http://blog.tinw-school.org Giving Children A Jewish Future Sun, 31 May 2009 00:42:44 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en By Joel M. Hoffman According to Proverbs, summer is a time for preparation: "Who gathers food by summer is wise," we learn in Proverbs 10:5. Later on in 30:25 we read that, "Ants are not strong, but they prepare their food by summer." Although summer is usually counted as the second season, ... http://blog.tinw-school.org/2009/05/30/summer-is-for-planning/ By Joel M. Hoffman Pave over a field and an amazing thing happens each spring: grass grows through the blacktop. Somehow, even the industrial strength of the pavement, powerful enough to support the tonnage of trucks, can't stop a single, fragile, nascent blade of grass yearning for light. At this time ... http://blog.tinw-school.org/2009/04/24/paving-and-paradise/ By Joel M. Hoffman I saw a 7th grader studying for a test on the clouds. She had made herself a chart with the various kinds of clouds --- cirrus, cumulonimbus, etc. --- on the left side of a piece of paper, and qualities such as "appearance," "size," "height," and ... http://blog.tinw-school.org/2009/03/18/theres-no-sat-in-judaism/ By Joel M. Hoffman ``Do not oppress the stranger,'' the Bible warns us over and over again, ``for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.'' The saga of the Jewish people is to know what it's like not to fit in, which is why this notion of welcoming the ... http://blog.tinw-school.org/2009/03/02/do-not-oppress-the-stranger/ By Lily Jasper, Grade 10 Think about the following question: On September 10th of 2001, if America could have killed Bin-Laden and his hijackers, but at the expense of killing five innocent families, should the USA have done it? This is Israel's dilemma. A group by the name of Hamas is ... http://blog.tinw-school.org/2009/02/05/israel-gaza-and-hamas-oh-what-a-disaster/ By Joel M. Hoffman I recently asked a middle-school student how many friends she has. "Eight hundred and sixty," she told me. "That's funny," I replied. "I have about a dozen." And then I added, "I guess we're using the word `friends' differently." She was talking about Facebook friends, and, for lack ... http://blog.tinw-school.org/2009/01/19/the-facebook-generation/ By Joel M. Hoffman Vayigash, this week's Torah portion, opens with the nearly final stages of the drama of the misery and anguish of our ancestors' family lives. But amid the sorrow we also find the promise of better times. We read of Judah in Egypt as he begs for life-saving ... http://blog.tinw-school.org/2009/01/02/vayigash/ By Joel M. Hoffman Genesis is about families, creation, where we come from, and what our lives are like. But it is also about famine. In fact, famine was so common that Genesis 26:1 begins, "there was a famine in the land," but then the text has to clarify ... http://blog.tinw-school.org/2009/01/01/theres-a-famine-in-the-land/ By Steve Rubinstein Two of my favorite songs are Hey Jude and Sympathy for the Devil, kind of representing the loftier and baser poles of aural experience. Yet, I am going to discuss Jacob's Ladder, not by way of Stairway to Heaven but by referring to another favorite piece ... http://blog.tinw-school.org/2008/12/05/vayetze5769/ By Joel M. Hoffman "These lights are holiness --- haneirot hallalu kodesh hen." This famous line about the Hanukah lights, now part of the standard Hanukah liturgy, comes from masechet sofrim, an 8th-Century Palestinian work that describes the practices of our ancestors in and around Jerusalem. Masechet sofrim goes on to ... http://blog.tinw-school.org/2008/12/02/holy-hanukah-lights/