Jewish Beliefs, Customs, and Rituals - Essay Example

?Part B - Learning Package It is apparent that Jews are observant of their beliefs and practices. One of the most important festivals for Jews is theNew Year Celebration (Rosh Hashanah). This is a period of self-examination and resolution. According to Schauss (2009), during this time, Jews are required to look into their souls and improve their ways. Practices of this festivity include, eating apple dipped in honey. This has a symbolic meaning of wishing others a good and ‘sweet’ year (Schauss, 2009). In addition, during this period, it is believed that, this is the time that God decrees each Jew’s fate for the rest of the year. With such deliberations of the beliefs and practices advocated for during the Rosh Hashanah festival, it is apparent that, this marks a period of purifying oneself for the rest of the year. In addition, since the season is marked with several prayers, fasting and repenting, it reminds every Jew to abide by the Jewish beliefs and practices (Jacobs, 1987). In light of this, it is critical to focus on the beliefs and practices of Jews that make them repent so that they can have a good and sweet year ahead. In this regard, the concern is the relevance of beliefs and practices exhibited in the Rosh Hashanah festival, which culminates the evaluation of oneself in regard to their adherence to the beliefs and practices of Jews for the previous year. Therefore, the Rosh Hashanah festival could be argued to detail the overall beliefs and practices of Jews. This is in line with what Segal (2009) pointed out that, formal prayers guide Jews and their beliefs and practices. The following learning package aims at enlightening year 8 students with lessons designed to give insights to Jewish beliefs and practices. With differences noted between old ways of Jewish beliefs and practices and the modern Jewish beliefs and practices, it would be necessary to engage the students in activities such as discussions and collaborative investigations which essentially helps in visualizing their level of understanding about Jewish beliefs. In order to have a grasp of what the New Year festival means to the Jews, three relevant resources related to Jews beliefs and cultures have been provided to offer students with a wide range of comparison that would help them have an insight of the Jewish beliefs and practices practiced associated with Rosh Hashana. The first reading material is Essential Judaism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs & Rituals, a book by George Robinson (Robinson, 2003). Robinson highlights the importance of Jewish beliefs and practices, which are put into practice through various festivals. The festivals are symbolic interaction between Jews and God. In Rosh Hashana, Jews recite prayers. Robinson argues that prayer is at the heart of Jewish prayer, God listens to them. In order to elicit a clear understanding of such an assertion from the text, students would be requested to review the assertion, which is further elaborated by Robinson to mean that prayer is part of dialogue between man and God. In this regard, the students would be required to explain what they take of the assertion in relation to the understanding of Rosh Hashana prayers. A set of questions would be used to develop a discussion of whether the students believed that a prayer acted a means of communication between Jews and God, and whether what Jews believe in their Rosh Hashanah prayer is actually fulfilled by God. Some of the verbs used in driving points home from the book involve requesting students to read specific chapters and sentences of the book that emphasizes on the Jewish beliefs and practices in regard to the Rosh Hashanah festival. This would ensure that the students clearly understand the content of the book. In addition, students would be required to quote some sentences and phrases from the book that supports their arguments during discussions. A validation of their Jewish beliefs and practices would also be enhanced through reading the following sentence from Woodhead, (2002, p. 128): “the majority of Jews both in the US and the rest of the world are secular.” This would help them in connecting their knowledge about Jewish practices and the current reading. The second learning material would be from the video clip, Rosh Hashana (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkgmx2fCmps&list=TLPF_6zgc7qFTMWn5nTGWhswAiP8WJr-nQ), students would be required to identify events that clearly indicate that the activities in the Jewish Rosh Hashanah video clip elaborates on the Jewish beliefs and practices. This would ensure that the students synthesizes the knowledge of the events taking place in the video and has the capability of relating that with what they know about the Jewish beliefs and practices. In addition, the students would be required to engage in the prediction of what the crowd was up to when they gathered for the New Year cerebrations. This would help the students in interpreting the events in the video clip in regard to what they know about the practices of the New Year. In addition, the students would be asked to correlate the details of the video clip with the following text from Ryan (2004, p. 42) “Judaism moved from a position of relative strength within the Roman empire to one of relative weakness. The third resource is a photograph (See appendix A) that shows people participating in Rosh Hashanah festival. The students would be required to view the image and examine some aspects of the image that indicate that the activities in the photograph show that it is Jewish belief and practice or contrary to that. This is to ensure that students’ understanding of the Jewish beliefs and practices is well consolidated and that the students are in a position to tell the exact activities and meaning of the photograph. It would also be critical to subject the students in justifying the presence of women in the photograph in relation to the fact that Jewish tradition does not allow women to participate in public activities. Moreover, the critique of the photograph would be based on their understanding of events of New Year festivals. In order to link their observation and their understanding of Jewish practices, the students would be required to read Segal (2009, p. 257), which states “modern Jewish movements have generally supported equal treatment of women in religious matters.” With women present in the photography of Jews participating in the New Year cerebrations, the students would be in a position to contemplate on that. Through many considerations on different learning activities that involve analyzing Robinson’s text, the video clip and the photograph, students are subjected into a final learning activity that involves formation of groups that synthesizes and evaluates students learning outcome. This aims at drawing conclusions about their emotions and feelings towards the Jewish beliefs and practices particularly on the events that transpire during New Year festival. Some of the questions to be asked in order to evoke emotion and feelings about the Jewish practices would include; what were you surprised by? How did you feel during the activity? Where did you struggle contemplating on what you learnt? For their insights, questions asked would include; how does this connect to your own beliefs and practices? How might you do things differently? And to sum up, what is the significance of the Jewish New year festival? Does the festival conform to their beliefs and practices? Lastly, the students would also be required to respond to a question framed by Cunningham (1995, p. 92), which states “is the history of Christianity anti-Judaism. This would help the students relate the events of New Year with their knowledge about Christianity. As a result of the different learning activities that could allow class 8 students to effectively grasp Jews beliefs and practices, it is apparent that using a variety of resources and subjecting the students to different learning activities enhances their understanding of the Jews beliefs and practices. Appendix A - shows Jews during Rosh Hashanah Jews of Mumbai take part in a Tashlich prayer as they celebrate their New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and blow a shofar while others pray on the shore of the Bhaucha Dhakka. (Photo: Prashant Nadkar) Source: The Indian Express: http://www.indianexpress.com/picture-gallery/jews-celebrate-new-year/3341-1.html References Cunningham, P. (1995). Education for Sharom: religion textbooks and the enhancement of the catholic and Jewish relationship. Colleville, Minnesota: The liturgical press. Robinson, G. (2008). Essential Judaism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs & Rituals. New York: Simon and Schuster. Schauss, H. (2009). The Jewish Festivals. New York: Wildside Press LLC. Jacobs, L. (1987). The book of Jewish practice. West Orange, N.J.: Behrman House. Segal, E. (2009). Introducing Judaism. New York; London: Routledge. Woodhead, L. (2002). Religions in the modern world. New York; London: Routledge. Read More