Galut - גלות

Game #1: “I am sitting under a tree…..”

All the chanichim sit in chair in a circle. There is one extra chair. Every chanich gets a number. Then the chanich next to the empty chair moves into the chair saying “I”. Then the chanich who was to his left moves down into his vacated seat and says “am”. This goes on as each chanich moves down quickly in succession and each say 1 word on the sentence “I am sitting under a tree waiting for a number”, until the last chanich calls out someone’s number. The person who is that number must run and sit in the empty seat. Immediately the chanich who was sitting next to him moves into his seat saying “I” and it begins again. The key is don’t lose the beat or you’re out. If you get out and then someone calls your number, they are out too.

Game #2: “The rain falls on….”

Everyone sits in a circle on chairs. One chanich stands in the middle. He says, “the rain falls on anyone who….” and adds something people have done, or are wearing… for instance, “everyone wearing red”, “anyone who went to a Moshava”, “anyone who’s been to Israel”, “anyone who its their first sniff”…etc. Anyone who meets that criteria has to get up and switch places. The chanich who was in the middle tries to grab a seat and there will be one kids left over who’s now in the middle and has to choose who the “rain falls on”. At whatever time, the person in the middle can just yell “shinui shinui” and then everyone has to find a new seat.

Game #3: “Zombie”

Everyone closes their eyes and begins to wander the room. One kid is picked to be the zombie. He also is walking around with his eyes closed but when he bumps into another kid he has to scream really loud! Then that other kid now knows he crashed into a zombie, and he becomes a zombie too, now whenever he crashes into anyone else he screams, and then that person also becomes a zombie. But, when 2 zombies crash into each other (they’ll know because they’ll both scream) they both “die” and go back to being regular people without zombie powers, continue the game as normal people trying to avoid the zombies. Keep playing until either everyone becomes a zombie, or until all the zombies are killed, or until the game reaches its peak.

Sicha:

Ask the kids what they think of when they think of Galut, of being in exile. What was life like then? How was life different then it was now? Were the Jews able to live normal lives or were things more difficult? Why?

Bring the kids back to the first game. Ask them if it got annoying to always have to be switching places and never getting to stay in the same place, or seat for a long time.

Tell them that for most of the time the Jews were in galut, that’s what life was like. Jews would settle down in one community, build homes, raise families, get jobs, and then just when everything would be going well, the non-Jews would either attack, or the King would expel or kick out the Jews, and then they’d all have to leave that town and uproot all their lives and move somewhere else. Ask the chanichim to imagine if all the Jews in their city suddenly were kicked out. How would they feel? Imagine living your whole lives like that for hundreds of years, never feeling safe and always at the mercy of the local non-Jewish leader.

Ask the chanichim if they think things are different now that we have Medinat Israel. If so, in what way? Explain to the chanichim, that now that Hashem has given us Medinat Israel, a lot of the hardships of galut have ended (even though we still have a bit to go, before we get to geulah… but that’s another sniff altogether). Having a Jewish State and a Jewish Army means that we always have a place to go to that we can never get kicked out of and where we can safely build our homes and know that this land is ours and that we never have to move again. (Yay!)

Now, onto the 2^nd game. Ask the chanichim how they felt having to walk around with their eyes closed. (scared, not able to see…). Explain to them that during galut this is how the Jews felt also, because in galut we are in a period of Hester Panim. Ask the chanichim if they have ever heard of this concept. Explain to them that in Galut, Hashem is hidden and a lot of the time we feel like our eyes are closed, that we’re in the dark, because we don’t see Hashem, all we see is how were suffering. But Hashem is still there, just in the background. (The Purim story is a good example of this).

Also ask them what happened in this game. Did a lot of people turn into zombies? Explain to them that in galut, another danger is assimilation. Since were living among non-Jews, a lot of Jews intermarry or get sucked into the non-Jewish culture and are lost to the Jewish people, just like the chanIchim (lehavdil) who all turned into zombies.

But, so too, having the State of Israel can help prevent assimilation and be a place where we can live not scared of other nations (because even if we have problems, we now have a Jewish army to fight back with).

Conclusion: Galut was a time where the Jews were never safe in one place, and always were persecuted and other bad things happened, like assimilation and suffering. Today, having the State of Israel helps offset some aspects of Galut, as we are always safe to build a permanent home there, free of persecution.

Snif for Zach:

Theme: Galut

Goal: That the chanichim should get a feeling of what living in Galut was like for the Jewish people, namely how the Jewish people were never safe in one place, and how this is different now that we have Medinat Yisrael.

Preparation: get impossible brain teasers

Trigger Game #1: “I am sitting under a tree…..”

All the chanichim sit in chair in a circle. There is one extra chair. Every chanich gets a number. Then the chanich next to the empty chair moves into the chair saying “I”. Then the chanich who was to his left moves down into his vacated seat and says “am”. This goes on as each chanich moves down quickly in succession and each say 1 word on the sentence “I am sitting under a tree waiting for a number”, until the last chanich calls out someone’s number. The person who is that number must run and sit in the empty seat. Immediately the chanich who was sitting next to him moves into his seat saying “I” and it begins again. The key is don’t lose the beat or you’re out. If you get out and then someone calls your number, they are out too.

Trigger Game #2:

Divide the chanichim into 4 teams. Tell them that there are 4 stations their team will have to go through. At each station will be a brainteaser or riddle they will have to solve in 2 minutes. If they solve it correctly they get 10 points. After 2 minutes at each station the teams will rotate. At the end of the game, the team with the most points wins.

Note: Make sure to assign brainteasers and riddles that are IMPOSSIBLE to do within the 2 minute time limit. The goal is that the chanichim will be moved to another station before they have completed their task at the current one.

Sicha: 

Ask the chanichim what they feel or think of when they think of Galut – try to get a list of words. What was life like then? How was life different then it was now? Were the Jews able to live normal lives or were things more difficult? Why?

Bring the kids back to the trigger games. How did it feel to always have to move seats, never being able to stay in the same place for long? Even more so, how did it feel in the second game to never be able to finish your task, and to always have to move on, even when you were in the middle of something?

How is this similar to what the Jews went through during Galut? What kind of things happened to the Jews during Galut that would make them feel that way?

Explain to the chanichim that for most of the time the Jews were in galut, that’s what life was like. Jews would settle down in one community, build homes, raise families, get jobs, and then just when everything would be going well, the non-Jews would either attack, or the King would expel or kick out the Jews, and then they’d all have to leave that town and uproot all their lives and move somewhere else. (See if the chanichim can think of examples of when this happened in Jewish History). Just when the Jews had started to build their community, before they could finish their task, just like in the game, they would be uprooted and be moved out.

Ask the chanichim to imagine if all the Jews in their city suddenly were kicked out. How would they feel? Imagine living your whole lives like that for hundreds of years, never feeling safe and always at the mercy of the local non-Jewish leader!

Now, let’s try to apply this to today. How have things changed now that we have Medinat Yisrael? It is the only place where we know that Jews will always be safe and will never be moved from. We can build our families and our communities there and know that we will never be kicked out or moved on again. Now that Hashem gave us back Medinat Israel a lot of the characteristics of Galut, always being on the run – have disappeared.

(You can tell the chanichim a parable- it is said that Jews always played the violin during history. Why? Because it is a Galut instrument. When the next pogrom comes, or when the next expulsion comes, you can put it in its case and run away with it. This is unlike a piano, which you cannot take with you. Now that we have Medinat Israel we can invest in being a “piano-playing” people.)

Ask the chanichim if we think this feeling of Jews always being on the run, always being persecuted exits today. How does America fit into the picture? Are Jews truly safe in America? Yes, America is different then a shtetl in the 1800’s, but are we truly safe in America? Look at all the places we thought were safe for Jews up until a little while ago. France, England, Canada, all these places have crazy anti-Semitism, in France you are not even supposed to wear a Kippah in public! Ask the chanichim, could it be that the fact that America is different is because the State of Israel exists? Bring up the example of the Raid on Entebbe and how now, having a Jewish Army always exists to protect Jews and Jewish interest around the world.

A mistake of Jews throughout history has been to say “Berlin is our Jerusalem”, or Teaneck or Monsey. We say that this place is different, nothing can happen here. But really Jews will always be unsafe and always be moving from place to place when they are in the galut in chutz la’aretz. Only in Israel can we live securely in a land that is ours.

Conclusion: Galut was a time where the Jews were never safe in one place, and always were persecuted and having to move from place to place. Today having the State of Israel helps offset some aspects of Galut, as we are always safe to build a permanent home there, free of persecution, which we can never be 100% sure of in any other place (even America!).