“How many of you have ever heard your parents or grandparents say, ‘When I was your age, I?’” and all the hands went up.”How many of you have ever heard a rabbi say, ‘That reminds me of a story?’” and the adults laughed and all the hands went up.
“How many of you have sat year after year at seders, telling the same story over and over?” Again, all the hands went up.
I was asking a group of 4th through 8th graders those questions this morning in preparation for a B’zalel retreat. We are teaching the arts program next weekend and I’m in charge of storytelling. I went on and said, “One of the best things about being Jewish is telling stories. The Torah only gives us so much and it is up to us to fill in the blanks.”
I then used the wonderful book When The Beginning Began to show how the story of Genesis can be filled in with all sorts of detail and dialogue that isn’t in the Torah. Last week I was scared to spend a weekend with the kids, but now I’m getting really excited.
I get to teach them about storytelling and about the Jewishness of storytelling. That totally kicks ass!
On that note–what is your favorite Jewish story? Favorite collection of Jewish stories? Favorite family tale? Favorite midrash?
I love all of the Aggadic stories in which Beruria shows up R’ Meir and/or the sages.
Whoa. Sholem from Chulent and JahFilteh. We met at a particularly rainy “Chulent” mid-Sept. Where’d you come from?
I’ve never been to Jahfilteh, though I am affiliated with the Seven Fat Cow.
Right, Seven Fat Cow and the Ruckus Shabbes crew. I enjoyed “Chulent” and your site. Nice “taitching” with Basya at Jewsapolooza, btw. Hee Hee.
Come on back to Chulent anytime you want. The crew gathers, according to established custom, every Thursday night.