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Friday April 6, 2007

Exodus comes alive at Tehiyah

by stacey palevsky
staff writer

Nike sneakers? Not kosher for Pesach. At least, not at Tehiyah Day School’s Passover celebration.

Since the Jews didn’t wear Nikes when they trekked across the Red Sea and out of Egypt, neither did Tehiyah students during a schoolwide, back-in-time Passover activity March 28 that found dozens of students wearing homemade suede and leather slippers instead of their trendy shoes.

In an effort to connect 2007 with an ancient desert trek, Tehiyah staff arranged for students to immerse themselves through hands-on history lessons. The children divided into the 12 tribes of Israel, “split” the Red Sea — thanks to the theatrics of their 6-foot-5 gym teacher dressed as Moses — and spent the morning outside in the sunshine weaving baskets and tapestries, making oil lamps and eating homemade matzah in their tribe’s tent.

“Basically, we weave the twine over, then under, then over, then under,” said Simone Hudson, a seventh-grader, as she demonstrated how to weave a melon-sized basket. “This would be easier if we had some tape, but, you know, Israelites didn’t have tape, so I’ll just have to deal.”

Simone, a petite, fair-skinned 12-year-old from Kensington, remembered the last time Tehiyah went all out for Passover. She was 5. Tehiyah planned this year’s Passover celebration after multiple requests from seventh- and eighth-graders to do it again.

“I remember the smell of the matzah,” she said, pushing her retro green glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I’ve never done anything else like this. It’s very exciting to re-enact the Exodus.

“This is my bat mitzvah year, so I will definitely try harder to keep Passover,” she said.

“But it’s hard, because I eat French toast every morning of my life, so it’s a hardship to give that up,” she continued. “But we have to sacrifice certain things to honor the Israelites.”

While Simone worked on her basket, third-grader Avi Peltz pounded on a lump of amber clay on its way to being flattened into a tablet and inscribed with his tribe’s “kvetch” (“My feet hurt and someone stole my camel”).

Noam Marcus, a third-grader from Point Richmond, sat next to Avi and worked on a Play-Doh sculpting of the parting of the Red Sea.

“I like Passover,” Noam said as he squeezed blue clay between his fingers. “Except for the fact that I can’t eat bread. But I at least have some marshmallows that are kosher for Passover.”

The children also had to create a tribe cheer. One teacher suggested “We want matzah, lotsa matzah!” But that was unanimously voted down by a chorus of good-natured giggles.

The students’ analysis of the Passover immersion ranged from the advanced to the juvenile, but that’s to be expected working with first- through eighth-graders, staff said.

“It is a dream come true for me to put together experiences that represent part of our ancient history,” said Arella Barlev, the school’s holiday coordinator and former art teacher.

Barlev wore a blue silk sash in her fluffy graying hair, and a striped linen blouse with matching pants, an outfit perfect for wandering the desert for the next 40 years.

The tribes had mini-seders after the artistic activities. They ate homemade Sephardic charoset, which they molded into a pyramid of bricks, and quail eggs, since Israelites couldn’t possibly have eaten chicken eggs after the Exodus. At that time, chickens were only found in China.

“It’s hard to take the children back more than 3,000 years by simply telling them a story,” said Rabbi Tsipora Gabai, director of Jewish studies at Tehiyah. “This is effective because instead of just hearing history, they’re seeing it.”

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