igniting your shabbat services Vayeilech

Transcription

1 igniting your shabbat services

2 HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE Hello and welcome to Spark! Spark is a new idea from Tribe, aimed at facilitating the smooth running of Toddlers Services, Children s Services and Youth Services across United Synagogue communities. Firstly, thank you for offering to run a Children s Service in your local shul. The US is very proud of the numerous Children s services that are run every week across the UK, and we would not be able to do this without you! Spark has been designed in order to help you run your Children s Services. Obviously, every Children s Service is different, in terms of how many children there are; what their age range is; how long it is for; and how knowledgeable the children are likely to be of this week s parasha. Ideally, where possible, a Children s Service should consist of some time used to discuss the weekly parasha, and some time devoted to davening. Spark is aimed at the parasha part of the service. It gives you an overview of what happens in the weekly parasha, and then a song, activity, discussion or Dvar Torah to run with the children depending on their ages. After the parasha summary on the next page, Spark has been split into 5 sections. Larger communities may have 5 different Children s / Youth Services running concurrently. Each of these will be able to use one section for their relevant age group. If your shul does not have as many groups, then you should use the section that best suits the age range of your participants. It has been created in a way to be flexible, so that it can be run in 10 minutes, if you have a short service, or longer if you have the time. If you also look at sections for other age groups, you may even find that you would like to use the ideas and information from more than one of the sections. It is important to note that Spark should help you to run Children s Services, but it does not completely run it for you. It is not designed to give to one of the children to read out to the group for them to run themselves. You are running the Children s Service, and Spark is here to help you do it. Largely, no props will be needed, but ideally you should read Spark before you start the Children s Service, so that you can think of further ideas to complement it. We hope that you and the children in the Children s Service will benefit from Spark, we thank and congratulate you for doing it; and as always we welcome your feedback. Shabbat shalom, The Tribe Education Team

3 Parasha Summary n God tells Moshe that he will soon die n Moshe summons Joshua, as he will be the next leader of the Jewish People n We are given the commandment to teach Torah

4 Pre-nursery to Reception Tots This week s Parasha is always read either the week before, or the week after, Rosh Hashanah, (sometimes it is part of a double sedra with Nitzavim too,) so sing a song to get everyone thinking about the Jewish New Year. One of the most well known parts of Rosh Hashanah is that we eat apples and honey, as a sign for a happy and sweet new year with only good things. (To the Tune of Oh My Darling Clementine ) Dip the apple in the Honey Make a Bracha loud and clear L'Shana Tovah U'Metuka Have a Happy Sweet New Year! X2

5 YEAR 1 & 2 Ages 5-7 In this week s parasha Moshe is told that he is about to die, so he formally introduces the children of Israel to their new leader; Joshua. Activity: Teach the children the notes for the Shofar. These are: n Play Simon Says with the children, but with the name Joshua instead of Simon. n Choose one child to be Joshua. n Joshua will give lots of instructions to the other children, who should all do what he says, e.g. pat your head, wave hello. Most instructions should be started with Joshua says... n If s/he starts the instruction without saying Joshua says than any children who mistakenly did the action as instructed, are out of the game. n Play continues until there is only one child left who is the winner.

6 YEAR 3 & 4 Ages 7-9 In this week s parasha Moshe is told that he is about to die, so he formally introduces the children of Israel to their new leader; Joshua. Activity: n Play follow my leader with the children. n Choose one child to go out of the room, while the leader is chosen. n The leader should do various actions e.g. pat their head or clap their hands and all the other children should copy, without making it obvious who it is that they are copying. n The child who was out of the room has to try and guess who the leader is.

7 YEAR 5 & 6 Ages 9-11 In this week s parasha God tells Moshe that he is about to die, and that the new leader who will replace him, will be Joshua. Activity: n Prepare a small obstacle course with the children, by moving around the location of some chairs or tables. n Blindfold a child, and choose another child to be their leader. n The leader should try to get the blindfolded child from one end of the room to the other, by avoiding all the obstacles. They should direct them with instructions such as take two steps to the right, walk forward three steps. n The blindfolded child has to place their trust in their leader, to get them through the obstacles, just as the Children of Israel trusted Moshe and Joshua to lead them into the Land of Israel. Discussion Points; n Ask the children what they know about Joshua. (e.g. When the 12 spies were sent ahead to Israel, Joshua was one of the two who came back with a positive report.) n What characteristics do we want to have in a leader? n Would somebody who was a good leader for the Children of Israel then, also be a good leader for us now? And vice versa?

8 Youth service Ages Dvar Torah In this week s parasha we read; Gather together the nation, the men and the women and the children, and the stranger who is in your gates, in order that they should hear, and in order that they should learn and they will fear the Almighty, your God, and they will observe and fulfil this entire Torah (31:12). This is in reference to the mitzvah that it is required once every seven years, for the entire nation to gather in one spot so the King can publically read from the Torah. It is interesting to note that children are specifically mentioned to be involved with this mitzvah. One could think that they should not come, as they are too young to understand what is going on and could disturb the adults at this special event. However, the Torah tells us that it s important that the children are involved. Why? So that they can see such a tremendous gathering coming together to hear and obey the Torah. Judaism places a great importance on everybody being involved with, and celebrating mitzvot. Judaism is not just for adults, but for everyone!

9 igniting your shabbat services We hope you find our guide to this week s Parasha useful. Be sure to look out for exciting Tribe programmes in your shul. Shabbat Shalom! The Tribe Education Team t: e: info@tribeuk.com