Tag Archives: journeys

Ithika – The Value of Journeying

The Value of Journeying

The following text on Ithaca extends these themes with the idea that the journey, rather than the arriving, is part of the value. Can you think of times where the experience of the Journey is more important than arriving at the journey’s destination?

This poem by Constantine Cavafy is an imaginative interpretation of Odysseus’ return to Ithika after the Trojan war. (Odysseus is also known as Ulysses). Following the fall of Troy, it takes Odysseus ten years to complete his long journey back home to Ithaka. This journey is told in The Odyssey, one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. The poem is commonly dated around 700 BCE.

Ithaca (in Greek, Ιθάκη, Ithaki) is an island in the Ionian Sea, in Greece

http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=74&cat=1

Nechama Leibowitz – Circles of Attachment

Nehama Leibowitz: from Studies in Bereshit, pp.113

“לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ”

“get thee out of your country, and from your birthplace, and from your father’s house…”

Commentators have remarked on the unusual order. The verse should have read, in the ordinary way: “מבית אביך, ממולדתך ומארצך” (from your father’s house, your birthplace and from your country.”) This is the logical sequence, since a person first leaves home, then his birthplace and then his fatherland

The commentary הכתב והקבלה (Haktav Vehakabala)* suggests that there we are referring to a spiritual rather than physical withdrawal, beginning with the periphery and ending with the inner core. The withdrawal from one’s birthplace is not such a cruel wrench as the cutting of one’s connection with one’s family. First, therefore, Abraham was bidden to sever his connection with his country, then his city and finally the most intimate bond, that of home.

*Haktav Vehakabala: Was written by Rabbi Yaakov Tzevi Mecklenburg, a German Jewish scholar of the 19th century. Rabbi Mecklenburg served as Rabbi of Koenigsburg, East Prussia for 35 years (1831-65). Haketav Vehakabbalah was first published in 1839.

Discussion Plan: Leaving Home – PS

Discussion Plan: Leavings

Do you think we all have to ‘leave home’ in order to grow up? Explain.
Avram took his extended family with him – so what was he really leaving behind?
If you go away but you still think about people a lot, and text them/e-mail them, have you left them behind?
If you still hear them speaking to you – telling you what to do – have you left them behind?
In growing up – do you think the important thing is what you are leaving, or what you are heading towards?
Are you attached to places as well as people? Describe these places.
Which do you think would be more difficult – to leave individual people, or to leave your language and culture?

Discussion Plan: Leaving Home -HS

Discussion Plan: Leavings
Do we all have to ‘leave home’ in order to grow up? Explain.
Avram took his extended family with him – so what was he really leaving behind?
Is there a difference in growing up between leaving your parents and leaving your brothers/sisters? If so, what is it?
If you go away but you still think about people a lot, and text them/e-mail them, have you left them behind?
If you still hear them speaking to you – telling you what to do – have you left them behind?
In growing up – do you think the important thing is what you are leaving, or what you are heading towards?
Are you attached to places as well as people? Describe these places.
Do you think that places are tied to our identity in the same way as people are? Explain.
Which do you think would be more difficult – to leave individual people, or to leave your language and culture?

Activity: Circles of attachment

Exercise: Circles of Attachment

What in your life are you most attached to? Think of your home – if you were to leave home, what would be most difficult to leave behind? What not as difficult?

Draw three circles.

In the center put the thing it would be most difficult to leave if you were to leave home, then move out in the circles with things that would be less difficult to leave (from hardest to less hard).

Pick a different community you are part of (school? sports team?) – what would be hardest to leave behind if you were leaving that community?

Leading Idea: Thinking about Journeys

Leading Idea: Thinking about Journeys and Journeying

The books of Bereshit and Shemot are full of journeys. Several ideas are explored here that prepare students for the pieces of narratives that they will encounter. In this regard the first set of discussion plans and activities can act as induction exercises as well as being helpful as tools to explore more deeply questions students raise. Attention is drawn here to three aspects of journeying that can prepare students for thinking about this parashah and the parshiot that follow.

(i) The meaning of journeying – what makes something a journey and what does journeying involve?

(ii) Ancient Journeys – reminding ourselves that journeys weren’t always taken in a car – What earlier modes of transport were there? What reasons led people to travel? What might the journey look like?

(iii) Figuring out the larger context from the details we know. What are some of the plausible inferences we might make given the details we are told?

Activity: Ancient and Historic Journeys

Activity: Ancient and Historic Journeys

On a piece of paper, each person writes down:

A destination,
A mode of transport,
The reason you are going on the journey
The year the journey takes place

N.B. You must take your journey in the past – some time in the last 5,000 years! (when you set the date, make sure the other details – such as transport – are appropriate!).

To Play:

Put all the pieces of paper in a container.
Get into pairs and then each pair pulls out one sheet from the container.
In pairs, act out what you would take with you and what the journey would be like.

Exercise: Journeys

Exercise: Journeys

This exercise strengthens our reasoning skills by asking us to reason toward the best explanation. If someone sets out with these items (amongst others) on a journey, what might you infer regarding:

Where they might be going;
What they might be planning to do;
How they plan on getting there.

Sunscreen, thick boots, compass, a water bottle and a back pack with a box of worms
Shorts and T-shirt, a leather jacket, gloves, goggles, a beach towel and book.
A can of gasoline, bottle of water, spare tire, MP3 player, and horse in a trailer
A 50ft rope, pegs, hammer, hard helmet, 4 wheel drive
Iced chocolate cake, change of clothes, a CD wrapped in wrapping paper, train schedule, candles

As a variation, in pairs prepare to tell the story of this journey to the rest of the group.

Lech L’cha (Bereshit 12:1-5) בְּרֵאשִׁית

Download the text here: Word PDF

Bereshit 12:1-5	בְּרֵאשִׁית יב :א-ה
1. God said to Avram, “Go, take yourself from your land and from where you were born, and from your father’s house to the land that I will let you see:	א וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-אַבְרָם, לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ ,וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ .אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ
2. I will make you a great nation And I will bless you, I will make your name great. And be a blessing.	,ב וְאֶעֶשְׂךָ, לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל ,וַאֲבָרֶכְךָ וַאֲגַדְּלָה שְׁמֶךָ וֶהְיֵה, בְּרָכָה
3. I will bless those people who bless you And those that curse you, I will curse; And all the families of the earth shall find blessing through you [by way of you.”	,ג וַאֲבָרְכָה, מְבָרְכֶיךָ ;וּמְקַלֶּלְךָ, אָאֹר .וְנִבְרְכוּ בְךָ, כֹּל מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה
4. Avram went, as God had told him, and Lot went with him. And Avram was seventy-five years old when he went out of Haran.	,ד וַיֵּלֶךְ אַבְרָם, כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר אֵלָיו יְהוָה ;וַיֵּלֶךְ אִתּוֹ, לוֹט ,וְאַבְרָם, בֶּן-חָמֵשׁ שָׁנִים וְשִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה .בְּצֵאתוֹ, מֵחָרָן
5. Avram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother’s son, and all their belongings that they had gained, and the people they had made their own in Haran; and they went to go to the land of Canaan.	ה וַיִּקַּח אַבְרָם אֶת-שָׂרַי אִשְׁתּוֹ ,וְאֶת-לוֹט בֶּן-אָחִיו ,וְאֶת-כָּל-רְכוּשָׁם אֲשֶׁר רָכָשׁוּ ,וְאֶת-הַנֶּפֶשׁ, אֲשֶׁר-עָשׂוּ בְחָרָן; וַיֵּצְאוּ .לָלֶכֶת אַרְצָה כְּנַעַן, וַיָּבֹאוּ, אַרְצָה כְּנָעַן

Exercise: The Multiple Meanings of “Lech L’cha”

Exercise: The Multiple Meanings of “Lech L’cha”

Read the sentence on the left – which kind of “Go Forth!” do you think is invoked here? You can mark more than one, but make sure you can explain what you mean in each case. If you mark more than one, show which one you think might be more central than the others (if this is the case).

	Go forth – leave where you are (for another place)	Go for yourself! (your own benefit)	Go to your yourself (to greater self-understanding)	Go – to the person you will become
Sam: “The camping trip will be good for you – you should go!”
Kate: “I’m going to miss you when you leave, but I know the job in Boston pays a higher salary.”
Eli: “I went on this retreat to get in touch with the ‘real me’ – it was very cool. I learned lots about myself.
Zaitlan: “Going to summer camp last year was really important – I really became more self-confident and independent.
Esti: “We are moving to Israel– I don’t want to go, but my parents say it is the only place we can truly be ourselves. But I am my best self right here.
Ronie: “In my head I am such a different person than people around me see – I think the only way I can make that person come out is to start over somewhere else.”
David: “Getting up on Sunday morning for Synagogue School is not fun, but I know that I’ll appreciate the fact that I made this effort when I get older.”

Go back to the Biblical text – for each of these different forms of “Lech l’cha” – how does that change your reading of Avram’s journey?

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