"These are the appointed festivals of Hashem, the callings of holiness, which you shall designate in their appropriate time. In the first month on the fourteenth of the month toward evening it is a Pesach to Hashem. And on the fifteenth day of this month is the Festival of Matzot to Hashem; you shall eat matzot for a seven-day period. On the first day there shall be a calling of holiness for you; you shall do no work of labor. You shall bring a fire-offering to Hashem for a seven-day period; on the seventh day shall be a calling of holiness; you shall do no work of labor." ~Vayikra 23;4-8
"...When you shall enter the Land that I give you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the omer of the first of your harvest to the Kohen. He shall wave the omer before Hashem to be an appeasement for you; on the morrow of the rest day the Kohen shall wave it." ~Vayikra 23;10-12
"...You shall count for yourselves- from the morrow of the rest day, from the day when you bring the omer of the waving- seven weeks, they shall be complete. Until the morrow of the seventh week you shall count, fifty days; and you shall offer a new meal-offering to Hashem." ~Vayikra 23;15-16
"In the seventh month, on the first of the month, there shall be a rest day for you, a mention of shofar blasts, a calling of holiness. You shall not do any work of labor, and you shall offer a fire-offering to Hashem." ~Vayikra 23;24-25
"...But on the tenth day of the month it is the Day of Atonement; there shall be a calling of holiness for you, and you shall afflict yourselves; you shall offer a fire-offering to Hashem." ~Vayikra 23;27
"...On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the Festival of Succot, a seven-day period for Hashem. On the first day is a calling of holiness, you shall not do any work of labor. For a seven-day period you shall offer a fire-offering to Hashem; on the eighth day there shall be a calling of holiness for you and you shall offer a fire-offering to Hashem, it is a restraining, you shall not do any work of labor." ~Vayikra 23;34-36
Calendars:
Understanding the concept of the passage of time is a very difficult one for children to grasp. Understanding how the ideas of "yesterday", "today", and "tomorrow" fit into our actual lives is very confusing. Once children understand the basic concept of how just 3 days in a row relate to each other, they work on understanding how longer periods of time fit together. It is common to hear children refer to anything in the past as "yesterday" or "last week" and anything in the future as "tomorrow".
Children work hard to create a framework for understanding these ideas through preschool and into early elementary. Mapping days on a calendar, although it may begin as a rote activity for some children, will ultimately help them piece together their understanding of the passage of time. By Pre-K and Kindergarten, many students are able to fill in blank calendar pages. They can start with a calendar page that has most of the information and just a few dates missing, which they can fill in from their knowledge of number sequence. As they are become more comfortable working with the calendar, they can begin with calendars that require them to fill in more and more missing pieces. Eventually, students reach a stage where they can be handed a blank calendar grid and be instructed to label the month and with just the information of the first weekday of the month, they can fill in an entire month. For example, if I tell a young student that May begins on Thursday and ask them to complete a calendar grid, they should be able to complete and hand back to me a completed May 2014 calendar. As their skills develop, students can fill in an entire yearly calendar with just the knowledge of the weekday for the 1st day of January (or any other day and date for the year) and whether or not it is a leap-year.
Once students are able to fill in dates, they can also look at their completed calendars to overlay holidays. This can be done even at the early levels where students are adding in just a few dates themselves. I could tell a student that Memorial Day is always observed on the last Monday of May. With this information, they can look at their calendar and mark the last Monday date in May as Memorial Day.
Parsha Connection:
In this week's parsha, we are given the dates for all of the holy days that are to be observed in the Jewish Calendar. Since there is quite a large section devoted to these dates, and we are given more information than just the dates, I tried to pull out some succinct sections to guide us.
First we need to know the order of the months in the Jewish year- and keep in mind that although the "Jewish New Year" is celebrated in Tishrei (as we'll see), the Jewish year actually begins in Nissan. The Jewish months, in order, are:
1) Nissan
2) Iyar
3) Sivan
4) Tammuz
5) Av
6) Elul
7) Tishrei
8) Cheshvan
9) Kislev
10) Tevet
11) Shvat
12) Adar
When using a Jewish Calendar, we also need to remember that each new calendar day begins in the evening. On my calendars here, the daytime is labeled with the date and the actual new day begins on the night before the date. Below, for example, the 1st of Nissan is Monday night into Tuesday; the 2nd will be Tuesday night into Wednesday.
Now let's see how this week's parsha overlays the holidays into the monthly calendars.
Beginning with Vayikra 23;4-8, the first month that we are given belongs in the 1st month of the year, Nissan:
Then we are given information for Passover:
*begins on the fifteenth day
*7-day period
*1st and 7th days are holy
Once added to the calendar, we have:
Next, in Vaykira 23;10-12, we find information about starting to count the omer- on the day after the "rest day"of Passover. So let's add that on:
Now we are told to count the omer (Vayikra 23;15-16):
*count seven complete weeks (both by days and weeks)
*on the day after the seventh week is complete, we count the 50th day
Next, in Vayikra 23;24-25, we are told to look at the 7th month- Tishrei:
Information about Rosh Hashanah:
*the 1st of the month
*rest day with shofar blasts
*a holy day
Continuing in Tishrei, we learn about Yom Kippur (Vayikra 23;27)
*10th day
*Day of Atonement
*holy day of affliction
And lastly we are told about Succot (Vayikra 23;34-36):
*15th day of the 7th month
*Succot is a 7 day holiday
*1st and 8th days are holy
Real Life Challenge:
Try having a student with an understanding of calendars take one day with it's English and Hebrew dates and create a merged calendar with both the Gregorian and Lunar calendars.
No comments:
Post a Comment