igniting your shabbat services

igniting your shabbat services

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

Parasha Summary nin this week s parasha we see the eighth plague of locusts and the ninth plague of darkness. However Pharaoh still refuses to release the children of Israel from slavery. npharaoh is warned about the coming plague of the First born. nwe are given the commandment of Rosh Chodesh, the start of the new month. nwe are told about the Passover offering, which the Children of Israel gave immediately following their release from slavery. nwe learn about the festival of Pesach. nthe tenth plague begins and Pharaoh surrenders. nthe Children of Israel begin their departure from Egypt, and we are commanded to always remember the Exodus.

Pre-nursery to Reception Tots In this week s parasha the word 'Aviv' (the Hebrew word for the spring season) is mentioned for the first time, as the name of the first month. In Modern Hebrew though, we do not use it as the name of a month, but as a season. Here is a song with the names of the Jewish months. Tune: bby Shaftoe Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av, Ellul, Tishrei, Cheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, Adar, And sometimes Adar Sheni. Ask the children if they know which events happen in which months e.g. Pesach, which we learn about in this week s parasha, is in Nissan.

YEAR 1 & 2 Ages 5-7 In this week s parasha we read that the Children of Israel had to leave Egypt very quickly without having time to properly prepare i.e. to eat. That is the reason that on Pesach we have matzah, which didn t have time to rise during the cooking process. After so many years in slavery, when eventually they were freed, they had to leave in a big rush. Activity: n Play the chocolate game with the children (preparation is involved.) n All the children should sit in a circle, and take it in turns to throw two dice. In the middle of the circle should be a pile of clothes / coats, and something edible. n When someone throws a combined total of 10 on the dice (e.g. 6 and 4), as it was after the 10th plague, they should start to put on all the clothes from the middle. Once they are wearing all the clothes, they can then start eating. (You can make it harder, e.g. by only using plastic cutlery.) n The other children continue to throw the dice, and as soon as someone else throws a combination of 10, then the first person stops eating and gives them all the clothes, for them to try and get something to eat. Discuss with the children the similarity of waiting and waiting to get a throw of 10, and then being in a huge rush, in case someone else gets it soon. This is similar to the Children of Israel who waited for years and years to be able to leave, and when they were finally able to, they had to do it in such a rush that they did not even have time to eat properly. Does this matter? Did it change the end result?

YEAR 3 & 4 Ages 7-9 In this week s parasha we have the plague of darkness. It is different from many of the other plagues, where something unpleasant was added to their daily lives e.g. frogs or locusts. Here, something that is a basic part of their everyday life, was taken away the ability to see! 1. There were some Jews who were not going to leave Egypt. These people did not deserve to be freed, because they were so assimilated into Egyptian culture, that there was no hope for them to be part of the Children of Israel. They were going to die, but God did not want the Egyptians to see this, and claim that they had mistakenly been affected by the plague too. 2. The Jewish people had been slaves for many years, without payment. During this plague, they were instructed to go into the Egyptian s homes, and scout out where they hid their valuables. After the plague ended, they made the Egyptians aware that they knew their hiding places. The fact that these people who had been slaves for so long, even when given the opportunity did not steal their valuables, showed how moral the Jewish people were. Activity: n Split the children in to groups, and ask them to act out an extract of Moshe s life. Discussion Points: n Play a game involving blindfolds, to represent the darkness of the plague. n All the children should sit on chairs in a circle, with one child blindfolded. n The child that is blindfolded has an abject under their chair, e.g. keys. n Another child is chosen, and they have to try and walk around the circle of chairs, take the keys, and get back to their own chair, without being discovered. n If the blindfolded child thinks they know the whereabouts of the other member of the group, they should point at them. n If they guess the direction correctly, they win the round and someone else gets a go.

YEAR 5 & 6 Ages 9-11 In this week s parasha we are commanded to always remember our exit from Egypt. We are told that when we eat matzah on Pesach, we should tell our children about the matzah s connection to the Exodus. We are told that firstborn sons are holy, and that Tefillin will also remind us of constantly of the Exodus. By using the word Zachor remember, our Sages derive that we must recall the Exodus every day, which we fulfill by reciting the third paragraph of the Shema, which ends by saying that God took the Jewish people out of Egypt. There are four passages that are written inside every man s tefillin; the first two paragraphs of the Shema, and the two passages of this chapter in. These are all fundamental to Judaism. When we think of the Exodus, we are reminded that it is God who liberated us and made us into a nation. The Exodus showed the world that God has full control of nature, and no one can thwart Him. The open miracles of the plagues and the Exodus remind us of this. Discussion Points: n What exactly should we remember? n Do we only need to remember it on Pesach? n How do we do this in Judaism? n Does the past affect us? Why? n Does it make a difference if we live in Israel or not?

Youth service Ages 12-18 Dvar Torah The last plague visited on the Egyptians was the slaying of the first born. Moshe warns Pharaoh that this plague will occur at about midnight. It is surprising that Moshe said this, as God told Moshe that the plague would occur at midnight. So why did Moshe alter what God had told him? The Talmud says that if Moshe had said exactly midnight, and the plague had occurred at a time that Pharoah s advisors thought was slightly before or after midnight, they would claim Moshe was a liar. Rabbi Pliskin says that even after nine severe plagues, they would still naturally assume that someone else has made a mistake, rather than that they themselves had made an error. Rabbi Pekudah tells this story: a rabbi was walking through the street with several of his students. They came upon the carcass of a dead dog. What a vile sight, they remarked. Look how white its teeth are, responded the rabbi. With those words the rabbi taught his students that even when there is much more which is negative, there is still something positive to look for and find. In this world no one and nothing is perfect. There is always fault to find. However, the Torah teaches us the negative repercussions of being a fault finder. We should always concentrate on seeing and emphasizing the good in everything, and then hopefully God will only see the good in us.

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: 020 8343 5656 e: info@tribeuk.com www.tribeuk.com