High Stakes Hebrew School: Chanukah Lesson Plan

An immersive, game-based lesson that puts students in the shoes of Jews who studied Torah under Greek persecution.

Learning Objectives (SWBAT)

• Understand how high stakes Jewish learning was during the Chanukah story
• Know the history of dreidel
• Explain two different ways of lighting chanukiah based on the reasoning of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai

Classroom Prep

The students wait outside of the classroom before coming in. The lights in the classroom will be off, and the tables and chairs will be pushed to the walls of the classroom.

Ideally, we would decorate the classroom to look like a cave. If we have access to any big sheets/blankets/cloth, that would be great because we could design a "sheet-cave" to teach the lesson in. The goal is to create the experience of learning in a secret, special place, as much as possible.

The teacher will set up the inside of the cave with a neatly organized stack of papers, a jar of gelt, and a dreidel. They should be set up so the students will see them when they walk in and know that they were arranged for a special purpose.

Set Induction (3 Minutes)

When the teacher is ready, they will go outside to greet the students waiting outside.

In a very quiet whisper, the teacher will get the students quiet and ask if they can hear their voice.

Still in a whisper, the teacher will say:

At this moment, the Teacher Assistant, ideally wearing some kind of soldier costume, will walk by outside looking menacing. The teacher will quietly usher the students inside, reminding them to be quiet so that the Greeks don't hear.

Game (12 Minutes)

Reiterate to the students that the Greeks have invaded, and studying Torah is going to be very high stakes today.

Tell the students why the ancient Jews used to play dreidel.

Ask for two volunteers to be Greek soldiers. They will go outside to be with the Teacher Assistanta, who can play dreidel with them or talk about different Hanukkah traditions while they wait to hear a commotion.

The Teacher Assistant should explain the rules:

1. The goal for the Greeks is to stop kids from learning in class. In order to do that, they will have to find all of the texts in the cave.
2. They can only search the cave if they (and the Teacher Assistant) hear a commotion/noise inside.
3. Once they come inside, they will have 30 seconds to "search" the room. Teacher Assistant will keep time.
   1. They cannot touch any other students.
   2. They cannot force anyone to move.
   3. They can only use their eyes to try to see where the students might have hidden the texts.

While the Greeks are outside learning the rules from the Teacher Assistant, tell the students that we will be learning a very important text today, but, if the Greek soldiers find it, they'll take them away and we won't be able to learn.

In order for us to succeed, we need to keep our voices down so the Greeks can't hear us.

We can have someone stand near the door as a guard, but we will still need to figure out how to teach them the text.

We also need to have a "disguise" for when the Greeks come in.

So we'll need to play dreidel to try to distract them and hide our texts from them.

When the Greeks come into the room:

1. The watcher will give a warning.
2. Some students will try to hide everything as quickly as possible.
3. Some students will start playing dreidel to distract the Greeks.

The game ends when either:

1. Every student learns the text.
2. The Greeks find all of the text sheets.

Time permitting, we can switch up the groups.

Recap and Guiding Questions (3 Minutes)

1. How did it feel to be learning in a pressurized environment?
2. What were the stakes for students in the Chanukah era?
3. Why do you think people still studied Torah if the stakes were so high? (Because it's so important.)
4. Did this activity change any of your ideas about Hanukkah?
5. Imagine that you had a time machine and you could talk to one of the students in the Hanukkah era. What would you ask them? What would you tell them about the future?