Kids

Vayeishev Vayeishev Word Search

Brothers fighting – sadly this has been the case throughout the book of Bereishis although this week we are talking about brothers who were all tzaddikim.

Yaakov had made a nice coloured cloak for his son Yosef, and Yosef had dreams which upset his brothers. In the first dream the brothers all have a sheaf of straw and the sheaf’s bow down to Yosef’s sheaf. In the second dream, the sun, moons and stars all bow down to Yosef.

The brothers sell Yosef as a slave and after a long journey he ends up in Potiphar’s house. He is so successful there and very popular, but Potiphar’s wife is a troublemaker and Yosef leaves. Sadly, he is put into jail.

Hashem is running this story though, like He directs all our lives, and not long after Yosef is thrown in jail, Pharaoh finds a fly in his wine! Horror of all horrors! And then he finds a stone in his bread! Wow! Both baker and butler end up in the same prison as Yosef and, after they both have disturbing dreams, they ask Yosef to explain them to him.

He explains that Pharaoh will let the butler back on the job, but poor baker will not be allowed back.

Indeed, three days later, its Pharaoh’s birthday and in a good mood, he places the butler back into his position, and baker is sent to his death. B Q E S M C A S B B A R Q W D U N O S I R P B L Z P D X J Z C O A T P D

C T R S S D T U H K R N

C G E T I H B N P U C Q U B A K E R K U I A Y S

J S M R K F C W T A O C

J Q S J I I F M O L S Z S L F U H M S U P K E M

A Y V R E P T N H T F R

H H A P U W I P A S L M

U D Z S W V L C W P W R

BAKER • BROTHERS • BUTLER • COAT • DREAMS • POTIPHAR • PRISON • YOSEF

Tangram Challenge!

Using all the shapes on the left can you make the butterfly shape on the right?

“Good afternoon girls,” said Miss Klein, striding into the room. “This week I’d like to carry on with the theme of jealousy and gratitude that we mentioned last week.

In this week’s sedra we see that Yoseph’s brothers were so jealous of him that they threw him in a pit and then sold him to passing merchants. Not only that, they then tricked Yaakov, their father, into believing that his beloved son, Yoseph, was dead.

How could they do this? These were the children of Yaakov, the future heads of the shevatim (tribes) of the Bnei Yisrael! How could they make such a big mistake?”

Miss Klein pointed to Liora and asked, “what do you think?”

“Maybe because they were so jealous of Yoseph?” Liora answered slowly.

“Exactly,” said Miss Klein. “They were jealous of Yaakov’s preferential treatment of Yoseph, especially the special coat he gave him. They were also jealous of his dreams which foretold of the brothers bowing down to Yoseph.

So now please take out your workbooks and whereas last time we focused on putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes, I want you to focus on your own life. What can you be grateful for? It can be big things like family, friends and presents, or it can be little things like food, stationary and heat.

I want you to take your books home and over the next week fill out two pages of things to be thankful to Hashem for. We will then read out some of them in class.”

“Two pages!” whispered Liora to Hadassa. “How on earth am I going to find that much to be thankful for.”

Throughout the next few days, Hadassa kept her eyes open for things to be grateful for. At first she only noticed new, exciting things, like her Auntie having a new baby and her grandma giving her some early chocolate Chanuka gelt for Shabbos nush. But as time went on, she started to notice the smaller things. The things that were so essential, she had never noticed them before. That her home had a roof above her head and had central heating, so vital now that the weather was so cold outside. She started thanking Hashem when Shloime slept through the night as it meant the whole family had a better night’s sleep. She thanked Hashem for her clean clothes every morning and that reminded her to thank her Ima for doing the laundry. Which then reminded her to thank her Ima for packing her school lunch for her each morning.

By the time Hadassa had handed in her two pages of things to be thankful for at the end of the week, she felt she was seeing the world in a whole new way. It was still hard sometimes when things didn’t go well, but she was working on it.

So the next day when Miss Klein got up and chose Hadassa’s book to read out first to the class, Hadassa was surprised but very pleased.

After Miss Klein had read it out, she looked up at the class and said “Girls, I read Hadassa’s workbook first because I can see from what she wrote that a) she has worked really hard on this, b) that she has found many things to thank Hashem for, big and small, and that c) it has also taught her to be more grateful for what the people around her do for her. This is an extra lesson that I had not even planned to teach!”

Hadassa smiled as everyone clapped and she thanked Hashem that she had such a great teacher.

Thank You Hashem