Yesterday, despite the weather, we had a lot of fun putting up our Seventh grade decorations in the Sukkah. If you get the chance I recommend checking them out. In order to make the decorations meaningful to the students and to incorporation learning into our Sukkot decorations in my class this week, we learned about the tradition of Ushpizin.
What are Ushpizin is also a wonderful question you can ask your seventh grader, who will probably answer with something along the lines of "it's guests." They would be correct. We learned in class that the word is from Aramaic and allows us to practice Hachnast Orchim, the welcoming of guests and showing them hospitality on Sukkot. Traditionally there are seven honored guests during the holiday, one for each day.
(A good way to see if the students remember is to ask who are the seven guests.) The seven guests in tradition are, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron and David. During class we speculated as to why it might be these seven who are honored as guests at our Sukkah, many of the answers being that these were some of the people that helped make the Jewish people. To add women to the tradition we learned that the seven female guests are Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca, Leah, Miriam, Abigail and Esther.
While some of the questions in class revolved around who would be paired up with whom in the honor department, the other part of our discussion and activity was to come up with people who we would like to honor and invite to our Sukkah who weren't traditional. Some of the suggestions were Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Winston Churchill, Michael Phelps and quite a few others. Once we'd come up with the people, the kids got down to business writing invitations to them.
In the Sukkah now you can find the invitations the kids wrote and illustrated. You might be able to find our paper chain, which includes those people who they weren't able to write invitations to and what they hope for the world in the year to come.
With Columbus day and Simchat Torah celebrations coming up, there is no class next Sunday. However, the Saturday after that on October 13th, our first Jr. Congregation will be taking place. It would be wonderful if the seventh graders could join us as it's going to be a lot of fun, with singing, prayers and guitar.
I will be posting this on the blog, along with the question of who you would want to invite to the Sukkah. Please feel free to comment and add your thoughts. I'd love to hear from all of you. The blog is Seventhgradecbe.blogspot.com
Have a wonderful Sukkot,
Bryna
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