Every Shabbos my husband Elie, along with our three year old M prepares a bag of "schtick" that represents different aspects of the Parsha, usually a bunch of different toys, chatchkes, random items around the house. This is generally the highlight of our Shabbos meal, and an excellent way to keep our daughter and guests entertained as well as educated in a fun way. Elie holds up each item, asks my daughter to identify them, and then asks (her or people around the table), "Why is ________ in the Parsha?!" And then hopefully someone, or Elie, explains in a way that M (and everyone else) can more or less understand. We'll give you a sample Parsha bag, see if you can come up with the answers.
This past week's Parsha was Parshas Vaykhel, which involved a lot about the Mishkan and a little about Shabbos.
Items in our Parsha bag:
A Firetruck
King Midas and the Golden Touch (book)
Gemstone-jewelry
Silver Jewelery
Cinnamon
A Sheep
Leather Baseball glove
Red block
Turquoise Frisbee
Purple Block
Piece of Wood
Ok I'll give you some space to think of the answers (don't look!!)- let me know how many you got! Answers are at the bottom:
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Answers:
Fire truck: We are not allowed to light a fire on Shabbos
King Midas: Gold used for the Mishkan and it's vessels
Gemstone-jewelry: Avnei Shoham (precious stones) for the Choshen and the Efod.
Silver Jewelery: Used for building the sockets of the Mishkan
Cinnamon: B'samim for the anointing oil and Ketores
A Sheep: Wool for curtains of the Mishkan, as well as a sheep for korbanos
Leather Baseball glove: Animal skins used in cover for Mishkan
Red block: Scarlet wool used for curtains, also Representing the "orot eilim me'odamim"= red ram's skins- the cover for the Mishkan
Turquoise Frisbee: Turqoise wool used for curtains
Purple Block: again... wool...curtains...
Piece of Wood: Wood used for mishkan including the Aron and the Shulchan
When the Parsha is a little more happening (i.e., more stories and mitzvos) the bag can get a little more exciting- but this is the gist of what we try to do each Shabbos.
Another example from Parshas Beshalach (a little more exciting...): A toy horse and toy carriage (sus v'rochvo rama vayam), a Russian Doll (Avodah Zara), A poland spring water bottle (had pictures of trees, on one side wrote sweet and the other bitter- for waters of Mara), coffee and sugar (bitter and sweet- again, waters of Mara), different toy foods to represent Manna, a tambourine (for Miriam's tambourine), toy fish (for kriyas yam suf...)... ok, you get the point.
I give credit to Shoshana Schechter of Stern college who inspired us once during a class on webyeshiva by telling the class about some parsha shtick they do at their shabbos table with their kids. We've been adding to this and loving the concept ever since!
Give it a try at your Shabbos table and let me know how it goes (adults like it too!)
Have a great week!
Yael
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