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program tu b - recreation |
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Written by WUJS Main
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Friday, 26 May 2006 |
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Re - Creation Aims:
To look at nature and whether we associate a gender to it.
To think about how we would re-create the earth and the world in accordance to our value system and ideological beliefs. Materials Requireds:
Copies of Appendix 1 - Play-dough.
Arts and crafts material - Paper and coloured markers/paint. Method:
PART A - The Story of Noah - a summary of the parasha.
- Included is a short summary of the Torah portion of Noah. You may just want to read it to ensure that everyone is familiar in general with the story of Noah, and to highlight the connection between Noah's Ark and nature. Parashat Noah is a new creation story, or a story of re-creation. It tells how, ten generations after creation, the earth had become corrupt and wicked. Therefore, the Holy One decides to destroy the earth with a flood and begin anew. Only one man, Noah, is deemed to be righteous enough to be saved. He, his family and pairs of each kind of creature are herded together in a large boat - an ark. The earth is flooded, and only those on the ark survive. After the flood, they leave the ark and begin to repopulate the earth. God then establishes a covenant, promising never to destroy the earth with a flood again. Some time later, the story is told of how the descendants of the generation of the flood decided to build a great city with a tower reaching all the way to heaven. God sees what they are doing and decided to thwart their efforts by scattering them all over the earth and causing them to speak different languages. The parashah concludes with the listing of the next generations from Noah to Abram (Abraham). PART B - Nature as female
Ask students to look at think about elements of nature and whether they have automatic gender associations with these elements of nature.
You may find that many people associate nature generally as "mother nature" and earth as "mother earth", and the sun as "male" because of its strength etc…
You may want to enter into a discussion or debate as to whether we gender nature; if we do is it a positive or negative representation. If we don't, should we? PART C - Re-creation
Noah's Ark talks about the re-creation of the earth and the earth. This part of the activity will look at the way we, as women would re-create the world if given the opportunity.
Brainstorm all the spheres that need to be re-created. If the students need a little bit of direction, you can use the story of creation in Genesis Chapter 1 - or you can guide them to list different spheres. For example, relationships between people, nature, economic structure, animals, solar system and galaxy, the environment, nature etc…
Once you have a comprehensive list then make some Play-dough to use as your building material. In Appendix 1 there are recipes for how to make play-dough
Create your world using play-dough.
The final result should be 3-D and colourful - hopefully inspiring students to actively implement some of their ideas.
Also on the WUJS site:
More Heritage and History Activities.
More Jewish Activities on various topics.
Noah - Weekly Torah Portion
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