Floor Wax Min HaTorah Minayin? An Experiment in Teaching Sefer Yishaya

My boarding-housemates and I used to play a game we called Min HaTorah Minayin. The sink is leaking? A leak min haTorah minayin, where do we find a leak in the Torah? (I found the leak, in parshas Noach). We're waxing the floor? Floor wax min haTorah minayin? That one stumped us. Floor wax min haTorah minayin?

Maybe a month later, as I was looking up a reference in Tanach, the page fell open to a verse in which Iyov (Job) reminisces about the days when he had his steps buttered.

I found it! I found it! Floor wax min haTorah!

Silly; but from that discovery I began to read more of the page, and really fell in love with the book of Iyov for the first time.

I thought my students might have a similar experience, so one day when we needed some space between units, I gave them a...

Sefer Yishaya (Isaiah) Scavenger Hunt

Can you find...

Something dripping?

A spice?

Glue or riveting?

Sargon, king of Assyria?

A piece of furniture?

A contractor's tools?

A song by Chizkiyahu (Hezekiah)?

Fish?

An insect?

A very personal description of the navi?

Eggs?

A musical instrument?

A line from Lecha Dodi?

A long list of jewelry?

Fire?

An agricultural tool?

A horse?

An extremely unusual name for a child?

A curtain?

A tail?

The shiras hakerem? (a song about a vineyard)

Bears?

Daylight savings?

The Leviathan?

A list of ten animals in two consecutive psukim (verses)?

A mountain?

Camels?

The land Rus came from?

A tear in something?

Something wearing out?

A pasuk from Aleinu?

A wall?

An island?

Rosh Chodesh?

Clay?

Oil?

A chasan and kallah (bride and groom)?

A color?

Something bubbling?

Sapphires?

100 years?

A paved street?

A rodent?

Bread?

Shabbos?

Figs?

Copper?

Water?

Three kinds of birds? (not necessarily in the same verse)

The moon?

A word or phrase repeated?

Beis Yaakov lechu v'nelcha b'or Hashem?

Boats?

Yotzer or uvorei choshech oseh shalom uvorei ra?

Jerusalem?

A song lyric?

A textile or textile fibre?

Deer?

The defeat of an army?

Cream?

A hill?

An alcoholic beverage?

Something that makes you, personally, happy?

Tongs?

The capitol of Syria?

Something (not a person) singing?

A mashal of childbirth?

Shaavtem mayim b'sason mimayenei hayeshua?

A reptile?

A night watchman?

Five kinds of trees? (not necessarily in the same verse)

Nachamu nachamu ami?

A pasuk from davening?

The name Yishayahu (Isaiah)?

I decided to err on the side of light and fun, but they didn't relate to it as expected; so if I were to do this again I would get heavier and have them look for certain messages and themes and ideas and feelings, with just a sprinkling of interesting superficialities.

However, it worked for an adult who came in as I was drawing up the list – he thought that this cutesy list looked like a good time, pulled out a navi to help me find objects, and got thoroughly sidetracked into just reading the navi: “Oh, this is beautiful! Ooh, I have to learn more Navi. Oh, wow, you have to read this.” – which is the reaction I was hoping for in my students. So I guess superficial scavenger hunts are better for adults.

What did R' Zacuto Change about the Astrolabe?

I haven't gotten to the library yet. Meanwhile, I can't figure this out.

Everyone knows he did something brilliant to the astrolabe but if you look it up online every website says it was something else.

He was the first to make an iron astrolabe. No, he was the first to make a copper astrolabe. No, he was the first to make a mariner's astrolabe. No, he was the first to make a spherical astrolabe.

Astrolabes are beautiful things and I would love to be able to walk into class with one and say, “This is a Zacuto astrolabe, and here is how you use it.” But what was it?

Taking the average, it appears that he was the first to make the mariner's astrolabe out of metal instead of wood, thus preventing it from warping.

I hope to post some final answer to the question, as well as a useful application of the mariner's astrolabe for the use of high school students. Check back.

Sunflowers in the Drawing-Room: Some Notes on the 2015 Torah uMesorah Convention

As it turns out, the Torah uMesorah teachers' convention isn't a secret convention only for Real Teachers. There is a pre-convention for principals but (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that isn't exclusive either. There were high school girls babysitting and on their breaks they came to the lectures too. I wish I'd known this when I was in high school. Tell your students.

Our route took us through Torah uMesorah history, passing a number of cities I know only from the history of the day school movement. Liberty, NY – I know from R' Shraga Feivel. Scranton – also R' Shraga Feivel. Ellensville – that name is familiar, too.

Then we walked into the hotel and into the Torah uMesorah present, a grand courtyard all draped with Torah uMesorah banners and filled with the murmur of mechanchim networking.

Networking means walking up to random people to ask them what they teach and how and how do you make class interesting to your twelfth-graders? It is the most fun I have had in a drawing-room, ever.

(Incidentally, my favorite answer to the question of how to engage teenagers came from the babysitters. Make it practical, they said. Practical, practical, practical.)

It was delightful to share a chatzer with a few hundred mechanchim. It was also delightful to giggle with all few hundred at once in response to amusing moments in the lectures. And it was a great privilege and delight to hear great talmidei chachamim addressing questions on Jewish education.

Here are some points that stood out to me from over the weekend. Some were new, some just timely.

Please read with caution – I often misquote people.

How to Love Pesach

In the spirit of the Internet, here is my DIY guide to loving Pesach.

DIY LOVING PESACH IN FIVE EASY STEPS!!!

1. Identify the Quarry.

You can't love cleaning for chametz if you don't know what you're looking for. Call your friendly local halachic authority and find out what size and quality of chametz need to be out of your house by Pesach, rather than trying to “catch 'em all” when the pokemon in question are undefined. Know exactly what you're doing.

2. Put Your Ribbons in Glass Jars If It Makes You Happy.

Everyone says “Don't spring-clean!” and it's true that dirt is not chametz, Pesach-cleaning is not spring-cleaning, and the two should not be confused.

But Pesach-cleaning involves channeling the spring-cleaning instinct, not repressing it. So I say: start with spring-cleaning if that's what comes naturally. I started this year by rearranging ribbons on the sewing-shelf; we got to the kitchen cabinets eventually but every time I turned around I saw pretty ribbons in chromatic order and it felt... Pesachdik.

3. Appreciate that Love Is Born in Chaos.

Understand what the month of Adar is about.

Adar leads up to Nisan as Elul leads up to Tishrei. Pesach will not be all that it can be if you do not go through Adar first.

Adar is about chaos. Adar is about, I am so not in control of my life it's funny. Adar is about, Hashem is in control, not the king and not the vizier. Hashem.

Every Rosh Chodesh Adar something crazy pushes me into a corner so that I just have to throw my hands in the air and laugh. Will you will come into our school in ten minutes and extemporize teaching for four hours? The right answer is, No. But the righter answer is, Yes, and happy Adar to you, too.

Two weeks later, on Purim, we are so not on top of the situation that we can't even tell who people are by their clothes, and a good proportion of our social norms dissolve into one big happy day of giving food to everyone. If you try to maintain everyday order on Purim you'll short-circuit. It's a day when creation goes haywire.

Pesach flows naturally from Purim.

But suddenly people try to be in control again. Then they get frustrated and start wisecracking about how we give each other food for Purim just one month before all that food has to be cleaned out of every corner for Pesach.

What do you think, that G-d hates housekeeping? It's not an accident and it's not sabotage. While yes, you have to get all that chametz out, the very inefficiency of the arrangement pushes you to recognize that it's not about efficiency at all. It's not about having a clean house.

So, if not spring-cleaning, what is Pesach about?

It's about, Hashem came into Egypt suddenly to pull us out from nonexistence into existence and claim us as His own. The theme of the month is ahava, the love between G-d and the Jewish people. Pesach is the beginning of that relationship.

That relationship was formed in chaos. The feeling of not being ready is an essential part of Pesach. We threw the dough in the oven and ran.

No one said, “Wait a minute, G-d. This is too much chaos. I'd like to stay a slave in Egypt until my dough finishes rising.”

Lechtech acharai bamidbar be'eretz lo zarua, you followed me into the wilderness, into a place where the housekeeping was total chaos. Yeshuas Hashem k'heref ayin, it happened in the blink of an eye.

On Pesach we love G-d through chaos.

Just relax and enjoy it. You can get to places on Pesach that you can't get to the rest of the year. Make room for that.

4.  It's All about the Bottomless Supply of Chocolate.

A member of our community recently raised the question of how to explain the concept of chametz to her two-year-old.

My first thought was that before she switches her kitchen to Pesach mode, she could show the child how yeast produces bubbles (Loops like to cheer it on - “Eat, yeasties, eat!” - like Klara drilling Latin), and how those bubbles manifest in the finished loaf, but not in matzah.

But the truth is that when Loops was two, I didn't bother trying to explain chametz. It was all about look at these fancy pretty dishes with blooming irises on them, special for Pesach and here is your fancy new dress with pretty sparkly buttons, special for Pesach and here is matzah, special for Pesach. I hide all the things I want to buy her anyway in the closet for months and then give them to her special for Pesach.

Adults are big two-year-olds and the same principle applies.

In practice (says the halacha) this usually means that men buy meat and wine for themselves, dresses for their wives, and nuts and sweets for their children.

(My inner two-year-old also likes that the logo on the kosher-for-Passover seltzer bottles is the heroine from East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon, which is my favorite fairy tale because it reminds me of Jewish history: the wife wandering the world with a candle in her hand looking for her polar bear husband.)

Childish pleasures are a real part of loving Pesach (thus codified in halacha) and not to be sneezed at.

5. Get a Handle on the Haggada.

The haggada is totally incomprehensible until you put in effort to understand it but then it unrolls and it seems obvious that each paragraph couldn't have been anything else. Apportion some time before Pesach to learn where it takes us and how.

Here is Rav Leuchter's explanation. (truffles truffles truffles)

Apart from that, the four cups correspond to the four stages of the exodus:

1. And I will take you out

2. And I will save you

3. And I will redeem you

4. And I will take you to me to be a nation

This isn't a number game, it's the progression the seder follows. In the course of the evening we relive the experience, starting with being slaves in Egypt, and ending with Hallel for having come out and then Nirtzah. On top of that there is a custom to stay up and recite the Song of Songs.

At the beginning of the seder we put away half the bread for later, “just in case”. By the end of the night, there is no more concern about “just in case”. We take out our reserve and eat it, before G-d, as a korban.

The seder is not about “each person comes out of his own personal Egypt” and it isn't necessary to go down that route to make the seder meaningful. It is about a historical, national experience. You were there.

To review:

FIVE EASY DIY STEPS TO LOVING PESACH!!

1. Know exactly what you're cleaning for.

2. Start with spring-cleaning if that's what comes naturally...

3. ...BUT recognize that Pesach is about ahava, not spring-cleaning.

4. Please your inner two-year-old. This is halacha.

5. Get up an understanding of where the seder takes us and how.

Happy Pesaching!

Purim Vinz - 20 Adar -- and its Megilla

20 Adar is the anniversary of the downfall in 1616 of a man who called himself "the new Haman of the Jews," of the foiling of his plans to murder the Frankfurt Jewish community, and of the return of the Jews of Frankfurt under imperial protection and with imperial fanfare.

The community established the date as a sort of mini-Purim, "Purim Vinz," with its own customs, including the reading of a special "megilla" describing the events.

The Frankfurt community continued to flourish for a few hundred years, years that gave us the Maharam Schiff, R' Nosson Adler and his talmid the Chasam Sofer -who mentions the custom of Purim Vinz - and Rav Hirsch's kehilla, which is one of the models for American Torah as we know it.

The Koach Yehuda writes, 'Some rememberance of the Ventz miracle must remain with us. It is a constant reminder to us that we must thank and praise the Almighty who protects us from all our enemies.'


So although the Frankfurt community has been mostly destroyed (so much for imperial protection) I like to tell people about Purim Vinz; and this year I went in search of a copy of its Megilla.

First I called KAJ, the Frankfurt community in America. They told me that Rav Breuer reinstated Tachanun on 20 Adar when the Nazis took over Frankfurt. People remember that it is the "Frankfurt Purim" but that's about it.


But then I found this.
Can we have a round of applause for Professor Ulmer for putting this in the public domain? She went to the trouble to put it together and her book is still in print. SO nice of her.


Megillas Vinz in four languages from Prof. Ulmer. You made my day.


And here it is only in German, but with sheet music and a portrait of the villain, from Goethe Universitat.

My Idea of Pesach's Freedom (2015)

[A guest post on Torah by Jonny Schneeweiss! He's better known to the Internet for his Schneeblog, an insightful treatment of writing technique, fantasy/sci-fi/otaku, and human nature. Check it out – some great stuff. --Ed.]

I've been noticing lately how there are cultural trends of values just like cultural trends of fashion and entertainment etc. People don't really think into these values, but they're just caught up in the current so to speak. It ends up being this dichotomy of either you agree with the culturally supported dogma or you disagree with it and there's no other option.  If you're too swayed by the questions of the opposing side, your only recourse is to either switch to the anti version of your idea or be stubborn and irrationally stick to your guns.

A big example was something I noticed looking into Korean culture. In American culture, what's important is being "successful", which is a) something we as a culture haven't really thought out, and b) no one really knows what it means. But we want to be successful. There are only two sides to this discussion: either you are ambitious and try to make money and achieve success, OR you naively follow your dreams and passions and are not as successful but you're following your dream, so screw success and screw the man!

In Korea, NO ONE talks about success. They DO NOT care about success at all. For them, the cultural dogma is all about hard work. Every instance when, in the West, you'd hear someone use the word "success", in Korea it's replaced with "hard work".  Women don't want to marry someone who is successful, they want to marry someone who works hard.  In school, you're not told to do your homework so you can get a good job and be successful, you're told to do your homework because you should be working hard.  Are you working hard or are you playing? Success? Who cares about that? Are you working your hardest? Even if you're not making any money or moving up in the world, are you working yourself to death? That's what matters.  What else COULD matter?

There must be hundreds of examples of this, where the thesis/antithesis phenomenon as it applies to cultural values is seen as the ONLY way of thinking, when in the country next door there's a completely different thesis/antithesis argument dominating the national discource.  This reality is a sign of a) how unthought out cultural values are and b) how inescapable they are when it's literally all you're surrounded by. People can't escape the binary yes/no morality they're raised in. They don't even know they're being confined. It's like Flatland.

The nation we belong to as Israelites was founded on an event where the most dominant cultural dogma of the time was completely and utterly shattered right before our eyes. Bnei Yisrael were raised in an Egypt where priests probably argued about which gods were supreme and politicians vied for pharaoh's favor. That way of viewing the world was inescapable. But then in the very forging of our nation we were shown through events that the entire foundation was wrong.

Throughout our history, we've stood as a broken nation on the edge of more powerful nations who refuse to accept us. We grow up exposed to the culture of whatever nation we've been exiled to while still knowing that we have our own system of values and our own ways of thought. Just knowing that--that there IS another way of looking at each facet of life we hear about--is the most powerful tool humans can have against being swept up in the cultural force of values and thought trends. Even if we don't understand the values of our own tradition, we know they exist, which means we never have to be confined to the thesis/antithesis cycle going on around us. We have the freedom to say "I know there MUST a different way of viewing ALL of this, there must be a third dimension in this 2-d world, so let me think some more and see if anything else makes sense." This is just an option many people don't have. They don't KNOW they can do that, because why would they? Whom have they ever seen or heard about who has done that? Our national identity IS "a stranger in a strange land." Breaking out of cultural dogmas is who we are, and even when we failed to build our own successful culture as a nation, we were exiled for the purpose of reforging that identity in the midst of countless other cultures that refuse to accept us.  That's the freedom I was thankful for this Pesach.