottleib of Bar Ioan University it was the intent rather than the action that was
punished. You can read his thoughts here:
http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/noah/lau.html

Do you think people should be punished for what they are PLANNING to do before they actually do it?
Can you think of instances where this might be a good idea?
Can you think of the problems with this approach?

Rabbi Daniel Gordis has a different idea. He suggests that the story of the tower is a foreshadowing of the existence of Am Yisrael - the Nation of Israel. You can read his opinion here:
http://www.azure.org.il/include/print.php?id=536

Which idea makes more sense to you?
Which explanation is most meaningful to you?
Can both ideas be true?
What other ideas do you have about this story?

VaYechi

This parasha brings us to the end of the first book of the Torah, and also to the end of the story of the family line that would eventually become the people of Israel.  Please look at the other posts on this parasha for some questions you may want to ask yourselves and your students.
Looking at the book of Breisheet as a whole, think for a moment about some of the themes that were explored:

• God's role in the world
• Individual responsibility
• Sibling relationships
• Good and evil
• Reward and punishment

What others can you think of?

Parshat VaYechi

The end of the book of B'reisheet, this parasha is also the end of the stories of the avot and imahot - the founding generations who were the source of the Jewish people.  The book is called B'reisheet - In the beginning - because of the first word of the first parasha, and refers to the beginning of the world, to the creation.  I would like to suggest that it is also an appropriate title for the entire first book:  B'reisheet - In the beginning of the creation and development of the People of Israel.

A big section of this parasha is devoted to the blessings Yaakov/Yisrael gives to his sons.  There are many ways to understand these blessings.

Before reading any of the commentaries, I urge you to look at the text of the blessings and see if the text raises any questions for you.  B'reisheet Chapters 48 to the end of the book.
Here are a couple of thoughts to get you started:

• Why does it take a third party to let Yosef know his father is sick, and to let Yaakov know Yosef is coming?
• Why does Yosef bring his sons?  Why doesn't Yaakov (here referred to as Yisrael) recognize them?
• Why do you think Yisrael reverses his hands when he blesses Yosef's sons?  What does it remind you of?
• What do you expect Yisrael to say to all his sons?  Why?
• What surprises you about the blessings of the sons?
• Do you think Yisrael has changed during his lifetime?  Explain why you think so.
• Why do you think Yisrael wants to be buried in the Cave of Machpelah?  Why not with his favorite wife Rachel, who is buried in Bethlehem?
• Why do you think Yosef had his father embalmed?
• Why do you think the Egyptians mourned Yisrael?
• Why do you think Yosef's children and animals remained in Egypt, in Goshen, when Yosef and his brothers went to bury Yisrael?
• What do you think about the brothers telling Yosef what their father supposedly said to them before he died?  What does it tell you about them?  What does Yosef's answer tell you about Yosef?
• In what way does this parasha satisfy you (or not) as the end of the first section of Torah?

The following commentaries suggest a few interesting interpretations, but don't answer all the questions above.

• Yaakov 'opens his tent' to the diverse natures of his sons.  This commentary from Rabbi Kerry Olitzky builds on that thought
• Aish HaTorah describes in detail the blessings of each of Yaakov's sons.  Go especially to the sections which are entitled Blessing the Tribes and The Future Leader for some traditional insights into the blessings.
• Rabbi Elyse Winnick talks about the blessings at Hillel.com in an article entitled All in the Family.  I think she raises some thoughtful ideas about the tension between community and individual that are particularly relevant to our lives today.

Can you come up with your own interpretation of any part of the parasha?

Hazak, Hazak, VeNitchazek!

Lech Lecha

Reading B'reisheet, I always think, is like reading a fast-moving adventure novel. Things happen, one after another, so that you hardly have time to think about all the ramifications of one story line when another catches your attention. Within this week's single parasha there are:

• God's command to Avram to leave and go somewhere - destination unknown (at least to Avram) at the time of the command
• Famine in Canaan, and Avram and Saray's side trip to Egypt
• Division of the land between Lot and Avram
• War among kings in the area resulting in the kidnapping of Lot and his household, and Lot's redemption by Avram
• Meeting of Avram with Melchitzedek, king of Shalem, generally understood to be the first mention of Jerusalem in the Torah
• Foreshadowing of the Egyptian exile, and God's promise to ultimately redeem the people
• Hagar's first separation from the camp of Avram and Saray, and her return
• Birth of Ishmael to Hagar
• Change of name of Avram and Saray to Avraham and Sarah
• Command to circumcise every male in the group
• Promise that Sarah will give birth
• Mass circumcision in the camp of all males.

Surely there is enough here to plan lessons for a semester, if not a year, and we have one week if we are teaching parshat hashavua and need to keep up with the calendar. Lucky it's the month of Heshvan - no holidays coming up!!

Big Ideas: There are so many you'll have to choose. Here are a few suggestions. Fortunately, some are more appropriate for younger learners, some for older students. And, in most cases, we have more than one year to help our students learn Torah. Just be sure that you're not teaching the same thing last year's teacher taught.

• God chose Avraham for reasons we can only imagine to be the inheritor of God's blessing
• It may be necessary to stand apart in order to do what God wants of us
• The path toward following God is not always straight or clear
• People - even fundamentally good people - do not always behave admirably
• Names are significant
• Following God's commandments is not always easy or pain free

Questions:

• What are some stories you know about Avram's childhood? Why do we have midrashim about Avraham's childhood?
• Why do you think Avram had to leave his country, his clan, his family in order to obey God? Which do you think was most difficult for him?
• What do you think about the story of Avram and Saray in Egypt (Chapter 12)? In what way is your opinion of Avram affected by the story?
• What can be the reason for the detailed description of the war among the kings in the area (Chapter 14)
• What two covenants does God make with Avraham in this parasha (in chapter 15 and in chapter 17)? What do they have in common?
• What do all the story segments in this parasha tell us about God? About Avraham? About Sarah? About the land of Israel?

Learning Activities:

• The language in this parasha is not terribly difficult, although some of the stories certainly are challenging. There are a number of phrases that have become basic Hebrew idioms, and you may want to learn them: Debbie Friedman wrote a beautiful song around the words "Lech lecha" which is sung in many religious schools. You can hear it here. Kum v'Hitalech BaAretz, by Yoram Taharlev, is a beautiful song which builds on the words in chapter 13:17 - Kum hit'halech ba'aretz. You can get to Taharlev's website in Hebrew here and there is a an English translation. To hear the song, go here and click on the arrow pointing to the lyrics. For an English translation of the lyrics, look here. What do the words to this song tell you about the lyricist's feelings about Israel?
• If you have the time, and if you have the patience and the interest, please read Noam Zion and Steve Israel's incredibly rich treatment of Avraham, The First Jew, a Journey Begun with a Fateful Choice, from the Shalom Hartman Institute. (This is the same source institution that has brought us A Different Night, an outstanding Haggadah for Pesach.) You will almost certainly not be able to use this in its entirety, but I promise that if you read it you will find pieces that will add to your understanding of Avraham, and will probably give you some ideas for activities in your classroom.

Noach

Introducti0n:

What a treat to be immersed in the "easy to read and explain" narrative of B'raisheet!! Here are the stories we all know and love - the ones we remember from the picture books of pre-school and the simplistic Bible stories of the primary grades. Isn't it so much easier to teach stories our students already know?!?

Thought for the teacher: If you are teaching the same 'story' year after year, are you really surprised that at some point the learners are bored? Or that at the end of their formal Jewish educational experience they distance themselves from the childish knowledge that is the extent of what they have been exposed to?

Let's continue to try something different. And let's begin by updating the challenge we faced in teaching B'raisheet

Here's the challenge -

• how do we make the 'old' story of Noah and the Flood and the Tower of Babel 'new' in the eyes of our students?
• How can we transform a narrative that our learners have been reading and hearing forever into something they find important?
• How can we get from "How did the animals get onto the ark" to some really big thinking about what the point is in studying Torah?
• How can we help our students answer the fundamental question I think all learners should be able to answer, "What did you learn today/this week/this month that is important?"

Big Ideas:

• Not all the important ideas in Torah are stated outright.
• Filling in the blanks in Torah is really important for understanding its message to us.

Some Important Questions:

• What do we know about Noah from the text?
• How do we know about Noah from the text? Who is telling the story?
• What did you learn from Noah's experience that is important to you in your life?
• What lessons are there for us in the story of the Tower of Babel?

Learning Activities:

• Read the story of Noah line-by-line, stopping at the end of each verse, as if you have never seen or heard it before. Each time you stop, try to describe what you have just read. Also, try to predict what will happen next. Did anything you read surprise you? Explain.
• The first word of Chapter 6 verse 16 is "tsohar". This word is called a "hapax legomena". You can read more about this here in an article from the Jewish Encyclopedia. How can we understand a word that appears only once in the entire text? Why is that a problem?
• Read the comments about the word "tsohar" here in the post on October 27, 2006. What did you learn? Is it important information?
• Read the story of the Tower of Babel the same way you read the story of Noah, and go through the same process. Do you think God punished the people or rewarded them in this story? Explain your thinking.
• The United States is a country made up of many diverse populations, coming from or descended from hundreds of native countries, with hundreds of native languages spoken by its population. How is this a good thing? How is it a problem? How is your thinking influenced by the story of the Tower of Babel?

Assessment:

• What new understanding of Torah in your life do you have as a result of these activities?
• What important ideas have you uncovered in studying this parasha?
• What else are you curious about that we have not studied together - and how might you learn more?

Parshat B'Reisheet

Here's the challenge -

• how do we make the 'old' story of creation 'new' in the eyes of our students?
• How can we transform a narrative that our learners have been reading and hearing forever into something they find important?
• How can we get from "What was created on the first/second/third/etc. day to some really big thinking about what the point is in studying Torah?
• How can we help our students answer the fundamental question I think all learners should be able to answer, "What did you learn today/this week/this month that is important?"

Big Ideas:

• Words matter.
• Science and religion are about different things
• Jewish wisdom is a source of important ideas that guide our lives

Essential Questions:

• Why does each act of creation begin with the words: וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים - And God said?
• Explain why you think there are two different stories of creation.
• Who are you - what is your primary identity?
• How can we make sense of the story of the creation of the world in the Torah when we also learn the Big Bang Theory of how the universe came into being?
• What does learning Torah have to do with my "real life"?

Learning Activities:

• Read The Creative Power of Words, by Rabbi Evan Moffic at the link. What do his thoughts mean to you?
• This article about bullying illustrates a Jewish way of looking at this universal problem. How do you think it connects to this Torah portion?
• William Safire recently died. The following is a quotation from an article about him and his work in the October 11, 2009 Sunday Times Magazine: “At a certain point,” he conceded, “what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.” Does this statement affect the way you understand what is written in Torah?
• Rabbi Gail Labovitz writes about the two stories of creation that are side-by-side in the Torah. How does she understand the difference these two stories make in how we define ourselves? Which story are you more familiar with? Which do you generally teach to your students? Can you make an argument for teaching the one you usually ignore? For teaching both?
• On October 7th I wrote about the new head of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins. Go back to that post and re-read the article at about him at the link there. How does he explain his understanding of religion and science?

Assessment:

• Create a poster that illustrates how you understand the relationship between the Biblical stories of creation and the scientific explanations.
• Write a short essay that explains who you are, using the ideas that Rabbi Labovitz suggests in her D'var Torah.
• Formulate a policy on the use of words that uses the ideas you have learned from this parasha and the commentaries you have read.