igniting your shabbat services

Simchat Torah

Simchat Torah

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

Simchat TorahFESTIval SUmmary& POrTIOn SUmmary

Festival Portion Summary:

The final portion of the Torah, Vezot HaBracha, is read out on Simchat Torah. We celebrate the completion of the reading of the Torah by dancing, and then we once again begin the Torah straight away by reading Bereshit, which is all about the creation of the world. This signals the fact that although we have completed the Torah, we have not finished it.

Simchat Torah is a joyous day where we gather to celebrate and dance around the shul in honour of the Torah. Children wave flags and eat sweets, joining in the fun.

Torah Portion Summary:

n This portion includes the blessing of Moses, which he gives to each of the twelve tribes.

nMoses dies.

Simchat Torah

TODDlErS SErvIcE

Here is a song about Simchat Torah.

(to the tune of Jack and Jill)

Simchat Torah's a day to be glad

We finish our favorite story

The Torah comes out of the ark

Dressed in all its glory

Parading around on each Hakafah

We sing our songs so clearly

Tomorrow we start the story again

The whole Torah is read yearly!

Simchat Torah

cHIlDrEn’S SErvIcE: yEarS 1 & 2

Simchat Torah is a time when we use singing and dancing to show our love for Torah. Here are two games which involve singing or dancing.

Activities:

Musical Statutes n One person should be singing, and all the children should dance.

n When the music stops, the children have to ‘freeze’ in whichever position they

are in.

n The person that is moving/wobbling the most is ‘out’ of that round.

Musical Chairs n Put out enough chairs out for all the children except one.

n One person should be singing, and all the children should dance.

n When the singing stops, the children have to sit on the chairs. There will be one

child who is unable to sit down, and they are out of the round.

n Take away another chair each round.

Simchat Torah

cHIlDrEn’S SErvIcE: yEarS 3 & 4

Simchat Torah is a time when we use singing and dancing to show our love for Torah.

Activities:

n Play the Song game.

n Split the children in to two teams, and give each a topic, e.g. love.

n Each team has a minute to think of as many songs as possible with the word love in it.

n Each team takes turns to sing one of their songs, until one team cannot think of any more. If it’s already been sung it doesn’t count. When one team gives up, the other team wins that round.

n Further topic examples; Songs about the weather, happiness, friendship etc.

Simchat Torah

cHIlDrEn’S SErvIcE: yEarS 5 & 6

The 24th of Tishrei - Simchat Torah - is the date when the poet, Naftali Zvi Imber, passed away. He is remembered most for composing the Hatikvah, Israel's national anthem.

The anthem's theme revolves around the nearly 2000-year-old hope of the Jewish people to be a free and sovereign people in the Land of Israel, a national dream that would eventually be realized with the founding of the modern State of Israel in 1948.

Discussion Topics: n How do the children think Israel’s National Anthem compares to England’s National

Anthem?

n How relevant do the messages seem today, both in Israel and the Diaspora?

n Would you change or supplement the wording of HATIKVAH? How?

n Does it need to be modernized, in view of events in modern Jewish/Israeli history?

yEar 5 & 6

Hebrew Transliteration English translation

,Kol ‘od balleivav penimah As long as in the heart, within ֹּכל עֹוד ַּבֵּלָבב ְּפִניָמה

,Nefesh yehudi homiyah, A Jewish soul still yearns ֶנֶפׁש ְיהּוִדי הֹוִמָּיה,

Ul(e)fa’atei mizrach ּוְלַפֲאֵתי ִמְזָרח, ָקִדיָמה,kadimah,

And onward, towards the ends of the east,

;Ayin letziyon tzofiyah; An eye still gazes toward Zion‘ ַעִין ְלִצּיֹון צֹוִפָּיה; ,Od lo avdah tikvateinu, Our hope is not yet lost‘ עֹוד לֹא ָאְבָדה ִּתְקָוֵתנּו,

,Hatikvah bat shnot alpayim, The hope of two thousand years ַהִּתְקָוה ַּבת ְׁשנֹות ַאְלַּפִים,

Lihyot ‘am chofshi ִלְהיֹות ַעם ָחְפִׁשי ְּבַאְרֵצנּו,be’artzeinu, To be a free people in our land,

Eretz-tziyon ֶאֶרץ ִצּיֹון ִוירּוָׁשַלִים.(v)'Y(e)rushalayim. The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

Simchat Torah

yOUTH SErvIcE

In this week’s portion, the Torah states regarding helping the poor: "You shall surely open your hand unto him and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need which he lacks." (Deut 15:8)

We are told that we must give charity to a poor person, but what if the person doesn't want to take it? Rashi, the great commentator, tells us to then give the person the money as a present or a loan.

It is a positive commandment to give charity to the needy, with happiness and a good heart. The mitzvah of giving charity does not only apply to giving aid to the poor. To aid a wealthy person when he needs assistance is also a fulfillment of this mitzvah. Furthermore, whenever you give pleasure to others, whether it be through money, food, or comforting words, you also fulfill this mitzvah.

Rambam writes that he never saw or heard of a city in which there lived ten Jews, that did not have a charity fund. It is not merely a charitable act to give to the poor; it is the obligation of every single person to do the right thing, the just thing.

Dvar Torah

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.

Chag Sameach!

The Tribe Education Team

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