igniting your shabbat services Mishpatim

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 nin this week s parasha we start to read about the many civil laws in the Torah. Here are a few examples of situations when we need to follow specific Torah laws: Caring for any Jewish workers, and the commandment to release them after 6 years The sale of a daughter Murder and manslaughter Killing a slave, and penalties for injuring someone physically Death caused by an animal, An animal damaging a property nwe learn about sensitivity to the helpless. nwe learn about Shemita of the Land and the week. nwe are given details of the three Pilgrimage Festivals; Pesach, Shavuot and Succot. nthe Children of Israel state that they will do and they will obey the Torah.

4 Pre-nursery to Reception Tots In this week s parasha we read about the Sabbath and how we are commanded to rest on Shabbat. At the time of creation the Torah states; By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done God blessed the seventh day, and He made it holy. For six days God created the Heavens and the Earth. On the seventh day He rested. Observing Shabbat is one of the 10 commandments. n Ask the children what their favourite thing about Shabbat is? n What is their parent s favourite thing? What do we DO on Shabbat? n Recite Kiddush (a special prayer over wine) n Eat three festive meals n Wear special clothes n Say special prayers n Read the parasha of the week from the Torah n Sing Zemirot (special songs of joy that we sing at meal times) What do we NOT DO on Shabbat? n There are 39 categories of melachot that we refrain from those which were performed while building the Mishkan. Activity n Play the game dead lions, to show how we rest on Shabbat.

5 YEAR 1 & 2 Ages 5-7 This week s parasha is called, which means laws. Now that the Jews have received the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai in last week's parasha (Yitro) and accepted the Torah, God teaches them the laws that are part of this Torah. In this parasha, we learn about 53 mitzvot (out of a total of 613) that God commands the Jews to keep, that they be good people. Activity: n Play the game Simon Says with the children. n One child stands at the front of the room, and gives instructions to all the other children e.g. Clap your hands / stamp your feet / turn around. n If the instruction is preceded by Simon Says then the children should follow the instruction. n If the instruction is not preceded by Simon Says though, then the instruction should not be followed. Discussion Points: n We are given many laws this week, and if God tells us to do something, we should do it. However, unlike in Simon Says, God does not arbitrarily choose things for us to do even if we may not understand the reason behind it, there always is one.

6 YEAR 3 & 4 Ages 7-9 This week s parasha is called, which means laws. Now that the Jews have received the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai in last week's parasha (Yitro) and accepted the Torah, God teaches them the laws that are part of this Torah. In this parasha, we learn about 53 mitzvot (out of a total of 613) that God commands the Jews. The Ten Commandments are the backbone of the Torah, and this week, we are given more detailed laws, which show us the way we should lead our lives. Some of these laws still apply in exactly the same way, and some we can learn a message from, rather than something literal. Activity: n Find a Chumash with translation (or a few to be shared around) and show the children the long list of interesting and important laws about how Jews are supposed to take care of other people. These can be found in this week s parasha, in the book of Shemot/Exodus, chapters n Ask each child to read out one of the laws / instructions, and explain to the rest of the children why it is important that we do this. If it is not relevant nowadays, ask if they can think of a modern application for it. n Try to get the children to look at the deeper meanings of the laws that we are given this week. E.g. we are told to not steal. Everyone knows that you should not rob a bank, but this could also refer to being careful with other people s possessions, and time.

7 YEAR 5 & 6 Ages 9-11 In this week s parasha, we learn about some of the intricate laws of murder. Obviously it is one of the 10 commandments you shall not murder, but this week we learn about some of the specifics of this law. Two examples of this are the difference between murder and manslaughter, and the relationship of the victim to the murderer. Activity: n Play the game Wink murder with the children. n All the children sit in a circle, except for one child who goes out of the room. One of the children in the room is chosen to be the murderer. n If the murderer winks at someone, that person pretends to die. n The child who had gone out of the room, has to try and work out who the murderer is, before everybody dies! Activity: n What is the definition of murder? n What is the definition of manslaughter? n In the Torah, we are told that if someone strikes their parent and causes a bruise, they will be more severely punished than if they did the same assault to someone else. Why? Should we go by this today? n Should there be different laws depending on if you kill a friend or employee or acquaintance? n Should there be any different actions taken, depending on if you had killed someone purposefully or not? n What do you think the different punishments should be? n Should the impact of the person s death be taken into account when considering a punishment? (E.g. the number of mourners.)

8 Youth service Ages Dvar Torah The Torah states Do not go after the majority to do evil (Shemot/Exodus 23:2). Rabainu Bachya explains that if you see many people doing something that is wrong, you should not follow their example. It is natural for a person to imitate the behavior of others and think, so many other people are doing this, it can't be so wrong if I do it as well. The Torah is telling us that every person is responsible for his own behavior and that truth is not legislated by majority rule. It takes courage and strength of character to be different from other people and to live your life by your ideals. If you appreciate that the most important thing in the world is to do the will of the Almighty, you will be able to withstand social pressure.

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