Sheri Hebrew Lesson 3/24
Dear Hay-ers,
You may have heard or read by now that our Shinshinim, Keren-Or and Ori, returned to Israel. I know you all really enjoyed and looked forward to the weeks when you spent our first 45 minutes with Ori. We will all miss Ori and Keren-Or, though we understand their need to be home with their families during this epidemic.
Since none of us got to say goodbye properly, or express our appreciation to them, If any of you would like to send a message to Ori or Keren-Or, send it to me and I’ll send it along to them.
If any of you want to be in touch with me, I miss you and would love to hear from you. Even if it doesn’t have to do with Hebrew, let me know how you’re doing. I send you and your families my best and my hopes that everyone is staying healthy.
Love, Morah Sheri
Dear Hay-ers!
I miss you all and hope you and your families are all staying healthy, even if you might be going a little stir-crazy.
This week, I’m sending you a pretty challenging activity, but I have confidence that you’ll be able to do it!
First, some discussion:
I’m sending you Kaddish. It is quite hard to read and if you can read Kaddish you’ll be able to read almost anything in Hebrew.
You might wonder why I’m sending Kaddish. Yes, it is the prayer that we recite when someone dies, and for this reason, it is an important prayer to know, as it is a mitzvah to be part of a minyan to help someone when he or she or they need to recite Kaddish.
But, for our purposes right now, it is also a prayer that we recite when we conclude a course of study. Although study never really ends, and although we haven’t finished our Hebrew Primer, we are close to finishing it, so we would recite Kaddish together to celebrate the awesomeness of learning together.
An interesting understanding is that we recite Kaddish when someone dies because that person has “completed” his or her or their course of study on earth (a person’s life being considered “study” and learning), and he or she or they can no longer recite it themselves, so we recite it for them.
1. So, try your hand at reading the words of Kaddish. Go slowly and take a little bit at a time.
2. Next: you know how lots of English words have many forms? Let’s take “corona” for example! Words like: “crown” and “coronation” are related in meaning. Well, Hebrew words have various forms also. For example:
The Hebrew word: קָדוֹשׁ
which means “holy” has many forms. Look at the 2nd word in Kaddish (Kaddish is already a different form of Kadosh). Do you see the last 3 letters of the 2nd word? Do you see that they are Kuf, Daled, Shin? That is the root of the word Kadosh.
So, here’s the challenge: Find as many Power Words as you can hidden inside Kaddish! You may need to pull out your orange Power Word card, but I’ll attach another here for you. Here’s a hint: I found 37! (and I’m not sure I found them all)!
Have fun. Don’t get frustrated. Think of it as a Power Word treasure hunt. Think of yourself as a detective.
I’ll see you next week with more Hebrew fun and challenges! Morah Sheri