Torah, Torah, Torah!

November 3, 2012

Today we discussed Jewish stories. We talked about which ones we know. Some stories mentioned were Purim, Chanukah, and Noah's Ark. We asked ourselves where these stories come from. Some children pointed out that they come from: G-d, different books, a library, the Torah, and a Haggadah. We explored a miniature Torah, paying particular attention to its shape. We then used modeling clay to depict the different shapes we noticed in the Torah. Some things we noticed were: there is a rectangle; it has things that look like antennae on the top and bottom; it looks like binoculars; the top antennae have crowns but not the bottom antennae; the Torah has a cover on it; the cover has a design of Hebrew letters, a crown, and something that looks like a house; it is a book; the owers on the cover look they will bloom into the tree of life. Then we opened the scrolls and saw Hebrew letters, one piece of paper that rolled up around the sides, and that all the stories were connected to one another. In the upcoming weeks we will continue to explore the Torah and even build our own! We ask that you save your empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls and bring them to class over the next few weeks. We look forward to documenting our ideas about Jewish stories inside our own Torah!