Topic: BNEI-AKIVA what & why?

Written by: Chani and Reut, Cleveland

Goal: that the CHANICHIM will understand what are BNEI-AKIVA’s main ideals and why r they coming

Suggested Age: Taf or Aleph (depending on at what age your snif starts

Suitable for Shabbat

Materials: a string with one side as Torah and one side as Avodah, pieces of paper with different youth movements written on each one

Instructions:

1. Choose two chanichim and give them two skits for them to act:

One about a person that his whole life is dedicated to learning TORAH and the other thinks that work is what you should focus in. / instead of acting, you can show two pictures and tell their ideology – one torah only, and the other avoda. (Make up a story, names, etc’…)       

2. The chanichim will vote to the person that seems to be the ideal Jew and will have to justify their opinions.

3. The madrich will reach to the conclusion that torah and avoda are both equally important - so what should we really do? How can we do both?

4. The madrich will put a string on the floor. On one side of the string put a picture or a sign that represent avoda (work.) and on the other side will be torah. The kids will asked to place themselves on the string between torah and avoda wherever they think the ideal has to be. (Closer to the torah or avoda or in the middle).

5. Discussion:

        *Every chanich will be requested to explain his    

             Choice.

         *Isn’t the ideal way some kind of a compromise?

         *Do you think that our life should be separated   

          To half of the time avoda and the other part for    

          Torah?

    Madrich summery: bnei akiva’s “torah and avoda” way, is a different way! It is not any kind of a compromise- it takes more efforts and work, than just dividing our life 50 / 50 between torah and avoda. Every step in our life, including the avoda should be done from the torah point of view, and the best place to live torah and avoda to its best as a nation, is ISRAEL!      

6.  So…  why are we coming to Bnei Akiva? (Specifically)

Spread on the floor many names of youth movements and ask the chanichim to put them in order from first to last according to what reflects are values to the best.