Dor L’Dor |
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Temple Beth-El Religious School October 30, 2002 Number 9 |
5763 iuaj 24
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The First Handshake
We read in this week’s Torah Portion, Genesis 24 about the first handshake. Of course, this handshake is one, which has thankfully evolved over time. Avraham is sending his servant Eliezer to find a wife for his son Isaac. Avraham explains to Eliezer the conditions under which he should choose this wife. Eliezer then responds by swearing and oath to Avraham. 8And if the woman does not consent to follow you, you shall then be clear of this oath to me; but do not take my son back there. 9So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore to him as bidden.
When Avraham makes his servant swear, he directs him at the same time to put his hand under his (Avraham's) thigh. This suggests that originally the hand was placed under the most sacred part of the person, the seat of a mysterious, awe-inspiring, life-giving force. Some commentators explain that the circumcised penis was a sign of the covenant between Avraham and God, so potentially Eliezer placed his hand on this covenantal part of Avraham’s body. We may suppose that in the course of time instead of this, the hand of one person was placed under the hand of the other. Out of this practice grew a still simpler action, first a kind of handshake, and then a mere lifting of the hand. Thus 'to lift the hand' became equivalent to 'to swear' (Gn 1422, Dt 3240, Ex 68, Ps 10626).
Ma'aseh Meeting
Our ma'aseh meeting of the year will be this Sunday at 10:50 and 11:20 in room 203. We will be having two identical meetings back to back. This will enable you to send half your ma'aseh to the first meeting and the other half to the second meeting. The only two ma'aseh that will be out the whole hour are our ma'aseh liaisons, Miriam Goldberg and Allison Marks.
Website
We have hired a professional Webmaster to update our website and make the best that it can be. If you have ideas or links of any kind, please send them to me and I will make sure they get up on our website. We will be posting pictures, “the what did I miss” section, having links, the dor l’dor, the weekly schedule and other great things. One thing it's definitely not too soon to help fix up the "school staff" page at http://www.beth-elsa.org/be_teachers.htm; teachers can send me new bios, favorite photos of themselves, etc. Ma’aseh are welcome to send bios and pictures if they want to be placed on the website as well. Of course this will be a work in progress but we are looking forward to great things happening through the Internet.
Information Sheets
You have all been given your students information sheets. Please read through these immediately and return them to Martha this Sunday. You can find out important information about your students, crises they have endured, allergies, how they learn best, personal family situations and much more. It is important that you know this information. If you want to make a copy of any specific form, please do so or ask Martha to do it for you.
Never Run Out of Ideas for Classroom Activities
Please see the attached list of activities I usurped from the book by Seymour Rossel, Managing the Jewish Classroom. If you have questions on any of these activities, he describes each one of them. If you would like to borrow or have me buy you a copy of this book, please let me know.
Temple Members to Travel to Cuba
Paulette and Larry Goodman will be traveling to Cuba on December 8th, to visit synagogues and help out where they can. They will be bringing gifts with them for Chanukah. They would love to bring Chanukah cards with them to give to the children and families in Cuba. If you would like to have you class do this project, I’m sure we can have Paulette and Larry come speak to us when they return from their trip.
The Ultimate Activity List