Adventures in Mama-Land

I want to tell you about a little girl I knew once. A baby, really, and whenever she would sit and eat in her high chair, whatever it was – rice cakes, Cheerios, cookies, whatever – she would insist on having two of them. One for each hand. A very smart girl: she wouldn’t start eating until she knew where her next meal was coming from. Even then, she was planning for the future: one rice cake in each fist. There is no crazy twist ending – that girl was, of course, this sweet, amazing Elisheva Chaya, who has somehow gone and grown up. I don’t know how this happens. Perhaps those of you who have known Shraggie all along are similarly surprised at how this could have happened, right under our noses. No, I’m not going to start singing “Sunrise, Sunset,” but you all know I could at any moment. Over the last few weeks in the parsha, we have been reading the story of Yosef, a story which is all about grasping the present while planning for the future: planning for famine, planning for geulah ...

Despite a largely useless computer due to various hard drive failures (new one on its way), I wanted to do something special for this week’s parsha… except I like the hands-crossing Ephraim/Menashe activity so much, we’ll probably just do that again. But then I remembered – this is not only parshas Vayechi, but it is also the last parsha in sefer Bereishis – which is totally worth celebrating! This is a pop-up 3-d text project where the words Chazak, Chazak, v’Nischazek (חֲזַק חֲזַק וְנִתְחַזֵּק) can be coloured by the student, then jump out and make a delightful statement.  Geesh; I know I’m WAY overtired when I use the word “delightful.”  There’s also a song of Chazak, to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb (borrowed from Morah Morah Teach Me Torah – you can listen to the song here – search for “chazak” on the page).  It, too, is delightful. You can do this on a few different levels of complexity, depending on the age of your kids.  For the very youngest kids,...