A) How to Tell a Story?!?
One of the wonderful aspects of stories is that two people can tell a story about the same event in very different ways. Let’s look at how this may happen with the very first Jewish story: the Story of Creation.Creation Storytelling:
- Print out a few copies of this story of the 7 ‘days’ of creation from the book of Genesis.
- Have 7 different people each read a day out loud to the rest of the group.
- Then, as a group, watch these two short alternative tellings of the Creation story.
- After viewing the two videos:
- Compare them to the original and to each other
- Which one do you like the best?
- If you would tell this story, how would you tell it?
- True or False: It is a good thing that two people can tell the same story in very different ways. (Discuss your answers!)
B) Tanach - The 1st Jewish Stories
The Jewish Bible or Tanach is the central story of all of our Jewish stories. It includes the Torah and its 5 books as well as another 19 or 31 (depedning on how you count the 12 Minor Prophets). Let’s spend some time getting familiar with the names of these book of Tanach.
The Tanach Memory Match Game:
- Print out and cut out 2 sets of the Books of Tanach cards.
- Make sure you have 2 identical piles of the names of the Books of the Tanach.
- Review the names of the books - pronouncing them the best that you can!
- Mix up the cards into one pile and then place them on a table or floor in equal rows and columns - face down.
- Each person (or team - depending on how you want to play) gets to choose two cards to see if they match. If they find a match they hold on to the pair, if not the cards are turned back over and the next participant gets a chance.
- Play until all of the cards are picked up. The winning team/player has the most pairs.
- If you want to play more than one game - depending on the size of your group - then just increase the number of sets you print out.
Midrash is the way that Jews have added to the stories that began in the Tanach. When the story is unclear or there are some details that do not make sense about the story, people have retold or added to the story to help it make sense for them. In a small way, it is like the game called ‘Telephone’. You know, the game in which the group sits in a circle and the first person whispers a word or phrase to the person sitting next to her or him. And then the word or phrase is whispered to each person who follows in the circle. Finally the last person who hears the message tells everyone what she or he heard -- and the group hears how much the first word of message has changed. In a small way, Midrash does that with the stories in the Tanach.
Let’s play a game of Telephone, but with a twist - (we’re calling it: Midrash Madness) to help us think about what Midrash does with the central Jewish stories.
Midrash Madness Directions:
- Get the people who you want to play with in a circle.
- Give everyone in the group a stack of blank paper - one piece for each person in the group and a pen or pencil.
- Once everyone has been given a paper booklet and pen, you can explain the game. Each person is to write a short familiar phrase or sentence on the cover of the booklet, for example: "I believe I can fly" or "Rock paper scissors". Give everyone one minute to write a phrase down. Next, tell everyone to pass their booklet to the person to their right.
- Each person will read the phrase on the cover of their new ‘booklet’, flip the cover page to the back of the booklet, and draw a picture of their interpretation on the next piece of paper.. Give everyone one minute to draw a picture of the phrase. Then tell everyone to pass their booklet to the person to their right, with their picture on top of the booklet.
- Next, the person will look only at the picture that the person to their left has drawn. In their new booklet, tell them to flip that page to the back of the booklet, and write a short phrase that interprets the picture on the new page. Give everyone one minute to write a phrase down.
- Continue this pattern of drawing pictures and writing phrases until each person receives their own booklet back. Then, have each person go through their own booklets and showcase each page in front of the group.
A few years ago when there was a huge survey (the Pew survey in 2013: A Portrait of Jewish Americans) completed about the Jewish community. One of the questions they asked was this one: What does it mean to be Jewish? There were a lot of interesting responses: One of them had to do with being funny! 42% of the people who responded said that having a sense of humor was an important part of being Jewish! Can you believe it? (It was almost the exact same amount of people who said that caring about Israel (43%) was an important part of being Jewish!). Laughing and, I guess, telling good jokes and making others laugh is a part of being Jewish! With that in mind, let’s have some fun finding and sharing some Jewish humor.
Jewish Joke-Off:
- As individuals or in pairs or threes, get on the internet and search for Jewish jokes, humor, etc. (There are some websites below to get you going, too.)
- Each search team should find 2-3 jokes that they think are funny ones that they can share with the group.
- After everyone has found their jokes, each team should take a turn telling one of their jokes.
- After the jokes have been told, decide who found the funniest joke.
Some Jews and Humor Websites: