Parshat Mishpatim: Salt Dough Tablets

Feb 8, 2018
2 min read

Ok, this was really fun.

On the one hand, I love doing projects that I can immediately display on the parsha bulletin board, but,I also want to vary things so that we are not basically always working just on paper. So, I had to forgo the board this week in order to work with a new medium.

As always, I read through the week's parsha. Here are some of the fabulous topics I had to choose from: 1) Laws of the Hebrew Slave 2) Punishments for those who kill, injure, steal, etc. 3) Bestiality 4) Seduction of a virgin 5) Driving the Canaanites out of the Land 5) Sprinkling blood on the altar

6) Goring oxen

Luckily, at the very end of the Parsha, I found something I felt I could work with! In this week's parsha, Moses is actually called to ascend the mountain to receive the "luchot" -

"And the Lord said to Moses, 'Come up to Me to the mountain and remain there, and I will give you the stone tablets, the Law and the commandments, which I have written to instruct them.'"

Stone tablets! Now THAT is an art project right there! I immediately started doing some research about the tablets in art (of course my first google search came up with "tablets" as in computer tablets...:))

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I showed the kids some famous representations of the ten commandments (Reni, Michelangelo, Chagall):

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While most depictions of the tablets are rounded on the top, this is apparently a non-Jewish interpretation. According to Jewish tradition, the luchot were actually square blocks. There are also various opinions as to whether the tablets were connected or separate and how many commandments were written on each one. I also love the talmudic description of how the engraving cut through to the other side of the stone and was not only legible on each side but that the open letters mem and samech were miraculously suspended. Bekitzur, there is plenty to talk about in terms of the shape of the luchot, what they were made of, what was written on them, and how they are depicted in both Jewish and non-Jewish art.

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Although arched tablets may be "goyish," they are what all Jewish (and Israeli) kids are used to seeing and in fact, arched luchot make up the symbol of the kids' school where I am teaching (which is what I told the Charedi teacher who objected to my project...)

I was inspired by this website to make clay tablets. I loved the idea of actually MAKING the clay with the kids. This is the most simple project ever but super satisfying and...CHEAP! All you need is flour, salt, and water (Apparently, salt-dough is most often used for homemade Christmas decorations...:)).

The kids of course loved mixing and kneading the "dough." In order to make the color look a little more like stone, they added a drop of brown paint.

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They shaped the clay into tablets and "engraved" the Hebrew letters with plastic knives. I took all of the tablets home and baked them until they hardened. I love the way that they turned out - they look nice and "ancient"!