igniting your shabbat services

Behar -Bechukotai

Behar - Bechukotai

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

HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE

Behar - Bechukotai

This week we have a double parasha;

Behar…

n The parasha begins by talking about the Sabbath for the land, the 7th year: “For 6 years you work the land, and then on the seventh you leave it to completely rest” – this is called ‘Shemittah’

n The parasha then goes onto talk about the ‘Yovel’, or the 50th year, the end of the 7th cycle of the sabbatical year. This is when lease sales of land are returned to their original owners

n We should try to prevent poverty

n We learn about the laws of caring for Jewish servants

n We are reminded that we should not make idols

Bechukotai…

n In this parasha we see the blessings and punishments that the Jewish people will get depending whether they keep, or don’t keep the covenant between them and God

n For example if we keep the commandments, then we will have peace and our enemies will fall; but if we don’t, then we will have the same punishments as our enemies

n In the second half of the parasha we see the gifts which were given to the Temple, depending on how old people were when they gave them

ParaSHa SUmmary

Behar - BechukotaiPrE-nUrSEry TO rEcEPTIOnTots

Parasha SongIn the first of this week’s parashot we read about

Shemittah: the Shabbat that we have for the land in

the seventh year. Just like we need a rest, so does the

land, so it can continue to yield crops. Therefore in

the seventh year, we stop working the land or picking

its fruits, for the whole of that year. Here is a song

illustrating how we have to look after our environment.

Tune: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Throw our rubbish in the bin, in the bin,

Making sure that it goes in, it goes in,

Or the paper, food and all the dirty waste

Will make the Earth a messy place, messy place!

Behar - BechukotaiyEar 1 & 2Ages 5-7

In the first of this week’s two parashot we read about

Shemittah: the Shabbat that we have for the land in

the seventh year. Just like we need a rest so does

the land, in order that it can continue to produce

nutritious crops. Therefore in the seventh year, we

stop working the land or picking its fruits, for the

whole of that year.

Activity

Play the game Fruit basket:

n The players are divided into equal-sized groups, with each group taking the name

of a fruit

n A circle is formed with a number of chairs equal to one less than the number of

players. The players sit on the chairs, ensuring that members of each group are

evenly distributed around the circle

n One player will be left without a chair, and will stand in the center of the circle

n The player standing in the center calls out one of the fruit names. When this

happens, all players in that group must stand up from their seats and move to

another seat in the circle. The player in the center must attempt to take one of

the free seats while the other players are moving.

Discussion Points

n Why do we need to look after our environment?

n Can you give examples of ways to do this?

Behar - BechukotaiyEar 3 & 4Ages 7-9

In the first of this week’s two parashot, we learn about the

laws concerning having Jewish slaves. The way we imagine

a slave now is someone who has to follow all your

instructions and do everything that you say.

Activity

Play ‘Follow my Leader’ with the children:

n Choose one child to go out of the room

n All the other children should sit in a circle, and a ‘leader’ is chosen

n The leader starts doing an action, which all the other children follow

n The child comes back in to the room, and has to try to guess who the leader is

n The leader should continuously change actions, until they have been spotted and

correctly identified by the volunteer who went out of the room

Discussion Points

n What is the definition of a slave? I.e. what makes a nanny / cleaner NOT a slave?

n Is it ok to have slaves nowadays? Why or why not?

n Is it ok to have Jewish slaves? Why or why not?

Behar - BechukotaiyEar 5 & 6Ages 9-11

The mitzvah of Shemittah (the sabbatical year for

the land) is one of the commandments that can be

performed only in Israel. God gave us the Earth and

we must look after it. If the land does not have a

rest it would eventually produce poor crops and the

people would starve

This activity is called 'Environmental Consequences':

We look after the Environment in many different ways. Use the phrases below to start the discussion. Use the following format:

Part One: If we don't give the land a rest...

Part Two: ...it will lose its goodness...

Part Three: ...crops will then fail and people will starve.

Examples:

• If you pour chemicals from a factory into a river...

• If you leave plastic bags lying around in the countryside...

• If a tanker leaks oil into the sea...

• If people had dirty smoke coming out of car exhausts...

Discussion Points

n Why is it so important to look after the environment?

n It is a very popular thing to do nowadays to recycle and make sure the environment is looked after, but is there any Jewish reason to do this?

n Is there a link between being ‘green’ and observing the laws of Shemittah?

n The Jewish concept of ‘tikun olam’ means repairing the world and it is the principle that we are partners with God in making the world a better place.

n Are there any ways you can think of to make sure we look after our world for future

generations?

Behar - Bechukotai

Dvar TorahThe Torah states:" You shall not hurt the feelings of one another, and you shall fear the Almighty." (Vayikra / Leviticus 25:17) Why does the verse end with the words "and you shall fear the Almighty"?

Rabbi Shlomo Kluger commented: Some people are careless with the feelings of other people; they think that they only have to be careful to observe those commandments which involve man's obligation to God. The truth is that if a person is not careful with his obligations to his fellow men and speaks against them and hurts their feelings, he will eventually be careless with the commandments between man and the Almighty. This is why the Torah adds the admonition to fear the Almighty at the end of this verse. Failure to observe the first half of the verse will lead to failure to observe the latter half of the verse.

Since verbal abuse can cause so much suffering, much care must be taken not to say things that will hurt people’s feelings. The more sensitive someone is, the greater care we must take when speaking so as not to cause pain with our words. Not only is it important to watch what you say to someone, but also your tone of voice is crucial. If you shout at someone or speak in an angry voice, this may cause hurt feelings and is included in this prohibition. Every time you speak to someone you have a choice of saying things that will make them feel good (which is the fulfillment of an act of kindness) or you might say something that will hurt them (and violate this prohibition). Utilise your power of speech to build people up, not to tear them down!

yOUTH SErvIcEAges 12-18

igniting your shabbat services

We hope you find our guide to this week’s Parsha 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