Preparation: Prepare clues that can be used to lead the Chanichim to six different station in the place that your sniff takes place. At each of the place depending on how many groups you have, there should be a Madrich and a Mishana, Gemarah, Mishana Torah, Shulchan Aruch, Mishna Brurah for each group.

Time Travel through Halacha Scavenger Hunt:

Good for all ages

Preparation: Prepare clues that can be used to lead the Chanichim to six different station in the place that your sniff takes place. At each of the place depending on how many groups you have, there should be a Madrich and a Mishana, Gemarah, Mishana Torah, Shulchan Aruch, Mishna Brurah for each group.

 

(1)        R’ Yehuda HaNasi

Mishna

Skit: Welocome to Israel!! It is the year 170 C.E. and I, R’ Yehudah HaNasi have just put together the Mishna!! Torah Shebe’al Peh has been always passed down orally, from Rabbi to student, but now, especially with all the trouble the Romans have been causing, people are forgetting what their rabbis are telling them, and the whole oral torah will be lost!! So I’ve taken it on myself to write down all the halachic arguments the Rabbis had on the written torah so that no-one will forget – it’s called the Mishna. If you want a copy you need to prove that you guys can still remember things and pass them on.

Task: Broken telephone, have to get it right 3x.

(2)        Ravina and Rav Ashi

            Gemara

           

Skit: Welcome to Bavel!! It is now the year 500 C.E.! My name is Ravina, and this is R’ Ashi, and we’ve just put together the Gemara! See, every since the Mishna was written down, a couple hundrer years ago, all the later Rabbis had lots of comments and halachic arguments to add to it. But ever since the Romans exiled us, and all the Rabbis have been scattered, the only way the Gemara will be remembered is if we write it down! We’ll call it the Talmud Bavli. But I hear they’re making another version of the Gemara in Jerusalem too. But ours will be the main one that people use (its cooler!)

Task: Show us you can “figure out” gemara by figuring out the Human knot

(3)               Rambam

Mishne Torah

Skit: Welcome to Egypt! I am the Rambam, and I just wrote my book called the Mishna Torah – the 2^nd Torah. It’s a list of all the halachot in the Gemara and Mishna. Since there are so many different opinions in the Gemara, we don’t know which one to follow when we want to keep the actual mitzvah! So I wrote up this halacha book telling you simply what to do. You only need a Torah, and my halacha book and you’ll never have to look up stuff in the Gemara or Mishna again.

Task: Put things in order like I put the halachic opinions in order!

(Cut up words of brachot for mifkad and put in order)

(4)        R’ Yosef Kara and the Rama

            Shulchan Aruch and commentary of the Ramah

R’ Yosef Kara: Welcome to Tzfat in Israel in the 1500’s! To make Halacha easy  for people today, I looked at the top 3 Rabbis, and whatever the majority of them decided, I wrote down as the Halacha. It’s so clear, I called my book, the “set table”, or Shulchan Aruch!!

Rama: Yeah, it’s a great book but it only tells the halacha for Sefarrdim! What about us Ashkenazim?? So when I heard about this book, in my home in Cracow Poland, I wrote a “table cloth” or Mapah for the Shulchan Aruch, a commentary that tells the Halacha for Ashkenazim too!

Task: The game where you take two words that go together (like Bnei Akiva), half kids are the Ashkenazim and scream out 1 word at the same time as the other, half (sefardim) scream out the other. The kid in the middle has to guess what the word is. (Bnei Akiva).

 

(5)        Chofetz Chaim

Mishna Brura

Skit: Hi, welcome to Radin, Lithuania at the turn of the 20^th century! My name is R’ Yisrael Meir HaCohen Kagan, and you might remember from such other books as my Lashon Hara Halacha book called Chofetiz Chaim! Since the other halacha books were written, a lot more has changed in the world. Electricity and other things have been invented. How can halacha be explained on terms that the regular person can understand? My commentary to the Shulchan Aruch explains how to apply halachot to every day life in the 20^th century.

Task: Since I helped ad on another level to halacha, build a human pyramid!

(6) Everyone meet back where we had mifkad ,  standing in height order showing the halacha books you picked up in order.