Parshat Behar Bechukosai

Parshas Behar Bechukosai

The name of this week's Parsha is Behar. Hashem spoke to Moshe on the "Har" which means mountain. The Torah was given on Har Sinai. The lesson we can learn from Har Sinai is to be proud of who we are and what we have, the Torah and Mitzvos. On one hand it's important to be humble like Har Sinai. On the other hand Hashem didn't give the Torah in the valley where no one can see. He gave the Torah on a mountain to teach us that we need the right amount of Jewish pride. 

The children created shapes of a mountain with their bodies. 

Healthy Pride

We compare the right kind pride to the right kind of Neshek.

 Neshek means a gun but the letters stand for Shabbat candles, the Torah and Mitzvos. Pride that is done in a "show off" way or in the wrong setting can be bad. Like talking to a friend in a Gayvah (show off) way that would hurt her feelings is not the right kind of pride. But going out to the world and wearing a Yalmuka and Tzitzit or a dress for a girl, is being proud of who we are and what we have! The Torah and Mitzvos.

We created shows to describe the right and wrong ways of using words. Words are powerful, but the way we can use our words, like the tone we use, can be even more powerful.   

The Mitzvah of Shemita

 There is a special Mitzvah we can only do in Eretz Yisroel. The Mitzvah is called Shemita. The farmers work the land for 6 years, then during the 7th year they take a break and do not work the land. Just like the days of the week, 6 days we work and on the 7th day, Shabbat, we rest. 

Levi Yitzchak and Yisroel are making pictures of the different stages of planting. Plowing, preparing the land for planting seeds and reaping.

Another important Mitzvah we learned from this week's Parsha is to give Tzedakah to poor people and to people that are on the way to becoming poor.

The Torah teaches us that it's much easier to help a person to get out of a situation where he can become poor then to help a person that is already poor.

Much easier to help someone that is about to fall than a person that fell already.

Reading Hebrew 

This week we began to practice reading words from our Siddurim (prayer books.) 

This was so exciting for the children to do. Yes, we can Daven and read the words at the same time.

Its hard to believe that we can actually read from the Siddur.  

New sounds 

This week the children were interested in the sounds SH, CH, TH.

Here we are playing a fishing game. The fish had interesting names. The children had to fish for the words they can read.   

Muka is doing a great job writing. She remembers to put a finger between each word to make the right amount of space.  

Elizabeth and Menucha are sorting the letters into vowel and constants. 

We love calendar time because we get to do so many different activities.
This time it was a word search.  

Welcome back Morah Davina. We missed you so much!
Mazaltov to Malka and the Nemtzov family on the birth of their Baby Boy!