What is simchat torah?

Simchat Torah is one of the holidays where children gets to actively participate in the service. This is the one time kids do not have to sit still – singing and dancing with the torah and waving flags are the order of the day. Children do not carry the scrolls of course (it’s way too heavy), but you can bring along a toy torah or paper torahs. The torah scrolls are taken out of the ark, seven times and carried around the synagogue. Can you imagine all the excitement and noise! It is a real parade in the synagogue and mom and dad joins in too.

Now before we continue, do you know what the torah is? The word torah means teaching. The Torah is best known as the five books of Moses. In it you have historical events (explaining things that happened a long time ago, our bible stories for instance), it explains families (just like a family tree), and it also contains all the commandments (and there are not only 10, in all there are 613 commandments), but we will learn more of this later on in the year. The torah scrolls we read from in the synagogue are called a Sefer Torah ‘(that’s more Hebrew).

Now the reason for this parade is because we celebrate a year of reading and learning of torah. Just like you do and are going to do during this year at Sunday Funday.
Simchat Torah simply means ‘Rejoicing in the Torah’. All through the year we read portions of the torah called parashot. At Simchat Torah we make a circle with the torah: that means we read the last words in the torah and start up again right from the beginning – just like a circle, just like for us the studying of the torah is never ending.

An activity to do at home
Make a simchat torah flag.
http://www.behrmanhouse.com/jam/pdf/simhattorahflag.pdf

Join us at Kehilat Gesher, KG 17, for Simchat Torah services this Wednesday evening at 7pm!

Venez nombreux à notre office de Simchat Torah chez Kehilat Gesher, ce mercredi soir, à KG17 à 19h00 !

Hag Sameach

Our calendar for the year :

Please save these dates and watch for emails with more information :
Next class will be held :
October 17th - Shema / Mezzuzah




Future dates:
November 21st
December 12th
January 16th
February 6th
March 13th
April 17th
May 15th
June - Sunday Funday picnic

The program can be found on our website under Sunday Funday/MiniGan : http://www.kehilatgesher.org/

Feel free to join us, if you need any information please contact me on feldmancs@noos.fr

Hag Sameach everyone

Our next class will be held on October 17th. The location will be confirmed by email. At our next lesson we will learn the Shema and make our own mezzuzah ...

But first, did you know that we will soon be celebrating another holiday. Soon we will be celebrating Sukkoth. But do you know what sukkoth is?

Sukkoth is fun holiday! It's true - it is a jewish holiday where you leave your house to do some jewish camping ! Yes camping, eating and sleeping outside in your garden or on the roof or just there where you can build a booth, a temporary house. BUT to build any house there are rules you need to follow and so there are rules for building our booth which is also called a sukkah. It has temporary walls , but what is special about our booth is that it has an open roof made of branches. The rule is that you must see the sky by day, and stars by night. Yes it could be cold, and it could rain but then we think of and thank God for keeping us safe in our strong houses where we usually stay. The best part of the sukkah is that you get to decorate it. You can draw pictures, hang up fruit and veg and make it colourful. When we stay in the we remember the time when the jews left Egypt and spent a long long time (40 years) in the desert and lived in temporary houses too. It is a mitzvah (that means doing something good) to eat/ sleep and invite friends in your sukkah.

The holiday comes just after the high holy days. It is also the harvest time in Israel. Harvesting is when the farmers work the land and pick the fruit. During the harvest period the farmers used to stay in booths, this way they were able to work late and be there early without having to travel. Clever don't you think.

So to remind us of this time, we use a yellow fruit which look like a lemon, but bigger, and is called an etrog. It has taste and a lovely smell.

We also take branches of three trees which grow in Israel : 1-2-3.

One palm branch :

It is strong and upright. Dates grows on it, so the palm tree has tast, but no fragrance or smell -it is like a person who knows a lot but doesn't do good things.

Two willow branches

This is a delicate tree and grows close to streams and reminds of life giving water. It has neither smell nor taste, like someone who doesn't know much but who doesn't do much either

Three myrtle branches

The myrtle has no taste, but a wonderful fragrance.
Just like someone who doesn't know much but does a lot of good things towards others

These three with the etrog and is like an example of the different kinds or people. These four belong together because the world needs all kinds of people.

And together, they are called the lulav. We say a special blessing and we hold the etrog and lulav together and shake it in all four directions this reminds us the God is everywhere.

At shabbat we greet each other and say shabbat shalom, remember at Rosh Hashanah we say "shanah tovah" and on Sukkot and all other holidays we say "Hag Sameach" which means happy holiday / happy feast...

So come and shake your lulav as we celebrate and learn more about Sukkoth as a community.

Kehilat Gesher Sukkoth party

Sunday, September 26th

Hag Sameach and see you all soon,

Crystal

Mishpachah

At our first lesson today, we will be talking about Rosh Hashanah and also Family.

In hebrew the word for family is mishpachah. Herebelow are the words of the song, as well as a link to download the song that we will be learning :

I WANT YOU TO MEET MY FAMILY (MISHPACHA)
I want you to meet my family
In Hebrew we call it mishpacha (mishpacha!)
We all live in a bayit (a bayit)
That's the house of my ma and pa
There's my mother, that's ima, say eema (ima!)
There's my father, that's abba, say abba (abba!)

Chorus:And these are the members of my family
My family, yes, my family
My family, yes, my family

I want you to meet my family
In Hebrew we call it mishpacha (mishpacha!)
We all live in a bayit (a bayit)
That's the house of my ma and pa
There's my brother, that's ach, say ach (ach!)
There's my sister, that's achot, say achot (achot!)

Chorus

I want you to meet my family
In Hebrew we call it mishpacha (mishpacha!)
We all live in a bayit (a bayit)
That's the house of my ma and pa
There's my dog, that's kelev, say kelev (kelev!)
There's my cat, that's hatool, say hatool (hatool!)
There's my fish, that's dag, say dag (dag!)
Chorus

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/shiron-lgan-jewish-songs-for/id310960235

SHANA TOVA UMETUKAH

Happy New Year everyone, wishing you all a sweet and healthy New Year !

Start off this New Year by joining us on Sept 12th at 3pm in Paris for our very first session.

See u soon...

Crystal