Parshat Vayishlach: Names
I seem to be missing the whole point of doing the same curriculum for a second time! While I am staying within the same themes as last year, I find myself still want to change up the project a bit this year (which of course is time-consuming).
I was inspired at the beginning of the week by visiting the Kol Haot studio in Jerusalem which offers interactive Jewish educational art programs in Israel (kind of up my alley!) The current artist-in-residence is the wonderful sofer and artist Moshe Braun. I had the opportunity to talk to Moshe for awhile and I was reminded how much I LOVE Hebrew calligraphy, specifically what is known as "ktav ashurit," the special lettering used in Sifrei Torah, Tefillin, and Mezuzot. The letters are just beautiful! I was also reminded of the year when I had the privilege of tour-guiding at the Contemporary Jewish museum in San Francisco when Julie Seltzer was "on display" writing an entire Sefer Torah!
I knew that I wanted to stay with the same theme of the meaning of names based on Jacob's encounter this week with the man/angel who first asks him his name and subsequently changes his name. Kids always love to talk about their names (why their parents chose that name, what does it mean, other nicknames they have, how they will be called to the Torah, what name would they want for themselves or their children, etc)
I decided that instead of doing tape-resistant names like last year (which was cute but I felt like lacked depth), that this year I would use this as an opportunity to also teach the kids a little bit about sofrut. I was pretty sure that this would be a hit since what kid doesn't want to try to write with a feather!?!?!
There are so many fun facts to talk to kids about sofrut - how long it takes, what every tool is made of, how many pieces of parchment, the crowns on the letters, etc. There are probably other videos out there about writing a sefer torah but I came across this one that kids would probably enjoy (but my kids don't speak English, so...:))
The challenge of this project was that I wanted the kids to get a chance to play around with a "quill" and "ink" but I also wanted them to end up with something nice-looking. So, I ended up really doing two separate activities with them which was rather messy and complicated...but, worth it.
First, every kid got a piece of parchment-like paper, a feather (that I cut at a slant), and a plastic shot glass of "ink" (black paint). I told them they could draw or write whatever they wanted, especially the Hebrew letters (they each had copies of the Torah letters in front of them).
After collecting the paint and feathers, we moved onto the second project which was to write our names first in pencil, then in black marker, and then adding gold highlights. I have had this cute scroll paper in my house over a year ago because I loved it and finally had the right time to use it! I am generally anti-stencils but I did allow kids who wanted to to use regular letter stencils and just encouraged them to add their own "crowns." I think that this was the right decision mainly because these kids are SO young (they just learned how to write at all!) and using the stencils was in and of itself a skill - and they loved learning how to use them in a way that their letters came out so professional-looking!
SHABBAT SHALOM!
