April 4th, Prepping for Passover

This week at Seekers we began preparing for Passover, the holiday where we celebrate the freedom of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. Each class dove deep into the Passover story, and thought about what freedom means in our world today.

Tali's class put on a Passover play together, where everyone got to take on a different role. By putting themselves in the shoes of the characters of the story, the students really got to see the motivation of each person and explore how they might have felt in these situations. One student said, "The most important part of the story is seeing how Moses stood up to Pharaoh." It made us think...How do we stand up for ourselves and our communities today?

Arielle's class also put a theatrical spin on the Passover story by acting out the ten plagues. The whole class got super creative with and really blew our minds with their silly interpretations. They then read the Passover story together, an integral part of the Passover seder. Zev made a beautiful drawing to depict this story in an artistic way.

Grace's class learned that on Pesach we don't just tell the story of Moses. Our tradition teaches that it is a mitzvah to imagine that we ourselves were Yetziat Mitzrayim, freed from Egypt. Together, they did an imagination meditation on what we might see, hear, touch, feel, taste, and think about while leaving Egypt. Then they created illustrations of our imagined experience. Clara and Kuba defined imagination as the effort to picture things in our mind that are not really there but can help us think about the world. This was such a helpful explanation to lead the class into the activity.

Adira's class researched parts of the Passover seder in small groups and then shared what they had learned with the class, piecing together the order of the Seder step by step! Julianna astutely noticed “It’s so dramatic and there are so many plot holes. The Torah could be like a reality show.” We are always so impressed with the way our oldest Seekers class is able to read Torah stories critically and notice inconsistencies in this ancient text.

Next week we'll dive even deeper into the Passover tradition, and learn more about this sacred holiday!

L'hitraot!