Baal Shem Tov And The Vilna Gaon - äáòì ùí èåá åäâàåï îåéìðä
Type de ressource: peoula (activite) dans: English
Ans 8 - 12
Taille du groupe 10 - 50
Temps estime: 45 minutes
Goals: Teach about the Besh’t, the Vilna Gaon, Chasidut and Mitnagdut; Teach about the conflict between these two groups, and the main principles behind each.
Materials: Empty 2 liter bottle; Bic pen cap; Empty wine bottle + cork; button or other small object; playground ball
Noseh: Acharonim
Topic: Baal Shem Tov and the Vilna Gaon
Written By: Josh Skarf
Goals: Teach about the Besh’t, the Vilna Gaon, Chasidut and Mitnagdut; Teach about the conflict between these two groups, and the main principles behind each.
Materials: Empty 2 liter bottle; Bic pen cap; Empty wine bottle + cork; button or other small object; playground ball
Background: In the 18th century, two separate but related movements arose in Eastern Europe Judaism: Chasidut and Mitnagdut. The founder of Chasidut was the Baal Shem Tov (Besh’t), who at age 36 began spreading his type of Judaism. He taught a number of basic tenets: Man plays a role in creation and the universe and can have a vast influence; Prayer with kavana is the key to
At the same time as Chasidut was developing, another movement evolved in opposition: Mitnagdut (which means opposition in Hebrew.) It was led by Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna, known as the Gr’A and more popularly, The Vilna Gaon. He was a genius by all accounts, and one of the finest scholars in hundreds of years. The Vilna Gaon never tried to be a leader, and didn’t really act as one. Instead he tried to keep to himself and continue with his learning. Still, in doing so he became the ultimate leader of Mitnagdut and fought diligently against the spread of Chasidut. As a tremendous scholar, he brought credibility to the role of the Chacham. Eventually this led to the Yeshiva Movement, under which many of the premier European yeshivot were established and educated generations of scholars. Among his tremendous accomplishments, the Vilna Gaon went through all of Shas and corrected errors that had accumulated over generations, checking them against old manuscripts he gathered. Besides knowing all of Torah, he also studied sciences, math, philosophy, medicine, and other “secular” subjects. He felt all these were intimately tied with Torah. He was also the foremost student of Kabala of his time. When Chassidic communities began settling in Sefat, he took his followers and attempted to make Aliya. Although he did not make it, a large community of his followers ended up in Yerushalayim, forming the nucleus of the Old Yeshuv.
Although Chasidut swept through much of
Game 1: Monarch[1]
Set up a playing boundary large enough to give the chanichim some room to run around. Choose one chanich to be the Monarch. The monarch is armed only with a small nerf ball and can convert others to the monarchy by hitting them with the ball.
The rest of the chanichim are Anarchists and are free to roam the kingdom at will. They try to escape being tagged by the royal nerf ball. Once being hit by the royal nerf, the anarchist must announce his conversion by stopping, raising his hand, and announcing “monarch!”
When a monarch has the ball, s/he is confined to his or her throne and cannot move. The only options are to either try and hit someone with the ball or pass it to another monarch in better position to get someone. By keeping the ball moving, the monarchs should be able to increase their numbers fairly quickly. Whoever is the last anarchist to hold out gets to be the first monarch of the next round.
Madrichim should move about and retrieve any balls that are thrown and return them to the monarchs. In addition, they should make sure that no one leaves the playing area.
Discussion: In this game we begin with one person who is a monarch. This person tries to spread the monarchy around as quickly as possible, and does so by getting other monarchs to help out. In the 18th century, a new movement in Judaism arose called Chasidut. Chasidut was always centered around certain Tzaddikim who gathered communities around them and helped to spread the ideas. It began with one man, the Baal Shem Tov, who did just that. The people he trained spread out and formed new communities. In this way Chasidut spread very quickly across
Game 2: Human Pinball[2]
All players except one stand in a circle facing outwards. Chanichim spread their legs as wide as comfortable until their feet are touching their neighbors’ on either side. Everyone bends down and looks through their legs towards the middle of the circle. They are now human flippers in a game of human pinball.
The one non-flipper enters the circle as the movable target. The flippers try to hit him by knocking a rubber ball back and forth across the circle. For added action, introduce more than one ball. Whoever hits the target gets one point and also gets to be the new target. Every time the ball goes out of the circle, the target scores a point. However, the target is never allowed to touch the ball, but simply tries to avoid it.
Discussion: This game illustrates the power of one person among a crowd of many. Every ordinary person in this game can have a profound effect on the events of the game. Chasidut taught that every person, no matter how great, can have a tremendous impact on the world. Simply having proper kavana was enough to accomplish a great deal, even if you were a simple person. This made Chasidut very attractive to many Jewish peasants in
Game 3: Lateral Thinking
3a: Bottleneck[3]
Take a large, empty plastic soda bottle and put a plastic pen caps inside it. Set the bottle upright and leave the bottle cap off. Pose the following challenge: How can you get the pen cap out of the bottle without knocking the bottle over, turning it upside down, or touching it in any way? The answer is to pour water into the bottle until the plastic cap floats out.
3b: A Corker[4]
Place a button inside an empty glass bottle, then replace the cork firmly. Set the bottle in front of the group and ask: Without pulling out the cork, breaking the bottle, cutting the glass, melting the glass or burning the cork, how can the button be removed from inside the bottle? The answer is to push the cork into the bottle.
Discussion: In these two games, we played a number of thinking challenges. At the same time as Chasidut was developing, another movement was being formed in opposition: Mitnagdut. In fact, this word itself means opposition. (root: Neged). It was led by a man named Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna, the Vilna Gaon. The Vilna Gaon was one of the smartest and scholarly men in recent history – he even appears in Ripley’s Believe it Or Not for his tremendous intellect. Mitnagdut put a large emphasis on scholarship and study. They felt that Chasidut was abandoning this scholarship and not valuing torah study enough. The Mitnagdim did their best to stop the spread of Chasidut, and in
Game 4: Chain Tag[5]
One person is designated as IT, and his or her job is to tag people. When s/he tags someone, the two of them join hands and continue tagging people as a unit. Once eight people are in the group, they must break apart and become two groups of four. As the game continues, several groups of four end up chasing the free single players. The game is played until everyone is caught.
Discussion: The two movements, Chasidut and Mitnagdut, ended up engaging in a race to recruit members, a competition to keep each other from expanding, much like in this game. Eventually, Chasidim established communities in Tzefat in
Preferably not for Shabbat
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