Goal: That the Chanichim will understand that being a hero is not about how strong you are, we can be heroes every day in our life, all the people that we are looking up to became what they are thanks to the little things that they taught themselves to do.

Theme: Gevurah

Topic: individual heroism

Written by: Chani and Reut

Being A Hero

Goal: That the Chanichim will understand that being a hero is not about how strong you are, we can be heroes every day in our life, all the people that we are looking up to became what they are thanks to the little things that they taught themselves to do.

# Begin with an arm-wrestle tournament between all the chanichim. after they finish ask them who Is the hero here? Probably they will answer that the winner is the hero. We will come back to this at the end.

# Read the Chanichim the Mishna a  "איזהו גיבור? הכובש את יצרו" and explain them that being a hero doesn’t necessarily mean to be the strongest or the toughest. It is much more than this. Being a real hero means to concord desires and doing the right thing even if it is hard and requires sacrifice.  

-Give out the notes with the words: “hero” “not hero” and than do the vote.

# Put the stories on the floor. Every two or three Chanichim take one story and read it to the rest of the group (or read it to them in case they don’t know how to read…). After every story do a vote with the Chanichim and decide if the main character in the story is a hero or not.

# Conclusion: yes, the people we read about are heroes, but they all had a normal life with nothing special, just like us. These people built themselves by doing the right thing even if it is small and may seam insignificant. If we live the right way and base our choices on things that are important for us, even if they look small and annoying like helping mom and our little brother, and many other examples, when something bigger will come up, we will naturally know what to do.

For younger groups – you can just focus on the fact that each and every one of us can be a hero- every day. It’s not about strength…

!!!!!Don’t forget to connect to Chanuka and the arm-wrstling contest.!!!!!

I woke up in the morning, getting out of my warm comfortable bed, in a snowy winter day the first minute the alarm clock ringed.

The fire stroke on the bus Dudu was in and spread quickly.

The same time, Dudu tried to rescue Rachel Weiss and two of her children from the burning bus. “I was running between the seats” he recalls “and I saw a woman siting on the floor and screaming. ‘Come with me, I can get you out’ but she refused to come and just repeated ‘my children, my children…’ I took a breath of air through a slightly opened window and told the woman again ‘come with me, I found a way out’. I pulled her hand, but she wouldn’t move. I felt like my hands were melting and I’m running out of air. I looked at my hands while I was waiting for the woman and saw they were burning…  I heard the woman yelling “Shma Yisrael” and understood there is nothing more to be done in the bus… I threw my weapon through the window and yelled for help”

Dudu was hospitalized in “Hadasa” in Yerushalaim and after 7 weeks of fighting for his life, he dyed from his wounds.

Hanna and her seven sons were taken to Antiyochus, Auntiyochus commanded her six older sons to bow in front of the statue. Since they refused he ordered to execute them. They all were killed in front of Hanna – their mum. He tried to convince the young son to bow in nice ways, but he refused. Hanna encouraged her son to stand strong and disobey the czar and to overcome every torture and convincing attempts by Antiyochus. The king ordered to execute the youngest son as well. Hanna remained standing by her sons’ bodies and preyed to God that will take her soul that his enemies couldn’t torture her. 

The night between the 3rd and 4th of July 1976 a few I.D.F. solders were driving a few vehicles on their way to the airport of Entebbe. The goal: to free more than 100 Israeli hostages, captured by Arab and German terrorists along with Uganda’s seaport.  The commander of the Israeli releasing force was general Yoni Netanyahu. Yoni was killed during the mortal battle wail leading his solders.

Michael had a hard time in the beginning… hours on hours he tried to get through to Jay – an autistic kid.  The challenge was great… at first the efforts he put didn’t make any difference. Yet slowly but surly Michael felt his whole life is influenced. He didn’t do well in school and spent less time with his friend since he was so dedicated to Jay. All his friends didn’t want to be with him and laughed at him for the useless work he does instead of being in the basketball team he liked so much. He had to quit after the couch made him choose between them both before the championship.

After a year of intensive work a great progress was achieved  

Dassy was born in Hayfa in 1977. She had a perfectly normal childhood. Dassy fought cancer for a few years. She believed that being happy and having strong self-discipline and desire to live have an important part of getting better. While her sickness she was a counselor in camps for sick kids, trying to make them happy.

They were dealing with live grenades. Suddenly Natan Elbaz a new immigrant – solder in I.D.F. saw that one of the grenades was loose and about to explode within the base. Knowing what he has to do, Natan took the grenades in his hands, ran far from his friends and dropped himself on it to make sure no one will be heart. He dyed on the spot.

My mother asked me to wash the dishes. It was my brothers’ turn tonight but he said he had things to do and left. I guess I could have said so as well, but then my mother will be the one to do the job. That night I washed all the dishes…