Festivals | Tishrei
Ethics in Everyday Life Situations
A Unit for the Classroom, Project work and Youth Group
Synopsis
This is an activity section with its own background included, although
we also recommend referral to the files on Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur. Please see, too, the file on ideas for short activities.
Synopsis
Below are a number of situations which raise moral issues in Jewish
terms and afford ideas for genuine opportunities to make changes
and perform good deeds as part of Teshuva towards Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur as well as guidelines for behaviour throughout
the year.
Activity Suggestions
1. Stories - select the items more suitable for younger children and
use these examples or make up your own stories. Relate them into the
children's lives and explain the meaning behind Rosh Hashana, the
Ten Days of Penitence, Yom Kippur. 2. Role-play - select the issues
you feel meaningful to teenagers; play out the incident and the optional
scenarios for answers (where they exist) in order to trigger discussion
or four-corner debate. Tie it into moral and emotional development
programme with the Jewish sources. 3. Using the sources. Give each
pair or five a set of sources on one topic. Have them create their
own situation and act it out. 4. Video - film groups acting out different
items with one of the optional answers (scenarios) and open each encounter
with one of them; what are the reactions and understandings of the
scenario? Now study the Jewish sources. Discuss what kind of person
the sources are building and examine how realistic this is for modern
Jewish youth. 5. Bar/bat mitzvah projects - a number of items could
be used to build a trimester or year project on the concentric circles
of individual children, family, school/youth group and commmunity
with practical and creative assignments in different areas.
The Materials
Each situation represents a real-life dilemma which the students have
to deal with according to halachic sources: there are a number of
possible responses / continuation scenarios developed to stimulate
discussion. These are followed by the Jewish sources which have been
translated from the Hebrew. You may wish to make photocopies.
The Situations
Below is a list of the files and the dilemma titles to facilitate
your planning:
| |
Visiting the Sick
Pushing in Line |
| |
Saving a Friend
Preventing Damage |
| |
Hospitality
Visitor Behavior |
| |
Care of Animals
Obligation to Give Charity |
| |
Loans versus Charity
Return of Lost Objects |
| |
Child-Parent Triangle
Should I Wake my Father? |
| |
Honoring a Teacher
Honor one's Father and Teacher |
| |
Gossip |
ACKOWLEDGEMENT:
This file includes an edited selection of situations and sources
from the collection in the kit on The Tishrei Festivals, which
can be ordered through e-mail
(price $100 plus postage).
The series of education packs on Jewish Festivals and lifestyle,
produced originally by the DEPARTMENT FOR TORAH EDUCATION AND
CULTURE IN THE DIASPORA, include: The Tishrei Festivals, From
Pesach to Shavuot, Tefila - Prayer
Edited Version: Gila Ansell Brauner, Hannah Salm
Translations from Hebrew Sources: Ruth Morris.
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