Matot Masei Mikva Mavens

Dishing up Double Fun

This week we read two parshiot, which is theoretically exciting. Two for one specials are always exciting, right? But in actually much of these Torah readings are not exciting for children.
Matot begins with a miraculous victory of Bnei Yisrael against the people of Midian. I try to avoid discussing war (especially those we were commanded to fight) with children, so we only discussed this in broad strokes. The Torah continues by discussing what to do with the spoils of the war and the laws of making dishes kosher are explored. And thus our weekly parasha project was inspired!

Our milk dishes are in sad shape. We decided it was time replace them with some new Target dishes. First we took some permanent markers and decorated a few of the salad plates from the old set. I suspect they are not considered food safe, but it sure was fun.

With the creative part done, it was time to discuss the difference between taking our new dishes to the mikvah keilim and making something kosher. We acquired some nice silverware, service for 16, ages ago. They were secondhand and needed kashering. Based on what we had explained to the girls, we asked them how to make the dishes ready for us to use.
"Take them all to the mikvah!" Gabi cheered.
"No, the silverware aren't kosher.  We need to cook them kosher!" Cohava argued. And she was right! So we got the boiling water ready, and the girl took turns passing the utensils to their father. It was too dangerous to get any closer than that.

When the silverware was ready, we loaded up everything and headed to the mikvah keilim. We made the bracha together and the girls passed me the items. You are not supposed to talk from the time the bracha is made until the mitzvah is finished. Gabi always has a hard time staying quiet.

Then my mikva mavens gave some tzedaka and we headed home to eat lunch on our new kosher dishes.