SZP - Shameless Zionist Plug

Learning Chumash in Eretz Israel

Like the world at large, my blog is ever evolving. Tonight I had a Zionist experience with my son and I felt the need to publicize it. My son and I were reviewing Parshat Toldot for his Chumash class. Since my son is an oleh chadash, he can sit in this class for hours and still have no clue what is going on.

Thus, we were reading the pesukim that describe the episode where Yitzchak visits the Philistine city of Gerar. And my son immediately asked, “Abba, where is Gerar?” I then pulled out a map of Israel and pointed to the Gaza Strip and said, “Near there.” Then I pointed to the city where we live and said, “Look we are only about one hour from Gerar.”

(Political Tangent - For better or worse, all of my children are very aware of the existence of the Gaza strip. For example, my five year-old asked me today, “Isn’t Gaza where the bombs are?” My children are completely ignorant of the magnitude of the Gaza military incursion, but they are still somewhat aware of the impact that Hamas is having on Israeli society. Nevertheless, the relevant point vis-à-vis my son is that he was aware of the Gaza Strip and it was a good geographic reference point for him.)

As we continued to read the pesukim, we also came across Rechovot and Be’er Sheva. Again I was able to point to these cities on the map and show him where they are relative to where we live and to Yerushalayim. I felt that he was able to make a more personal connect to the Chumash then he ever was in America. Another small reminder of why it was so important for my family to make aliyah.

Photo Credit © Christof Wittwer for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial