Goal: Teach kids that we (Jews) can change with times, and deal with the modern world. 

 

Peulah:

This game is a version of Taboo. 

 

1. Make a bunch of cards/slips of paper. Each card has one word on the top, and a list of a few words on the bottom. 

 

2. One person from the group is shown the card. That person must describe the word on top to everybody else, but he/she may NOT actually say that word or say any of the words on the bottom. The first person from the group to guess the word on top of the card gets to be the next one to see and describe the next card.

 

Here are a few cards that you can transfer to index cards for the game:

 

Describe this word: Travel

Without saying: Car, train, plane, highway, automobile,

 

Describe: Entertainment

Without saying: TV, Movie, sports, show, broadway

 

Describe: Education

Without saying: College, high-school, professor, elementary school, textbook

 

Describe: Government

Without saying: U.S., Federal, State, President, Congress, Senate

 

Describe: War

Without saying: Missile, tank, gun, artillery, cannon, plane, commando

 

Describe: Music

Without saying: CD, Radio, tape, guitar, piano, stereo

 

Describe: Study

Without saying: Book, test, quiz, exam, finals, notes

 

Describe: Rabbi

Without saying: Black hat, beard, synagogue, semicha

 

Describe: Israel

Without saying: El-Al, Bnei Akiva, knesset, tzahal, kibbutz, moshav

 

Describe: City

Without saying: The name of any modern major city

 

These are just ten examples. Make as many as you can think of...but make sure that you get all the “modern” words down on the “taboo” list!!

 

 

Sicha:

 

The point of this game was to describe a thing or idea that has existed for centuries without describing its modern expression. Travel without cars, entertainment without TV etc. Try to discuss (depending on how discussion oriented your sniff is) that Judaism can deal with all these things because the concept has existed for centuries. Even though there were no cars in the time of the Gmara, there was travel; event though there were no TV’s, there was entertainment. 

 

So…Judaism can deal with TV because it has laws about entertainment; Judaism can deal with the President because it has laws about the government; Judaism can deal with tzahal because it has laws about Israel and the Jewish nation. 

 

Ask kids for examples:

What is an example of a Jewish law about tzahal? Perhaps that soldiers can break shabbat under certain circumstances. So a modern army applies an ancient law of pikuach nefesh. The more examples kids give the better!!

 

The point in all this is to show that Judaism has ways of dealing with new modern things even though it is an ancient religion.