DAY 59 (Nov 30) Presentations and The Pianist

We had a couple of great presentations today - Kristen and Megan did a nice job presenting Shavuot and they even brought in one of the main dishes for Shavuot, cheesecake!!  Yay!

And then Caitlin and Rachel presented Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

After the presentations we pointed out some similarities between practices in Judaism and other religions.  For example, the most important Christian religious observance is probably Easter, the day marking the Resurrection of Christ, thought by Christians to be the Saviour.  Likewise, Yom Kippur is a day marking the importance of the relationship between Jews and God and how better to renew that relationship than by atoning for sins, against God and against other people.  This is generally thought to be the most important religious observance of Jews as well.

We started to watch the film, The Pianist.   This film won the Palme D'Or at Cannes and many other awards including an Oscar for Adrian Brody's acting, the youngest male Best Actor winner in history.  Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish pianist survived the Warsaw Ghetto and this is his story.  We cannot hope to study modern Judaism without discussion the Holocaust and its effect on Jews and Judaism and I think this is the best way to do it for this class.

DAY 58 (Nov 29) Study Day in my Absence

I was away at First Aid Training all day so this was a study day for the upcoming test.  You all have the study materials already.

DAY 57 (Nov 28) Judaism Presentations!

We had three awesome presentations today.  First was Paige and an intriguing presentation on Sukkot and Simchat Torah.  She did a great explaining the connection between how people today recognize the tribulations experienced by Jews in the distant past and how important it is to still recognize it through the use of symbols and celebrations.  Here's a picture of the "wine" (sparkling Grenadine water) that Paige shared with us:

And then Savannah and Dave told us all about Rosh Hashanah, a traditional time of New Beginnings and High Holy Days symbolized, quite appropriately, by sweets such as honey and apples - see what they provided to help us celebrate (below:

And then we enjoyed the Hamentashen that Michaela and Meghen D. brought in (below), both the strawberry and apricot filled ones!  We learned that Purim is a time of celebration and it is meant to be joyous and fun for everyone, especially children, to celebrate a time, again in the distant past, that Jews in Persia were saved from certain death by Haman . . . until King Artaxerxes intervened because he loved his wife, Esther, a Jew, and would not see any harm come to her.

It is important to note the strong connection between long ago persecutions of Jews through history and current celebrations of redemption from those persecutions in the celebrations of modern times.

DAY 56 (Nov 25) Celebrations Work Period

You all worked splendidly on your Celebrations presentations for Monday - well done.  We spent the period in the CAD lab and I've never seen you all work so well the entire time, I'm very proud of this class!!

Presentations on Monday!  Yay!

DAY 55 (Nov 24) Judaism's Terms and Celebrations

Today's class began with the Pathways presentation in the caf., then we returned to the Library to complete the telephone game and continue working on your Presentations of Jewish Celebrations.  Below are all of the terms and the definitions that you found in the Telephone Game.

Anti-Semitism:  hostility and prejudice toward Jews

Ark of the Covenant:  the wooden chest that held the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments.  The temple in Jerusalem became the home of the Ark

bar/bat mitzvah:  the religious initiation ceremony of a Jewish boy who has reached the age of thirteen/Jewish girl who has reached the age of twelve or thirteen

chosen people:  the idea that God chose the Jewish people to be the keepers of his covenant.  The concept of “chosen” is reciprocal, with God choosing humanity and humanity choosing God.

Diaspora:  word used when referring to the Jewish population living outside of Israel

Exodus:  the significance event in which Moses lead the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land

Gerut:  the process of conversion to Judaism

Ghetto:  the area of a city in which Jews were required to live.  The first was in Venice in 1516.

Holy Ark:  a cabinet-like structure in the synagogue that houses the Torah scrolls

Kiddush:  a blessing recited when drinking wine that has been specially sanctified for the Sabbath or a holy day

Kippah:  a small circular cap worn by Jewish men, also known as a yarmulke

Kosher:  fulfilling the requirements of the Jewish dietary laws

Menorah:  a candelabrum with seven branches, used at home and in the synagogue on the Sabbath and holidays

Messiah:  means “anointed one”.  Jews believe that a great king will come to lead them

Rabbi:  a Jewish scholar or teacher, especially of Jewish law; a person appointed as a Jewish religious leader

Shiva:  a period of seven-day mourning for the dead beginning immediately after the funeral

Star of David:  a figure consisting of two interlaced equilateral triangles.  It is used as a Jewish and Israeli symbol

Synagogue:  central places of Jewish worship today

Torah:  the Laws of Moses, as well as the rest of the Hebrew scriptures

DAY 54 (Nov 23) Judaism's Most Beloved Celebrations

Today we introduced the topic of celebration in our study of Judaism.  Here's a handout for the assignment, Judaism's Celebrations.  All cultures and religions celebrate rites of passage (Bar/Bat Mitzvah), historic events (Passover) and other important aspects of what makes the culture or religion special, so everyone will "teach" the class about a special event on the Jewish "calendar".

We also played the telephone game where, in teams, you texted questions to team members and they texted back the answers after finding the answers online - I've never heard our group so quiet and attentive to getting it all done, it was great!  We didn't quite finish today, so tomorrow will be the finish and I'll post all of the Q & A on tomorrow's blog entry.

DAY 53 (Nov 22) Judaism Intro Cont'd

Our Minute of the Day was about the continued news about world reactions to what many in the world believe to be Iran's ambitions to make nuclear weapons.  Today's news story, as reported on Al Jazeera, showed Hilary Clinton, the American Secretary of State, making the announcement that new economic sanctions against Iran are the next step in putting pressure on the Iranian government to fully comply with the UN's oversight of Iran's nuclear program.  This is relevant to our introduction to Israel for several reasons as follows:

Israel feels under threat from Iran as Iran's leader has stated in the past that he would like to change the look of the Middle East by "wiping Israel from the map", a Threat and promise of his potential course of action against Israel.  Today's reports about new sanctions are, perhaps, the next step in the "west's" lead up to what might be future military action against Iran's nuclear program.  We spent a good deal of time on this and then tied it to the teachings of Judaism, notably the promised land, a future of peace and prosperity for Israelis and the will of Jews to do the will of God (live up to the Covenant).  It's always very interesting to hear all of your perspectives on the religious teachings that we study and their connections to world events and culture!

Please see yesterday's post for the Intro to Judaism slide show, well, here it is again.

We ended the class today with what I like to call "The Telephone Game."  There are enough cell phones and computers in the class that we made teams of 3 or 4 - each team was split and one part of the team was given a list of terms to look up and define but they had to text those terms to the other half of their team for them to look up.  This second part of the team then had to text back the answers . . . . we'll begin the class tomorrow by finishing this task!   It was a hoot and everyone seemed to enjoy it!

Tomorrow I'll post the list of terms and answers to them.

DAY 52 (Nov 21) Intro to Judaism

Our Minute of the Day was a brief discussion about some of the geopolitical background of modern-day Israel.  A good insight on this topic can be gained through CBC's In-Depth feature on "The Middle East."

We introduced our next topic, Judaism with the discussion above and then we started our Introduction to Judaism Presentation to get a sense of some of the basic teachings and beliefs of Judaism.

DAY 25-51 Buddhism Presentation

I didn't post anything here for Buddhism.  However here's the Introductory Presentation for Buddhism - it's lacking most of the images as the original file was too large to post here.