Purim Costumes

I love Purim! The numerous joyous ways to celebrate another Jewish victory, coupled with the kid-friendly components make this one of my favorite chagim. But truth be told, my favorite part has nothing to do with the mitzvot of the day.

The mitzvot are:
Matanot l'evyonim = Charity to the poor
Mishloach manot = food baskets to friends
Megillah = hearing the Book of Esther read
Seudah = a festive meal

That is all. The mitzvot of the day do not include getting completely inebriated, apposed to popular belief. They also do not include COSTUMES! :(

A few weeks ago my husband looked up from the book he was learning and said, "I don't want you to cry, but..." And proceeded to read a teshuva on how Moroccans do not wear costumes for Purim and look down on the practice. To which I calmly explained that I agreed to be Sephardi, but never Moroccan.

And so I asked the girls what they thought we should dress up as.  I am a big believer in a group costume. The year my husband and I were engaged I sewed us costumes to be The Incredibles. When Cohava was a baby we were sun, moon, and star (Cohav means star). And so on. Last year Cohava and Gabi both wanted to be butterflies so we went as The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

But this year, I said, "Ok, girls, IYH, this will be the last year we will be a family of five. What should the five of us be?"
"I know five!" Cohava cheered. "Five are the books of the Torah!"
And so our costume idea was found. Gabi wanted to be Beresheet and Cohava Shemot (by default I took Vayikra, Ben Bamidbar, and Ruti Devarim). The girls sat down with their Parasha books to decide which images they wanted to include.

Once they had made a list, I went to work on Google, trying to find images to match their requests. It proved more challenging than I anticipated.


At K-mart I bought white T-shirts for the family and at Office Works I bought iron-on transfers.
For various reasons the iron-on transfers were disastrous. Plan B, involved printing the images on large Avery  labels.

This was much more successful.

The stickers will go all over the white shirt of the appropriate sefer. From paper mache clay I made everyone a 'yad' necklace and painted them silver.

 And a keter Torah for everyone's head. The name of their sefer will be on the keter.

I won't let anyone put on the costumes until Purim because I don't want them getting messed up!

So everyone wore something else for today's "Taste of Purim" at school.

Bli neder, on Purim I will upload a picture of the Chamisha Chumshei Torah.

This is last year's group shot of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Purim Sameach!!!

Here are the chamesha chumshei Torah!

Dressing up like in the Old Days-Tetzaveh

Parashat Tetzaveh starts with the commandment to use pure olive oil in the menorah. The rest of the parasha is a detailed account of the clothes of the Kohanim and Kohen Gadol.

The oil the girls know well from Channukah. The clothes of the Kohen led to an interesting discussion.
"Were only boys allowed to be Kohanim?" Cohava asked.
"Yes."
"But that's not fair," Gabi replied. This was surprising because the girls have never before mentioned gender distinctions. I contemplated describing korbanot to make them thankful it was a job they could never have, but decided against it.
"Could I be a rabbi?" I asked them. I was curious what they knew about this topic.
"No. But you are married to Abba and he is a rabbi," Gabi explained.
"And that makes you a rabbanit, not a rabbi," Cohava continued.
"Do I have special jobs then?" I asked.
"Yes, you teach and stuff."
"Then maybe there are Kohanits," Gabi suggested.
"Maybe," I agreed.

To celebrate the clothes of the Kohen, I decided to make paperdolls. A quick google search proved that I did not have to recreate the wheel. The Kohen could be found here. And the clothes here.
I printed the images and the girls got to work.

But they were confused by the idea of paperdolls. I was saddened to realize there isn't much room for paperdolls in the world of ipads. My feeling old in response to their reactions was compounded by Cohava's reader for the day. It was called "The Old Things" and described 'obsolete' items like inkwells - and cameras which use film.

 Whether paperdolls and film are items of yesteryear, the Torah is always relevant. I hope that is what my girls are learning from the parasha projects.

Shabbat Shalom!

Mishkan Making- Terumah

Great excitement and plot development in Parashat Terumah? No. Definately not.
Clear instructions for very holy construction work? Yes.
Straightforward project for my girls? Definitely.

The girls suggested various means of making the Mishkan (surprisingly, none of them involved my jewelry).
We decided on clay.

We mixed
3 cups of flour
1 cup of salt
1 cup of water
food dye
glitter paint

And then mushed it all together.

Time to build the Mishkan!

Cohava decided to build the Aron. She discovered making a solid square was too hard, so she took a strawberry punnet and covered it in clay.

 Gabi made the Menora. Apparently her version has a few extra branches.

 And they started the Shulchan.

But Cohava did not yet get to finish the Keruvim on top of her Aron.

Gabi began to assemble the Mishkan and brought members of Bnei Yisrael inside.

"But!" Gabi reminded me sternly, "No one except the Kohen Gadol can go into the Kodesh HaKedoshim, and only on Ruti's birthday."

Shabbat Shalom!

Bowled Over by Mishpatim

Let's be honest. Parashat Mishpatim is pretty dull, especially when compared with Matan Torah in last week's parasha. I struggled to make it relevant and interesting for the girls, but there is not much to be done with the laws of Jewish slaves or the behavior of an ox.

Some parts are very relevant to children, such as not telling lies and the prohibition of hitting one's parents.

Still, I was stuck for a project.  Then Gabi had occupational therapy and the therapist recommended bowling for gross motor and coordination. I saw a project that kills two birds with one stone (or ball).

Bowling Pins of Averot!

On the computer I found images to reflect some of the prohibitions in Mishpatim. I added text for literacy and printed them out.

After printing these, I found six empty bottles in the recycling bin.
I gave the girls the pictures and we had a long talk about them and why we 'push down' averot. ( I am waiting for them to see someone with a  bar in their ear and ask if they are a slave. hee hee)

Then the girls got the tape and assembled their new bowling pins.

Minutes later it was time to test them out.

Shabbat Shalom!

 

Yummy Yitro

Parashat Yitro has two main parts; Yitro's role within the Jewish people and the giving of the Aseret Hadibrot [the Ten "Commandments"].

Although Yitro's modification of the court system and conversion to Judaism are noteworthly, the big deal is the receiving of the Luchot Habrit.

I wanted to do a project of making large 'tablets' with lift the flaps so that under the letter or words, there would be an image of it so the girls could better learn what is actually in the Aseret Hadibrot. But I couldn't find any appropriate image on adultry and I ran out of time with the busy back to school week. :(

Cohava came home from school with a cute and easy parasha project. There were the first ten letters of the alef bet printed out. The children cut them out and glued them in order on the fingers of disposable gloves. Great activity. The letters fell off of her gloves, so she hand wrote them on at home.

Then we got to work on a Har Sinai cake.

Truth be told, most of the work on it was mine. So I let the girls have free reign of making luchot biscuits.

Shabbat Shalom!!!

Beshalach- packed full of fun

There is so much to think about this Shabbat! Parasha Beshalach is so full of narrative and contains shirat ha'yam, making this Shabbat Shira. Add that to Tu B'Shvat and it is almost too much!

The parasha begins with Bnei Yisrael beginning their journey in the wilderness. G-d begins to lead them on a safer, more circuitous route to Eretz Yisrael. But suddenly, they are facing Yam Suf, the Sea of Reeds. And Paroh's army is pursuing them. As Gabi likes to say (in French), "Catastrophe!" Hashem provides another miracle; the famous, miraculous, awesome moment of the splitting of the sea.
Who doesn't love the power of that experience? The girls decided to act it out.
They journeyed through the desert until they reached the blue expanse of the Yam Suf. Gabi summarized the story of Nachshon Ben Aminadaz.

 The sea split, the Israelites moved through, and the girl's sang and danced together. Although we could not find our 'Miriam tambourines', they danced to a recording of "Az Yashir Moshe."

The girl's then moved to their (and my) favorite part of the parasha: Man (Manna)! 

They chose some toy food and pretended to chow down, marveling at how it tasted like whatever they wanted.

 Ruti chose a different maan.

It is my plan to make some form of man with the girls. There are various recipes for man online.

But that isn't how I always imagined G-d's magic food. I have always pictured something like cotton candy. Because man only fell in the morning, tomorrow the girls will find something white, like coriander seeds, honey on a wafer, probably formed from our cotton candy (fairy floss) machine. 

For Shabbat dessert, I plan to modify this recipe for honey ice cream cones, into the desert dessert. Then people can top it with various things to fulfill the midrash of the man tasting like whatever people wanted.

Wishing you a fruity, musical Shabbat!

Bo Making 'Real' Matza

Parashat Bo has another section of "the Pesach story", including the last three plagues and Hashem's first commandments to Bnei Yisrael as a collective. Because Pesach is so well taught in schools my children know the plague part well. The explanation of Korban Pesach, Rosh Chodesh, Pidyon Ha'Ben, Tefillin, and Matzah are a little more complicated.

Gabi was very concerned about keeping a lamb inside of one's house for four days. "But animals don't know how to use the toilet and don't wear nappies so...," she explained her concern diplomatically.

Rosh Chodesh was a topic of more discussion. Gabi likes the changing shape of the moon ("The crescent moon is shaped like a croissant!"). Cohava was more concerned about testifying in court about seeing the moon and how the Beit Din was comprised. "But that was a long time ago," she concluded. "Now you know if it is Rosh Chodesh by checking your iphone."

The mitzvot of Pidyon HaBen and Teffilin were not of great interest to my girls.

Which left Matza. I personally have always been intrigued how 'not having time for the dough to rise and cooking on their backs on the way out of Mitzrayim' translates to a box of 18 minutes Yehuda Matza. It  doesn't really make sense. Therefore I set out to find out what "real matza" would taste like.

Thankfully Hashem cooperated with my plans and created desert-like conditions. Today's high was 40 C (that's 105 F).

In the morning, the girls and I made my usual bread recipe, based on Artisan Bread in Five Minutes.

When the dough was ready Cohava asked for a rolling pin. First she rolled it flat. Then she turned the pin on its side, and made markings all over the dough. She explained that this is how 'real matza' is made.

Of course Gabi had to follow suit.

When it got hot outside, we took our dough out to the sun. Every half hour someone went out to ensure the birds were not feasting on our project. They weren't.

After two hours, I turned the matzot over. Sadly, my efforts to grease the pan were not successful and the matza crumbled a lot. I supposed Bnei Yisrael used parchment paper. That is probably where the name originates. 

It really did cook in the sun! The texture was harder than pita but softer than matza. I served it with dipping sauce for dinner and my Israelites loved it.

 Shabbat Shalom!