With Passover and Easter in the next few coming days, many families with members of different faiths will come together to celebrate these holidays. Sometimes difference can make people feel separated, but often love spans this divide.
In Papa Jethro by prolific children's author and rabbi, Deborah Bodin Cohen, the book's only characters, a grandfather and his young granddaughter, are of different religious faiths:
Rachel and Grandpa Nick have just about everything in common. They like to play with model trains, paint with watercolors, and go to the park. But Rachel goes to synagogue and Grandpa Nick goes to church. “Shouldn’t we have the same religion?” Rachel asks. “You are my grandpa.”
In answer, her Grandpa Nick tells her the biblical story of Jethro, Moses’ non-Jewish father-in-law, whose relationship with his grandson Gershom is a model of love and respect. With warm watercolor artwork and a gentle storyline, Papa Jethro sensitively looks at the issue of interfaith families and reminds us that the Bible has timely lessons for every generation. Stories can have the power to connect children and grandparents in special ways. This book would be a lovely way for a non-Jewish grandparent to connect with their Jewish grandchildren, making real Grandpa Nick's sentiment to Rachel: “I love you just like Papa Jethro loved Gershom.”
Here's a recipe from the book to get you started eating lots of veggies!
Spicy Cucumber and Garlic Salad
4 servings
Ingredients
3 large cucumbers, unpeeled
3 garlic cloves
1 small hot red pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
Step-by-Step Preparation
1. Cut the cucumbers into small cubes. Place in a jar.
2. Peel and finely chop the garlic cloves. Add them to the jar.
3. Cut open the hot pepper (you may want to wear gloves) and remove the seeds. Finely chop the pepper, and add to the jar.
4. Pour the oil into the jar. Cover and shake. Refrigerate for several hours. Serve cold.
Thanksgiving has much in common with the festival of Sukkot. The Bible was an important book for the early American settlers. They named their children Benjamin, Joshua, and Rachel after people in the Bible, and called their towns Sinai, Canaan, and Jordan after places in the Bible. The pilgrims compared their voyage to America to the Exodus from Egypt. The Atlantic Ocean was their Red Sea, and America was their Promised Land. In 1621, when they gathered to give thanks for a good harvest after a hard year in the New World, the settlers were reminded of the Biblical holiday of Sukkot, and created their own harvest festival.
Is your celebration of Sukkot similar to your celebration of Thanksgiving? How?
Excerpt from All AboutSukkot by Judyth Groner and Madeline Wikler
When is the last time you visited a zoo? It’s a terrific place for stimulating curiosity and learningsince there’s so much to see. Maybe your kids love watching the lions, the orangutans or tropical fish (myfavorites are the prairie dogs).When you think about it, a zoo is actually quite incredible, with its diversity of animals and the range of ecosystems we rarely encounter. In fact, the modern zoo is not completely unlike the biblical story of Noah and his animals!
Author Tami Lehman-Wilzig challenges all of us to understand Bible stories through the lens of the natural world in her new book Green Bible Stories for Children, in which she presents eight Bible stories and provides kids with neat activities and experiments for them to try. In one story, she explores Noah and the Ark by introducing the idea of biodiversity.She suggests visiting the zoo and asking the zookeeper:
·Are different animals paired in the same habitats?
·What and when do they eat? Do they graze on their own or are they given animal feed?
And she also suggests bringing along art supplies to sketch animals in an open habitat so children can notice animals, insects, birds, feeding spots, trees, shrubbery and more.This is a great basis for talking to kids about how the Bible teaches us to respect the earth and all its inhabitants!
In elementary school, I returned to the library every week to ask for another blue paperback volume in the Childhood of Famous Americans series. As a child, I never tired of reading about people who overcame obstacles and grew up to do important things. Now, I am a big fan of famous rejection stories, which I tape above my computer monitor. My current favorite is the story of Madeleine L’Engle. Her Newbery Award winning A Wrinkle in Time was rejected by 26 different publishers before going on to its current success of selling 15,000 copies a year since its publication in 1962.
Role models inspire us. They give us courage to pursue our dreams. And no book is more loaded with role models than the Bible. These stories have resonated for thousands of years because they give us examples of strong individuals who struggled to find meaning in their lives. The heroes in the Bible frequently had to choose their own conscience over the customs and moral attitudes of their surrounding society. In my picture book, Abraham’s Search for God, a young Abraham questions the traditions of his father. He says “Idols have mouths but cannot speak to me. They have ears but cannot hear me. How can an idol help me?” His father’s abrupt answer, “Don’t question our ways,” does not deter this thoughtful, inquisitive young man. He continues his spiritual quest to learn “Who made the clouds? Who made the flowers?” finally coming to the monotheistic conclusion that made him the father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
But Abraham’s story doesn’t end with a declaration of belief. Together, with his wife, Sarah, Abraham teaches other families to worship one invisible God “too powerful to be made into a simple statue of wood or stone.” In my book, Sarah Laughs, I explore Abraham’s life from Sarah’s point of view. When she learns that her husband has heard God’s voice, she knows it means they must leave their comfortable home. Her response is simply, “We must go.” Through years of wandering, Sarah happily supports her husband and maintains a tent with a welcoming lamp and bread for all who visit. But she feels impatience and disappointment, too. Only in old age, after years of longing, does she finally receive what she wants most—a child. Her life embodies the hope that our dreams will come true, not matter how long they are delayed. This kind of story and character speaks to the psyche of both children and adults. As a writer, I have enjoyed re-visiting my favorite Bible stories and being renewed by them. In Benjamin and the Silver Goblet, I had the opportunity to imagine what it was like for Benjamin, the youngest of Jacob’s twelve sons. When he learns that his older brothers betrayed the family by selling their brother Joseph into slavery, he fears for his own safety. On a trip to Egypt, Benjamin is falsely accused of stealing the governor’s silver goblet. Will Jacob’s sons abandon a family member again? No, Judah defends Benjamin, offering his own life. The governor reveals his true identity as Joseph, and the family is reunited. It is the quintessential story of remorse and repentance. Remembering Benjamin’s plight, I can believe that people can change. They don’t have to make the same mistake twice. It helps me if I have trouble in my own life, forgiving a loved one who has wronged me.
The fourth story in this series, Miriam in the Desert, will be released in the fall of 2010. In this picture book, I follow Miriam and her grandson, Bezalel, as they witness the miracles in the desert. Once again, I was fascinated by a Biblical heroine, facing one hardship after another with fortitude and faith. I only hope that if I am ever in a difficult situation, I can be as comforting and courageous as Miriam. And I hope that when parents read my Bible stories with their children, both generations will find role models to guide and inspire their lives.
Check out the book trailer for Jacqueline's Bible series!
As an adult, it's easy to slip into what I call "fact-mode," accepting the truth, being serious, reading the newspaper and thoughtful books, working hard, and being responsible. But what about your sense of wonder? Imagination? Ability to question the world around you? What about the spiritual side of yourself? Sometimes, one needs to step out of "fact-mode" and think more like a child.
Amy Meltzer's latest post at Homeshuling got me thinking about the big questions about God that kids ask their parents and teachers. Who is God? Where is God? Why does God make bad things happen? While adults seem like wise, all-knowing beings, a lot of the time we're still figuring it out for ourselves. Ideas about God can take a long time to develop and are deeply personal, and can't be explained as easily as why the sky is blue or disproving the theory of "boy cooties." How does one begin to talk about God with a child?
I like this article by Rabbi David Wolpe from Interfaith Family because he emphasizes that in Judaism, there's no one idea about God. There are many different interpretations. In discussions with children, even the grown-ups can learn something.
Rabbi Wolpe lists some thoughtful tips about how to talk to your kids about God, including the importance of telling stories. Many of our books are based on midrash, which is a form of interpretation of the Torah that fills in the gaps that a plain reading of the text leaves out. Bible stories like Abraham's Search for God and The Seventh Day use midrash to help form an answer to a child's questions about God. To go along with Rabbi Wolpe's article, reading stories like these and asking your child what he or she thinks can help kick off the discussion and grow your child's own understanding about God.
What about when bad things happen? The book Where Do People Go When They Die?tries to answer that very question in a simple and open-ended way so that families and educators can read it with a child. Though it's a difficult question to answer, this book provides comfort in a time of uncertainty.
Just as children grow up and form their own ideas about God and the world, we learn that it's enriching for us as adults to step out of "fact-mode" and pose some of the same questions to ourselves.
In answer, her Grandpa Nick tells her the biblical story of Jethro, Moses’ non-Jewish father-in-law, whose relationship with his grandson Gershom is a model of love and respect. With warm watercolor artwork and a gentle storyline, Papa Jethro sensitively looks at the issue of interfaith families and reminds us that the Bible has timely lessons for every generation. 
