"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.
"When you shall come to the Land and you shall plant any food tree, you shall treat its fruit as orlah; for three years it shall be orlah to you, they shall not be eaten. In the fourth year, all its fruit shall be sanctified lauding to Hashem. And in the fifth year you may eat its fruit- in order to increase its crop for you- I am Hashem, your G-d." ~Vayikra 19;23-25
Rashi explains on 19;23: "...three years it shall be orlah to you..."
From when does he begin to count the three years for it? From the time of its planting, i.e., from the time that it was planted.
Counting:
The first number sets that we learn, beginning from a very young age, are the set of counting numbers- 1, 2, 3,...- and the set of whole numbers- 0, 1, 2, 3... We learn that when we have none of something, we label that as 0, and when we count items, we assign each item a number in counting order, and we can label the whole group with the number of items using the highest counting number used to count the group. So, if I have a group of pens, the first one is 1, the second one is 2, and so on. If I count up to 13 in labeling them all, then I would say that I have 13 pens.
When counting the passage of time, we enter into a more complex concept, which can be difficult to understand. Just like with other units of measurement (pounds, inches, etc.), "0" indicates that no time has passed, but we don't have "1" until we reach one completed unit of time. So, if we're counting days, the beginning of the counting of time would be 0 days. However, we cannot count 1 day until a full 24 hours has passed, we cannot count 2 days until a full 48 hours has passed, and so on.
So how do we refer to the time in between? There are two ways of dealing with this. The first way, similar to other units of measure, is to break the intermediate time into either fractions (5/24 of a day, 1/2 of a day, etc.) or a smaller unit of measure (hours, minutes, etc.). With this method, 8 hours after the first full day would be 1 and 8/24 days or 1 and 1/3 days. The second way is to refer to the entire time in between two full cycles as "the 1st day", "the 2nd day", etc. So, from the moment we start counting the days, 0-24 hrs is labeled as the 1st day, but we only have 1 complete day after a full 24 hours. After 24 hours, we are then in the 2nd day, but we only have 2 complete days after a full 48 hours. After 48 hours, we are then in the 3rd day, but we only have 3 complete days after a full 72 hours. And so on...
Parsha Connection:
When we look at the directions we are given related to orlah, we are told that fruit from trees may not be eaten for three years, in the fourth year the fruit is given to Hashem, and in the fifth year it may be eaten. So how do we know when to start counting? Rashi explains that we start counting from the time that the seeds are planted. Now Rashi has given us our 0 point. One year later, we can count 1 yr; after a full cycle of another year, we can count 2 yrs; and finally after one more full cycle of a year, we can count 3 yrs. During this time, any fruit that is harvested may not be benefited from in any way. After we have counted 3 full, complete years, we are then "in the fourth year". Using our understanding of counting time to understand the verse, it seems that once we have counted 3 complete years, we will then be "in the fourth year". At this point, fruit may be harvested, and throughout this 4th year, the fruit is all sanctified to Hashem. Once we count the 4th complete year, then we enter into the 5th year, at which time we can eat the fruit ourselves.
Everyday Connection:
Have you ever noticed how children (and even some adults) get flustered when they try to figure out how old they are in between birthdays? Or how to refer to the age of a newborn baby in its first year of life? The next time you find yourself trying to calculate the age of something, try thinking about it as explained above, and see if that helps make more sense of it.
So, for example, that newborn baby is in his/her 1st year of life from the moment that they're born all the way until their 1st birthday. The day after their birthday, they begin their 2nd year of life, which continues all the way until their 2nd birthday (signifying 2 completed years of life).
"From the assembly of the Children of Israel he shall take two he-goats for a sin-offering and one ram for an olah-offering. Aaron shall bring near his own sin-offering bull, and atone for himself and for his household." ~Vayikra 16;5-6
"He shall take two he-goats and stand them before Hashem, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. Aaron shall place lots upon the two he-goats: one lot 'to Hashem' and one lot 'to Azazel'. Aaron shall bring near the he-goat designated by lot to Hashem, and he shall make it a sin-offering. And the he-goat designated by lot to Azazel shall be stood alive before Hashem, to atone upon it, to send it to Azazel to the wilderness." ~Vayikra 16;7-10
"He shall slaughter the sin-offering he-goat of the people, and bring its blood within the Curtain; he shall do with its blood as he had done with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it upon the Ark-cover and in front of the Ark-cover. Thus shall he bring atonement upon the Sanctuary for the impurities of the Children of Israel, and for their willful sins among all their sins; and so shall he do for the Tent of Meeting that dwells with them amid their impurity. Any person shall not be in the Tent of Meeting when he comes to provide atonement in the Sactuary until his departure; he shall provide atonement for himself, for his household, and for the entire congregation of Israel.
He shall go out to the Mizbe'ach that is before Hashem, and make atonement upon it: He shall take from the blood of the bull and from the blood of the he-goat and place it on the horns of the Mizbe'ach all around. He shall sprinkle upon it from the blood with his finger seven times; and he shall purify it and sanctify it from the impurities of the Children of Israel.
When he is finished atoning for the Sanctuary, the Tent of Meeting, and the Mizbe'ach, he shall bring the living he-goat near. Aaron shall lean his two hands upon the head of the living he-goat and confess upon it all the iniquities of the Children of Israel, and all their rebellious sins among all their sins, and place them upon the head of the he-goat, and send it with a timely man to the desert. The he-goat will bear upon itself all of their iniquities to a cut land, and he should send away the he-goat to the desert." ~Vayikra 16;15-22
In continuing with the on-going theme of organization of information, this week we'll compare similarities and differences between the 2 goats that they Kohen brings for Yom Kippur atonement. Rather than using a Venn Diagram, as we've done in the past, this week we'll use a compare and contrast chart to organize our information.
We begin by making a chart with 3 columns- 1 column to list the different attributes which we will compare across each category, and a separate column for each category that will be compared.
Next, we create a list of the different aspects of goat which we will compare. When creating this list, it helps to look critically at each category, one at a time, and create a list of attributes for that category. Then, for the next category, scan your existing list for each attribute, and add any attributes that are new to the end of the list.
Last, we go through the lists and mark-off which attributes apply to which categories.
For those who find it easier, you can mark the lists simultaneously while creating the attribute list in the chart. This way, as you are finding the attributes, you just add a check-mark to all categories that apply and you are able to fill out the chart simultaneously while you are actually creating it.
Once the chart is complete, we can easily look at each individual attribute to see the categories to which the attribute applies. This type of chart is particularly helpful when comparing multiple categories or items for which specific attributes are important to you. This allows you to quickly identify an attribute and scan through the chart to see which categories are relevant to the attribute on which you are focusing. As with many of our recent topics, organizational tools and logical thinking are critical in math, but they also extend beyond math into so many other areas of life.
