F1: Shabbat

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Programming Ideas

Introduction

For a short opener, write the word Shabbat on a chalkboard/flipchart and ask your audience to call out anything that comes to their mind when they hear/see that word. Write up as many as you can, so that you fill up all available space with different words relating to everyone's personal understanding of what Shabbat is for them. Once there are no more thoughts being shared or written, move out of the way and tell your audience to spend 30 seconds scanning all the words. Now highlight the fact that there was a huge range of answers given, in the same way Jews' interpretations of Shabbat and how they choose to celebrate it differ greatly.

Become special

- Ask for people to call out examples of how busy they are during the week (e.g. school every day, homework every evening, choir practice for two hours, training with the team one evening a week, JLGB once a week). Just get two or 3 people to share examples of their busy week (you might find it helps if you start).

- Now explain that it is because we have such busy weeks and we are all rushing around burying our heads in our work, worries, problems and deadlines, that it is so important to take a break at the end of the week. Read out the sentences in this chapter about Shabbat providing us with a "window in the week", and stress how this is possibly the most important reason for treating Shabbat as a day of rest.

- Now ask people to call out things they do on a Saturday that they do in order to rest or relax or divert their attentions away from school and work etc.

Living with the rule

- A great interactive activity for an assembly would be to prepare a short sketch where a parent (or two ) is/are trying to convince a teenage son or daughter to stay in and have a nice Shabbat with the family, but the teenager is arguing that they want to go out. Start off by showing a couple of minutes of the argument, then freeze the action and ask people to call out suggestions of things that the parent/s are likely to say (drawing on their own experiences to come up with these). After one or two suggestions have been tried by the "parents" and been responded to by the "teenager", repeat this but with likely comments from the teenager. Not only should this be quite fun, but it is a great way to get people to share their own experiences without them having to say "but my mum always says etc".

The list of ten...

- You could spend a whole assembly looking at ways to make Shabbat more enjoyable and more rewarding. One of the ways to do this is by explaining that we have a list of ten suggestions. Instead of just reading out the list, do ten very quick role plays (or even get ten volunteers to act them out if you are confident that you can get ten volunteers!) that illustrate the ten ideas. After each one ask your audience to guess the suggestion (then tell them if they don't guess it) and the stick up their hands if that's something that they don't already do.

- In addition to this, you could try and get the group to come up with their own list of five or ten ways of enhancing the Shabbat experience.

- Alternatively, below are some ideas for ways of looking at one or two specific suggestions from the list of ten:

Eating a traditional Shabbat meal

- Quick ice-breaking quiz on the audience's knowledge of the language of Shabbat cuisine. Simply ask what are the following (one by one): challahs, strudel, cholent, kneidelach, kugel, lockshen, kishkas, tzimmes, fliegeles and pipiks? Make sure you know the answers in advance (ask a parent or grandparent for answers to any that you yourself are unsure of). Add your own family words.

- Read out this traditional Jewish folk tale called "The Taste of the Sabbath meal":

In a little village in Austria lived a poor Jew called Yankle. This village was only a mile away from the Royal Palace, and the Austrian Emperor would often spend time in the village with the local peasants as he was genuinely interested in the lives of his people. One Friday evening, the Emperor was riding on his horse past Yankle's house when the glow of the Shabbat candles caught his eye. Intrigued he dismounted and knocked on the door. When Yankle and his wife opened the door and realised who was standing there, they insisted that he join them for their Shabbat dinner. The emperor was amazed at the beauty of the Shabbat table with it's pure white table cloth, the brightly burning candles in shiny candlesticks, the gefilte fish, chicken soup with noodles, folowed by a plte full of the most delicious food he had ever tasted. Yankle and his family were joyous throughout the meal as they made their blessings and sang Shabbat songs with all their hearts.

After the meal their honoured guest thanked them for the greatest meal he had ever eaten, and told them that the next evening he would send his own head cook to come and learn how to prepare such wonderful food. So, the next day, the cook went to the house and learned everything he could about the meal that his master had eaten. But, when he went home and prepared the same food for the Emperor, the latter tasted the food and screamed "What is this? This is not the same as I ate yesterday. You could not have learned properly." In great anger he stormed over to Yankle's house and declared "You cheated me! The food that my cook made did not have the taste of your Sabbath meal." And Yankle replied quietly "My dear sir, ingredients and cooking alone do not make the splendour of the Sabbath meal. The taste of the food depends as much upon the Sabbath spirit that surrounds the evening."

Once you have read this, ask people to call out what food they tend to have for their Shabbat meal. After a minute or so, stop and explain that like it says in the story, it is not just the actual food (although that is a part of it), but the whole atmosphere that makes the meal so special. Now read the first two ideas from the list of ten to illustrate what you mean.

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