The Shema

Today, O joy - one of the children reminded me before I had sat down that we were to sing the Shema and so I asked them to tell me the words. They correctly repeated to me all the words with one or two questions to prompt them. It was a group effort. It showed me that repetition is critical to learning. And it showed me that they have learned. This is the fourth week in a row that we have sung the Shema and taken apart its words.

I had prepared 5 of the letter blocks with the word Elohim, אלהים for God which produces ha'eyalim האילים by simply moving one letter (and adding a yod!) - but with or without the Yod there is a 'sounds like' relationship. In the Song, God finds a way in (three times) even when not mentioned. (If I prepare letter blocks again, I hope it can be with mirrors and glass so that the chosen letter appears on all sides to avoid people reading random numbers, letters and signs!)

This morning's lesson was on the Tabernacle, and Alix had prepared a brilliant tabernacle constructed with popsicle sticks. I did not stay for the whole lesson - too much singing to do, but I did introduce the Song as a special place in the Bible - such as Rabbi Akiva noted.

The entire world is unworthy of the day that the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all of Scripture is holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies. (M. Yad 3:5)

The book of the Song is in the middle of the Bible as shown in the picture. (For earlier posts of mine on the Song, begin here. For the first lessons with the blocks, see here and here)

The blocks are complete

For more pictures - see here. Note particularly the analytical powers of the shapers of the Law, the Prophets and the Writings. Brevard Childs in a new publication suggests a shaping of the Pauline corpus that does not show clearly in the colours I have used. (In fact - where does Philemon belong?) It will be interesting to see what we discover over the next year or two as we use these blocks to get an overview of the Bible across to the children. What analytical understanding could they bring to the table in their lives?

The book blocks are coming

I have all the blocks 35 for the OT and 27 for the New - the thirty five are shaped according to the organization of the Hebrew Scriptures in three sections: Law, Prophets and Writings. The Law are the five books of Moses, the Prophets are divided into the former prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings), the later prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel) and the 12 (so named in Aramaic). The Writings are divided in three also: the Book of Truth (Psalms, Proverbs, and Job), the five Megillot (Song, Ruth, Lamentations, Kohelet, and Esther), and the three remaining (Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles). That's 5 + 4 + 3 + 12 + 3 + 5 + 3 = 35 'books'. I have not included the Apocrypha but I do have a few blocks left - and could do it. The New Testament is the 4 Gospel accounts, Acts, the 13 Pauline letters, the general epistles, John's letters and Revelation and Hebrews. That should give 27 (4+1+13+4+3+2) and it does - yea! 62 books altogether - 4 taken as one each where the traditional OT divides them in two.

There are two pdf's.  NT and TNK They fit exactly on 3 x 5 inch plywood blocks - print without scaling on 8.5 x 11 paper. (The plywood edges sort of look like pages). One requires the following sizes.

BOOK	TESTAMENT	SIZE
14	n	1	.25"
5	n	2	.375"
6	n	3	.5"
2	n	4	.675"
10	o	1	.25"
6	o	2	.375"
5	o	3	.5"
6	o	4	.675"
7	o	5	.75"
1	o	6	.875"	(use glue)

The book labels themselves are in Hebrew and Greek. The labels are meant to be put on as for left to right reading (sorry). They are intended for Hebrew to English and Greek to English exercises as well as for piling on top of each other and learning to count and learning what the books of the Bible are (without too much  parochial reductionism).

It is possible to print them out on white paper that will take glue or on a mac-tac type of paper, then cut the images out and paste them onto the wood blocks (you'll have to make those). You can cut the Hebrew labels in two (or 3) and bind them right to left. You'll get the idea. (But if you are interested, get in touch with me. I found a few errors and difficulties as I actually did the matching so I am not sure if my sizes are quite right, and I have added a few puzzles to the labels since printing to PDF which has its own idiosyncrasies with large paper sizes.) You could also print them on cardboard stock and fold them to shape - but they won't be as resilient as wood.

Oh - I did do a short lesson last week - just a few minutes on counting again and we sang the shema - I will repeat this till they really know it. There are some fine musicians there.

Immersion in אֶחָד

Well, how did it go this morning? How much Hebrew can one immerse the children in? Not too much at least not for me. We did our five minute lesson on One and they all learned, practiced and sang the shema with me. words alone - tune to la la la and then put it all together. I know we got through this with some success - I have never heard this group sing so loud.

As usual when looking at my illustration of 'One', all heads gathered close so I had to ask for my space back to spread out the map of Genesis 1. It was 4 feet by 2 feet. The colors are many and I think they recognized some of the patterns in the refrains on the page, but I did not read anything in sequence.

There was no one there who remembered the first lesson from Spring 2008 so I repeated it quickly. Then I pointed out the uses of and God said - I found only 9 but I was sure there were 10. The computer counts 10 so there must be 10. Where is the tenth? (One of them is in verse 28 and the computer is counting only the word 'and he said'.) We read together the refrains and counted thus up to 7.  I think we will have a lesson on every number, so all this was by way of introduction.

Have you noticed this?

ויאמר אלהים נעשה אדם בצלמנו כדמותנו
And God said - let us make a human in our image after our likeness 

וירדו בדגת הים ובעוף השמים
to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven etc

ויברא אלהים את־האדם בצלמו
So God created the human in his image

בצלם אלהים ברא אתו
In the image of God he created it
זכר ונקבה ברא אתם
male and female he created them

God says - let's make the human in our image according to our likeness
But then God creates the human in his image

What's missing? In a poem where repetition is a pattern closely followed, this 'after our likeness' is not repeated.

Likeness without image is used in Genesis 5 - How are we to understand the missing words? The use of likeness with respect to the human is not taken up again till the visions of Ezekiel.

A New Beginning

Tomorrow's lesson is on Genesis and Creation. I will also be introducing the number 1 and the first Book of the Bible by means of a plywood block model that will sit on the bookshelf looking like a book - a draft copy of the first of many. It will read on its cover something like this:
תורה ספר אֶחָד

בראשית
Genesis

בראשית ברא אלהים
את השמים ואת הארץ

And it will have a colorful spine as noted in the prior post.

I have a 2 ft by 4 ft blowup of this diagram - I wonder what I will do with it or how much I will read for sound. I am not into reductionism when teaching. Slow and steady in a rich environment - that's how to grow.