Avodah Lesson 9 The Prayer-to-Action Wrap-Up

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1 Avodah Lesson 9 The Prayer-to-Action Wrap-Up This lesson concludes the Level 5 Avodah unit on prayer. A goal of this level has been to study several extremely important prayers in Jewish liturgy (the Amidah, the Aleinu, and the Kaddish) through the lens of the relationship between prayer and our own behavior. This lesson is designed to help students review and reinforce their learning, both from an information point of view (What are the prayers about?) as well as a personal point of view (What can these prayers mean for us today?). Avodah Lesson 8, about the historical and spiritual relationship between the Jewish people and Israel, Israel in Our Prayers, is not included in this review. ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS Avodah is the work we do to find sacred connections to God, community, and self. Engaging in the work of avodah can bring order, beauty, meaning, and insight to our lives and our community. The practice of prayer can help me grow through personal reflection, can increase my connection to the Jewish people, and can strengthen my relationship with God. ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS 1. How is striving for a connection to God, avodah, like work? 2. What can I learn about what it means to be a Jew through the practice of prayer? 3. How can I develop a personal practice of prayer? 4. How can I experience kavanah and feel moments of connection to God? 5. How does the practice of prayer keep my relationships with myself, with God, and with the Jewish people in good shape? QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED 1. How does prayer affect us? 2. How can the prayers we have studied this year (the Amidah, the Aleinu, and the Kaddish), written so long ago, have meaning for us today? 227

2 228 Avodah Lesson 9 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life EVIDENCE OF UNDERSTANDING Students will identify any changes in their thinking about prayer by completing the How Prayer Helps Checklist Part 2 and comparing their answers to the ones they gave in Avodah Lesson 1. Using the Into the Future: The Big Prayer Review exercise, students will identify what the Aleinu, the Kaddish, and the Amidah prayers mean to us as Jews today. LESSON OVERVIEW Set Induction (5 10 minutes) If Not Prayer, What Else? (15 20 minutes) Into the Future: The Big Prayer Review (15 20 minutes) Conclusion (5 10 minutes) MATERIALS NEEDED A tallit for each student Tallit Blessing sheet (page 236) Into the Future: The Big Prayer Review instruction sheets (page 232) and Kaddish, Aleinu, and Amidah worksheets for each student (pages ) Amidah Review sheets (page 231) for one-third of the class. READING RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Fields, Harvey J. B chol L vavcha: A Commentary (rev. ed). New York: UAHC Press, 2001, pp Grishaver, Joel Lurie. Sh ma Is for Real: A Book on Prayer and Other Tangents. Los Angeles: Torah Aura Productions, 1993, pp Sonsino, Rifat, and Daniel B. Syme. Finding God: Selected Responses (rev. ed.). New York: UAHC Press, SET INDUCTION (5 10 MINUTES) LESSON PLAN The set induction is designed to help students think about the concept of a wrap or a wrap up, which this lesson is. At the conclusion of the lesson, students will be given the experience of wrapping themselves up, in a tallit.

3 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life The Prayer-to-Action Wrap-Up On the board or flip chart, write the question: What s a wrap or a wrap-up? Have the students brainstorm answers to the question (or to any reasonable variation of the word wrap, such as wrapper ) and write them as the students call them out. (Possible answers include: a type of sandwich; a piece of clothing; a conclusion; a movie director s statement [ it s a wrap! ]; a covering for food, like a candy wrapper; etc.) 2. Ask the students to think about whether there is any commonality among the answers you have written on the board; in other words, can the class come up with a definition of wrap or wrap-up based on the specific examples? 3. Explain that this lesson is itself a wrap-up, a way of bringing together what they have learned about several Jewish prayers this year. LEARNING ACTIVITIES If Not Prayer, What Else? (15 20 minutes) In this activity, students will identify any changes in their thinking since the beginning of the unit about how prayer helps people. 1. Ask the students to turn to page 29 in their workbooks and review the boxed quote together: The Hebrew verb k K P, v k(l hitpaleil), to pray, may be translated as to judge or examine oneself. Prayer is meant to be a time of honest self-searching where we struggle with the gap between what we say and what we do between our ideals and our actions. 1 Point out that this was one of the opinions about prayer they studied at the beginning of the unit. 2. As indicated in the directions, ask the students to complete the checklist on the page, based on the way they feel about prayer now. 3. When they are finished, ask the students to turn back to page 17 (The How Prayer Helps Checklist) in their workbooks and to compare their present answers with their answers from Avodah Lesson 1, The Prayer-to-Action Connection. Tell them to put a circle around any answers that have changed. 4. When all the students have completed step 3, invite volunteers to share with the class any changes they observed about their feelings about prayer since the beginning of the unit. Into the Future: The Big Prayer Review (15 20 minutes) In this activity, students will review important themes of the Aleinu, the Kaddish, and the Amidah prayers and will identify what these prayers and their themes could mean to us in our lives today. 1. Distribute the Into the Future: The Big Prayer Review instruction sheets and prayer worksheets on pages to each student. 2. Read, or ask a student to read, the information about each prayer. 3. Divide the students into three groups and assign each group one of the three prayers. Ask the group to take the prayer into the future by answering the question: What does the prayer mean for us 1 Harvey J. Fields, B chol L vavcha: A Commentary (rev. ed.) (New York: UAHC Press, 2001), p. 250.

4 230 Avodah Lesson 9 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life today? (Important note: Since the Amidah is a much longer prayer than the others, the students selected for this group should be those who can deal with more complex, difficult material. To help them, distribute to them a copy of the Amidah Review Sheet on page 231.) 4. When the students are finished, come back together as a class and have each group share their answers with the other groups. CONCLUSION (5 10 MINUTES) Ask the students to put away all their things, as if they were being dismissed. Ask them to be very quiet and to listen to your instructions carefully. 1. Explain to the students that, just as this lesson has been a wrap-up, they will now have a chance to wrap themselves up by putting on a tallit, the prayer shawl traditionally worn by Jews in the synagogue after they become b nei mitzvah. 2. Distribute the blessing for putting on the tallit, found on page 236, and give a tallit to each student. 3. Say the blessing together with the class and invite the students to wrap themselves in the tallit (the teacher should do this, too). Try saying the blessing in Hebrew, if possible, but be sure to read the English translation in any case Ask the students to say to themselves, in their own words, a prayer or blessing that helps them or expresses a good feeling they have. Students who don t want to say a prayer or blessing can just think about something that helps them or makes them happy. 5. After the students have completed this meditation, collect the tallitot (plural of tallit) and invite the students to share their feelings, if any, about praying with a tallit. 2 Hebrew transliteration: Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech haolom, asher kid shanu b mitzvotav v tzivanu l hitateif batzitzit.

5 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life 231 Amidah Review Sheet The Amidah Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Weekdays Praise Avot v imahot Merit of our ancestors G vurot God is our hero K dushah God is holy Petitions For the individual: For understanding For repentance For forgiveness For redemption For health For abundance For the Nation of Israel: For freedom For justice For an end to evil (in some prayer books) For righteousness For Jerusalem For deliverance For acceptance of prayer Thanksgiving Avodah For the ability to worship Hodaah For the many gifts of everyday Birkat Shalom For peace Personal prayers Shabbat Praise Avot v imahot Merit of our ancestors G vurot God is our hero K dushah God is holy No Petitions K dushat HaYom for the holiness of Shabbat Thanksgiving Avodah For the ability to worship Hodaah For the many gifts of everyday Birkat Shalom For peace Personal prayers

6 232 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life Into the Future: The Big Prayer Review Most of the prayers in our siddur were composed a long time ago, but Jews still say them today. In the box on your worksheet you will find the name of an important prayer we studied recently. The box contains: the name of one prayer the time scholars think it was composed the original theme or themes of the prayer Your job is to figure out what the prayer could mean to our people today! Instructions: 1. Read the information about the prayer you were assigned. 2. Discuss with your study partners what the prayer means for Jews today. 3. Write your answers in the space provided under Take it into the future!

7 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life 233 Name of Prayer: The Kaddish Probable Date of Composition: Uncertain, evolved over time. Said after rabbinic study as early as 100 or 200 C.E. Original Themes: Statement of personal, active affirmation of belief in the greatness of God. Several versions of the prayer developed over time and today one of its purposes is to separate different parts of the synagogue service, providing an opportunity for every Jew to actively affirm his or her belief in God. Take it into the future! What does the prayer mean for us today? (CHAI-Clue: Do people sometimes have to remind themselves of what is important?)

8 234 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life Name of Prayer: The Aleinu Probable Date of Composition: Probably around the time of the Maccabees (167 B.C.E.) Original Themes: Jews don t bow down to or worship false gods or idols. We are unique because we were chosen by the one God, to whom we give our loyalty. We hope for the day when there will be peace and justice because the whole world will be united under God s rule. Take it into the future! What does the prayer mean for us today? (CHAI-Clue: Are there false gods today? Do some people seem to worship things other than God?)

9 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life 235 Name of Prayer: The Amidah (for Shabbat) Probable Date of Composition: Sometime before the first century, but made an official part of Jewish worship by Rabbi Gamliel in about 100 C.E. Original Themes: We ask God to look favorably upon us because of the good deeds and the merits of our ancestors, we proclaim that God is the source of life and death and that God has the power to help us and save us, and we declare that God is sacred and eternal. We express appreciation for Shabbat and we ask God s help in keeping it in our lives. We ask God to be gracious to us and to let us know, in some way, that God is near to us when we seek God. We thank God for being there for us throughout our people s history and we praise God for all the wonderful gifts in our world. We ask God to bless us with peace. Take it into the future! What does the prayer mean for us today? (CHAI-Clue: When we honestly praise others, can this help us realize the good things about them? When we honestly praise God, can this remind us how much we should appreciate God?)

10 236 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life Blessing for Putting on the Tallit r J t 'o kig v Q kn Ubh vo t 'hh v T t QUr C /, mh M C ; Y g, v k Ub ²U m± u uh,i m n C Ub J S e We praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe: You make us holy with Your mitzvot, And command us to wrap ourselves in the fringed tallit.