What a busy day.
Today, we learned about צדיק ה בכל דרכיו. We were learning about the life of the
4th Belzer Rebbe later in the day, so I took the opportunity to connect the
pasuk to how the Belzer Rebbe responded to the Holocaust after his wife,
children and grandchildren were killed. There were also a lot of questions. One child asked, “How come we say tehillim if everything Hashem does is right?” Each student shared a personal story, a mashal they had heard, or a story they had read. I let them share because I could see they were connecting and processing a very hard lesson.
4th Belzer Rebbe later in the day, so I took the opportunity to connect the
pasuk to how the Belzer Rebbe responded to the Holocaust after his wife,
children and grandchildren were killed. There were also a lot of questions. One child asked, “How come we say tehillim if everything Hashem does is right?” Each student shared a personal story, a mashal they had heard, or a story they had read. I let them share because I could see they were connecting and processing a very hard lesson.
Chumash
We learned פרק לא: פסוקים א-ד. The students are very concerned with fair and right. I asked the students what the words of the pesukim implied. They were offended that Lavan and his sons would accuse Yaakov of being dishonest. We explored why would the sons of Lavan accuse Yaakov of stealing, why was it important that Yaakov noticed Lavan’s face, and why Yaakov would need to call his wives to the field.
Biography.
We learned about the 4th Belzer Rebbe, Rav Aharon Rokeach zt”l and his nephew, ybl”c, the 5th Belzer Rebbe, Yissachar Dov Rokeach. I picked this topic because one of my students expressed an interest in chassidus and the Belzer Rebbe is remarkable in his recreation of his chassidus after World war II. It also involved a Hungarian and Polish personality which had not yet been represented this year.
Biography of the 4th and 5th Belzer Rebbes The story of the 4th Belzer Rebbe’s escape from the Nazi was very inspiring.
I then put an article I found online on the projector – so the students could see pictures of the original shul built by the Sar Shalom and the new shul built by the 5th Belzer Rebbe
After showing them the pictures, we watched a video of how Belz quiets the shul
I then showed this broadcast from Israeli news about the Belz Beis Medrash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HftHFc1jgRI We watched a sentence, and then I translated that sentence. After we watched the whole clip, I showed the clip again, this time from the beginning without pausing. Most of the students were able to understand the video the second time through.
Ivrit: We reviewed some words in Ivrit from Migdalor.