This is a completed edited piece, (written by a client):

Title of Lesson: Why we have the Seder

Objectives of the Lesson:

1. To comprehend why we look back at the story of the slavery and redemption from Egypt every year.

2. To understand how the customs and mitzvos at the seder help us remember the exodus.

3. To realize what the holiday means for us personally now.

Materials:

·         The students will bring the siddur for the introduction of the lesson

·         Will cut out individual topics of Pesach from gateway to Judaism Chapter 11.

·         Laptop, projector and wires

·         Costumes and action papers for acting.

·         Whiteboard and dry erase markers to write ideas students say, and for “Chalkdown” from atozteachers.com.

Introduction: Students will be asked to open siddur to the page of “Six Remembrances”. They will be instructed, that based on the time of year in addition to where the teacher asks them to open to in the siddur, they should try to figure out what topic they will discussing in class. For this session, “What is it that puts us into exile?”, now will be the opening sentence.

Procedures and Content:  Open siddur to page of “Six Remembrances”, and look for clues as to which topic we will be discussing.

·         Introduce topic- Remind the students that Yoseph went down to Egypt and became second in command to King Pharaoh. This is later followed by the story of how his brothers came down to Egypt and lived in peace until they would end up becoming slaves. This will be followed by all details of how difficult and dramatic the change was. Finally, the students will be told that after much suffering, God redeemed the Jews with many open miracles. Continue on with how they were brought out of Egypt to Mount Sinai and they were given the Torah.

Watch parts of video for visual learning: http://www.chabad.org/kids/article_cdo/aid/2166180/jewish/Out-of-Egypt.htm

·         Bring up the question of why we remind ourselves of all the details, what does it symbolize? The answers will be written on the board.

·         Play a game where one student at a time will come up and receive a paper with scene or character that they should act out. They may use a costume to support their actions. The examples will include why certain minhagim are done on Pesach. Some examples will include: “You are a slave for Pharaoh”, “You are drinking wine comfortably and joyfully”, “You are leaving Mitzrayim in haste”, “You are cleaning and searching for chametz”, “You are at a seder”, “You are humming Pesach tunes”, “You are shecting the Korban Pesach”, “You are crying (from slavery)”. After the rest of the class guesses what the student is acting as and placing the why with the minhag, the student reads a paragraph or two from Gateway to Judaism to discover extra details as to how and why we commemorate the story.

Game adapted from: http://www.onestopenglish.com/teenagers/skills/games/teenagers-game-4-mime-games/146732.article

Although it will be copies of the book, some of the information included will be:

1.      Matzah is a poor man’s food. Poor people have no time to wait, and it will keep them full for a longer period of time. It reminds us of the matzah the Jewish people ate after leaving Egypt. Even at the moment of redemption they were powerless and it was only through God that they were saved. Understanding this whole concept fills us with humbleness and we say thanks to God.

2.      Chometz hints to the idea of existence of the evil inclination, and/or laziness. Bread is made through a very slow process, as opposed to the matzah that is made in 18 minutes- which hints to humility. Bread is made by taking something that is nothing and creating it into something new. Cleaning to make sure there is no chometz in our homes on Pesach and not eating chometz is reminding us to “clean” ourselves well from the negativity.

3.      Prayers and story discussed at the Seder are to insure that the tales will not be forgotten throughout the generations. We sing praises and give thanks to God at the Seder for all the incredible miracles that were done. The most important factor of telling the story is that it is to be told in a way that each person understands it on his/her level and feels like he/she was literally taken out of Egypt. Although it’s a natural thing to thank God, it is a mitzvah on Pesach to do so.

4.      The Korban Pesach can no longer be accomplished because we no longer have the Beit Hamikdash; however this is why we have a shank bone on our Seder plate. This is to commemorate how the Jewish people took one of the Egyptian’s gods, a sheep and slaughtered it. This allowed for the freedom from the spiritual downgrade that Egypt was.

5.      Maror is on the Seder plate and eaten to remind on the difficult work that the Jewish people completed over many years.

6.      Four cups of wine or grape juice are to be drunk because it is considered a sign of freedom. One should drink leaning to left, because it is a sign of comfort and joy of freedom.

7.      The Seder plate has 5 items on it. Egg, maror, charoset, chazeret, shank bone, and three matzos, each corresponding to another part of the story of Pesach. The egg symbolizes Korban Chagigah, maror reminds us of the hard labor, the charoset reminds us of the bricks and mortar, chazeret is indicative of the sandwich that was eaten in times of the Beit Hamikdash, the shank bone is for the Korban Pesach, and the matzos to remind us of what the Jews ate in haste as they were leaving Egypt.

·         After reading the notes given, we will go on to discussing why these seemingly trivial items are used as opposed to a community wide event. The idea is that the big events are effective for a short term period. Shortly thereafter, a person can move on without having been affected at all long term and in a sincere style. These items- the maror, charoset, the matzah… are purposely used because it is the details as well as the personal effects completed yearly that can make the difference in a real sensory manner. 

·         The lesson then continues on how to make it personal for each person, and discuss what the modern day “Pharaoh” or “slavery” is in each person. These days we do not have a real Pharaoh, but he manifests in the challenges that make it difficult to do what is right. Pharaoh is the voice wants us to make a poor choice or give excuses when asked to do a task. We are slaves to physical pleasures that distract us, such as phones, fashion, video games, and the like from doing the right thing. When we do what is right, we break through our personal slavery and Pharaoh, and experience a personal exodus. In Hebrew, the word for Egypt is “Mitzrayim” which comes from the word “meitzarim”- limitations.

Taken from: http://bit.ly/1LjyvMV

·         Ask for examples from the students of how we can have our own limitations and personal freedoms. Example: When Mom asks me to clean up, if I make an excuse then it is like my little Pharaoh, but when I clean up it is like my exodus.

Closure: Although the story of Pesach happened many years ago, it has some exceptional lessons that we can learn from it even today. We should serve God with humility and be thankful for the freedom we have to do so and follow his commandments. We must strive to always do better and pass our limitations.

Assessment: Have the students fill out worksheet that asks them to fill in summaries of what was read aloud in class. Play a game called “Chalkdown”. The way to play the game is by splitting the class into two teams. Each student gets a turn to come up. The teacher asks a question on material learned, and whoever writes the answer on the board first scores a point for his/her team. Whichever team has the most points is the winning team. This game is used to assess how well the students absorbed the information, and what needs to be reviewed for the future.

This game was adapted from : http://forums.atozteacherstuff.com/index.php?threads/ok-everybody-share-your-best-classroom-games.31626/