Category Archives: HS

Discussion Plan: The Act of Laughter

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Discussion Plan: The Act of Laughter

N.B. You might like to get students to actually do the first five questions/instructions before they talk about each one.

1. Ok – try to laugh. Can you do it? If you did, where in the body did the laughter take place?

2. Can you laugh from your belly?

3. Can you laugh with your eyes?

4. Can you laugh silently?

5. Can you laugh inwardly without showing anything outside? If so, where is the laughter happening?

6. Is there a difference between laughing inwardly and laughing silently?

7. What is a difference between laughing to yourself and laughing at yourself? Does the actual laughter feel different in each case? If so, in what way is it different?

8. Can you laugh without intending to?

9. Can you laugh without being aware you are doing it?

10. Could you be mistaken about whether you are laughing?

11. Can you hold back laughter?

12. If you suppress your laughter, have you still laughed?

Exercise: Identifying Different Forms of Laughter

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Exercise: Identifying Different Forms of Laughter

What kinds of laughter are these?
What feelings might be involved in each case?

  1. Sam laughed out loud as he watched the funny movie.
  2. As soon as Yair began to speak in front of the class, he burst into laughter.
  3. As soon as Yair began to speak in front of the class, his classmates burst into laughter.
  4. When Sam told a joke in front of the class, his friends burst into laughter.
  5. Shelley laughed to herself as she remembered the funny things that had happened that day.
  6. The roller coaster ride was very scary, but at the end we laughed about it.
  7. When I was little my mother used to tickle me, and I would laugh so hard that I cried.
  8. When I realized the mistake I’d made I started to laugh.
  9. The magic trick was a huge success – all the children laughed
  10. Josh’s friends said to him: “We are not laughing at you; we are laughing with you.”

Intertextual Sources: Deciding when to leave – Reasons not to leave – MS, HS, A

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Intertextual Source:  Deciding when to leave – Reasons not to leave

Look up these further references in the Torah: What do they tell us about reasons people have for leaving and reasons they have for staying? In what ways do they involve ‘going from’ and in what ways are they a matter of ‘going to’?

  1. Bereshit 12: 10 – Abram goes to Egypt
  2. Bereshit 27: 41-45 Ya’akov leaves the family home
  3. Bereshit 30:25 – 31:18 – Ya’akov decides to leave Laban.
  4. Ruth1:12-19 – Story of Ruth. Orpha decides to leave Naomi, but Ruth decides to stay with her.

Discussion Plan: The Effects of Laughter

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Discussion Plan: The Effects of Laughter

1. Do you think laughter is infectious? If so, why?

2. Can you ever laugh too much?

3. Is laughter always pleasurable?

4. When people say “laughter is the best medicine” what do they mean? Do you think laughter can effect your health?

5. If you laugh just on the inside, have you still laughed?

6. Are there some kinds of laughter you can’t control? Are there kinds you can control?

7. Can you ‘laugh on demand’? If so, is this the same as real laughter?

8. Could you ever laugh out of fear?

9. Do you think that there are differences in the way women and men laugh or use laughter?

10. Can you use laughter as a way of controlling a situation? Explain.

Secondary Sources: Going from, Going to – MS, HS, A

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Secondary Sources: Going from — Going to

“Know from where you came, where you are going, and before whom you are destined to give a judgment and accounting.”
Mishna “Pirke Avot”, ch.3:1


American Slavery

Sethe is a central character in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. She is a slave who runs away to find freedom but is eventually caught and made to go back. This description of Sethe’s escape comes from Susan Babbitt in Impossible Dreams. It is a vivid account of the experience of leaving.

Sethe describes her escape from slavery, saying, “I did that. I had help, of course, lots of that, but still it was my doing it; me saying, Go on, and Now.” Nine months pregnant and alone, she struggles through the woods on swollen, blistered, bare feet. She does take conscious control of her life for that short, difficult time… “
Susan Babbitt in Impossible Dreams

Hagar in Art

Look at this picture –Having read the story of Hagar, is there anything in this interpretation that you find interesting?

lechlecha-ss-image

“Hagar Leaves the House of Abraham”
Rubens, Peter Paul, 1577-1640,
Flemish Baroque Painter


 
Image source: http://www.artbible.info/art/large/826.html

Intertextual Sources: Kinds of Laughter

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Intertextual Source Comparisons:  Kinds of Laughter

  • Compare Sara’s laughter with Avraham’s laughter when he is told that Sarah will have a son. Bereshit 17:17
    • Do you think it is the same kind of laughter?
  • Compare Sarah’s laughter with God’s laughter in Tehilim 34:13
    • Do you think it is the same kind of laughter?
  • Compare Sarah;s laughter at 18:12 with Sarah’ comment about laughter when Yitzak is born – Bereshit 21:6
    • Do you think this is the same kind of laughter?

Secondary Source: She’s Leaving Home – MS, HS, A

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Secondary Sources: She’s Leaving Home

Play “She’s Leaving Home” by the Beatles. Try analyzing it according to some or all of the following; (i) good reasons for leaving, (i) drawing lines, (iii) rhetorical questions, (iv) running from/running to

She’s Leaving Home Lyrics – The Beatles

Wednesday morning at five o’clock as the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her handkerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside she is free.

She (We gave her most of our lives)
is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)
home (We gave her everything money could buy)
She’s leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye

Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown
Picks up the letter that’s lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband Daddy our baby’s gone
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly
How could she do this to me.

She (We never thought of ourselves)
is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)
home (We struggled hard all our lives to get by)
She’s leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye

Friday morning at nine o’clock she is far away
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
Meeting a man from the motor trade.

She (What did we do that was wrong)
is having (We didn’t know it was wrong)
fun (Fun is the one thing that money can’t buy)
Something inside that was always denied
For so many years. Bye, bye
She’s leaving home. Bye, bye

Exercise: Recognizing Different Types of Laughter – UPS, MS, HS, A

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Exercise: Recognizing Different Types of Laughter

What kind of laughter do you think each of these pictures shows? What is the difference between them? After looking at the pictures, think about which kind(s) of laugh you think are closest to Sarah’s laugh? Try performing that laugh.

vayeira-laughter-e-image-1
vayeira-laughter-e-image-2
vayeira-laughter-e-image-3
vayeira-laughter-e-image-4
vayeira-laughter-e-image-5
vayeira-laughter-e-image-6
vayeira-laughter-e-image-7
 

All images are open source from creative commons: https://pixabay.com/

Exercise: She’s Leaving Home – MS, HS, A

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Exercise: She’s Leaving Home

Play “She’s Leaving Home” by the Beatles. Try analyzing it according to some or all of the following; (i) good reasons for leaving, (i) drawing lines, (iii) rhetorical questions, (iv) running from/running to

She’s Leaving Home Lyrics – The Beatles

Wednesday morning at five o’clock as the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her handkerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside she is free.

She (We gave her most of our lives)
is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)
home (We gave her everything money could buy)
She’s leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye

Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown
Picks up the letter that’s lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband Daddy our baby’s gone
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly
How could she do this to me.

She (We never thought of ourselves)
is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)
home (We struggled hard all our lives to get by)
She’s leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye

Friday morning at nine o’clock she is far away
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
Meeting a man from the motor trade.

She (What did we do that was wrong)
is having (We didn’t know it was wrong)
fun (Fun is the one thing that money can’t buy)
Something inside that was always denied
For so many years. Bye, bye
She’s leaving home. Bye, bye

You can download the song with permissions from here: https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tah2fx2olu73ubixghz6sumd5xm?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics&u=0#

Leading Idea: Rhetorical Questions

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Leading Idea: Rhetorical Questions
“Where have you come from? Where are you going?”

When the Angel comes to Hagar he asks: “Where have you come from? Where are you going?” Does the angel want an answer? Rhetorical questions are questions we ask when we do not expect (or even desire) an answer – rather, their intent is either: (i) to lead us along a path of reasoning (in which case the person asking the question then proceeds to answer it (e.g.; “Why am I saying this? Because…), or (ii) to point our attention to something we are already expected to know (e.g.; “Do you really want that third cookie?”).
In the case of Hagar, it seems the angel is asking the second kind of rhetorical question. So what is the angel seeking to get Hagar to think about? Hagar has left Avram’s house and she is ‘on the road to Shur’ – heading back toward her place of birth, Egypt. It looks like she is fleeing from one home and returning to another home. The question might be: “To what home should you be returning?” or “Where do you belong?”
Other cases of rhetorical questions in the Torah involve other pivotal events.

  • God to Adam and Chava in the garden of Eden, (Bereshit 9-13)
  • God to Cain “Where is Hevel your brother?” (Bereshit 4:9)
  • God to Moshe “Why are crying out to me?” (Exodus 14:15)