Our Shavuot Story

As some of the parents wanted to know where I found the story we read yesterday I decided to add it to our blog. The story is written by Rabbi Joel Luri Grishaver whose books and advice, among others, I often use for preparing our lessons...


All the mountains heard that God was going to give the Torah to Israel. Every mountain was trying hard to be chosen.

Mt. Everest (the highest mountain in the world) came and said, ' I am the tallest of all. The torah is important. It should be given from the highest place on earth." God thought 'Boy, this mountain has a big ego" But instead he said, 'No thank you. It would take far far too long to reach up there and then we would have to come down again..."

Next came Miss Poconos, the most beautiful mountain of all. She said "See here, God, the Torah is the most important thing you have. You should give it from the prettiest place - me." God thought 'this mountain is too vain' But instead he said "Actually we are looking for a different kind of beauty but thank you anyway."

My name is Mt Rushmore. I am strong and people carve faces on me. Right here you see is an empty space and we could have your picture carved there," God said "My image ! Well thats against the commandments - don't call us."

God was worried. He was not sure he would find the perfect one. There must be the right mountain out there somewhere!

And so came all the other mountains . They were all raising their hands, jumping up and down and boy they all had reasons why they should be chosen. Me, me Choose me, I'm the best." - except for one.


God did not know what to do. Then he saw Mount Sinai standing quietly to one side. He was not jumping up and down. God looked at him and asked "What is your name?"

"Why, my name is Sinai, your Holiness".

"Don't you want to be the chosen mountain"

Mount Sinai stood still and quietly answered, " but, but...but I'm just a little unimportant muontain. Someone else should be chosen."
At that moment God knew the right mountain to choose. God knew that Mount Sinai was teh perfect mountain. God chose Mount Sinai because he cared about everyone else. It was then that God sent for the Torah...


Moral : we discussed several lessons we could learn from this story and why God really chose this mountain. I leave you with this one " You are never too small to do great things..."

Shavuah tov..

Our Shavuot lesson ...

What is Shavuot...?

Shavuot, is known as the Feast of Weeks, it takes place exactly seven weeks after Passover. Shavuot is a very important holiday. Yesterday we discussed how the Israelites left Egypt during Passover and were freed from slavery. They walked in the Wilderness with Moses as their leader till Mount Sinai. Shavuot celebrates the day that the Jews received the direction they needed, which was God's instructions to the Jews right there at Mount Sinai. To make sure that there were no misunderstanding God spoke to everyone. God gave us the Torah (remember, we said that it was the first five of the Bible - The Tanakh - the books of Moses). The Torah includes the 10 commandments which tells us how to behave. But we also learnt that there are in fact 613 commandments in the Torah, the ten we learnt in fact include all these commandments in a general way.

Shavuot also celebrates the harvest. You will see at Shavuot that people fill the synagogues with flowers.

Our 10 rules for children are as follows :

1. Remember, I am you God
2. You should not have any other God's besides me
3. Do not say God's name when you do not mean it
4. Remember the Sabbath - the day of rest
5. Honor (which also means respect and listen to) your mom and dad
6. Do not murder (kill or hurt others)
7. Do not have another boyfriend or girlfriend if you're already married
8. Do not steal (do not take what is not yours)
9. Do not lie about your neighbor ( do not tell any fibs)
10. Do not want what other people have

We then decided to write up OUR OWN RULES to remember and this is what the children came up with :

1. Do not watch too much TV
2. Wash your hands as soon as you get home

3. Be careful when using a glass

4. Listen to your teacher
   
5. Listen to your parents

And in this order too ...!!

BOOK CORNER : We ended the lesson with another story called 'No Rules for Michael by Sylvia Rouss.' http://www.amazon.fr/No-Rules-Michael-Sylvia-Rouss/dp/1580130445/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=english-books&qid=1273505187&sr=1-1

Thank you to Ava's mom for reading the story about rules...
ACTIVITY : Decorated our picture of Mount Sinai and the Torah with sand art

Counting to 10 in Hebrew

Yesterday we started off by learning to count to ten.

Our Activity :

To help us remember our hebrew numbers we drew our hands and numbered our ten fingers in hebrew so that we could practice it at home. Some of us decided to draw mom / dads hands...

What comes between Passover and Shavuot? It's Lag B'omer !

Before we start to talk about Shavuot I just wanted to quickly talk about Lag B’Omer. It is important because it isn’t often that we actually have a full lesson on this.
Lag B’Omer is the period between Passover and Shavuot where we count the days. Passover remember is the time when we have our seders and celebrate the freedom of the Jews from Egypt and i is also the time when harvest season starts. So we count from Passover through to the First day of Shavuot, our next holiday.
The counting is called Lag B’Omer. It links these two holidays from when we were saved from slavery to the giving of the Torah. There are 49 days between the two holidays. We say a special prayer every evening and announce the day we counted, e.g. on Day 20 we would say we counted 20 days, 2 weeks and 6 days...

We often celebrate Lag B'omer with a picnic, it is a happy time after a period which is quite solemn.
For a fun read check out this website : JVibe

Now for those who were here last year let's try to remember how we count in hebrew. We are May 9th and Shavuot is May 19th so we have 10 days to count. Remember, this is how we count in hebrew :

1 - ACHAT

2 - SHTA-YEEM

3 - SHAH-LOSH

4 - AR-BAH

5 - HAH-MESH

6 - SHESH
7 - SHEH-VAH
8 - SHMOH-NEH
9 - TAY-SHA

10 - ES-AIR

http://www.hebrewonline.com/Hebrew_category/8-.htm

Full Shavuot lesson to follow after the class.