Lesson video

It's really good to see you again.

How are you doing? We've been learning all about Judaism.

If you haven't seen our lessons on Judaism so far, then you can just pause this video and go back and watch our first four lessons on Judaism.

If you've been with us all along, then well done, you rock.

We're going to learn even more about Judaism today, and I'm very excited about it.

The first thing you need to do is make sure that you've completed the quiz before this lesson, to get your mind thinking about all of that knowledge and all these facts about Judaism that you've already learned.

Make sure that you've got somewhere nice and quiet.

Make sure that you've got a pen and some paper and that you're ready to learn and get through this whole lesson and find out lots and lots of new, interesting facts all about Judaism.

And in today's lesson, we're going to be learning about the Jewish festival.

Our question today, our big question is what are the Jewish festivals? And our lesson will look like this.

We're going to look at one festival called Rosh Hashanah.

Then we'll look at another Jewish festival called Yom Kippur.

Then we'll look at another Jewish festival, which is called Passover or another name for it is Pesach.

Then we'll look at another Jewish festival called Hanukkah.

So four Jewish festivals to learn about today, we're going to learn about four Jewish festivals.

So make sure you've got your brains switched on and you're ready to work hard.

We'll finish, of course, with our end of unit quiz.

It's going to be our big outcome.

So our first Jewish festival is Rosh Hashanah, and we're starting with Rosh Hashanah 'cause Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year.

So this is the celebration for Jewish people for the new year, and they celebrate this by greeting each other with this greeting: Shanah Tovah.

Should we try and say that? Shanah Tovah.

You try.

Shanah Tovah.

Lovely! Sometimes it's L'Shanah Tovah, which we'll talk about in a moment.

And Shanah Tovah means have a good year or a happy new year or just for a good year.

So why is it for a good year? Well, the full saying for Jewish people during Rosh Hashanah is this.

L'shanah tovah tikatevu techatemu.

L'shanah tovah tikatevu techatemu.

Would you like to try and read that? Try reading that and saying that out loud, I'll put it back up so you can see it.

L'shanah tovah tikatevu techatemu.

And that full saying, so you'll see there that there is L'shanah Tovah at the start, the same as for a good year.

And L'shanah tovah tikatevu techatemu means may you be inscribed, written and sealed in the book of life.

So the Jewish people, God holds a book of life in which all of their deeds are held, the good and the bad.

And they're saying, we hope that you're in the book of life for this year and that you're going to have a really good year and that you're going to do lots of good deeds and and you'll be well blessed and rewarded by God for all of your good deeds for this year.

And so that's the greeting that they give to each other, L'shanah tovah tikatevu techatemu.

It's not the only thing that happens in Rosh Hashanah.

It's a big celebration.

Lots of Jewish people go to the synagogue, even if they don't normally go to the synagogue, they might go to the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, and at home, they'll eat apples dipped in honey and that's to make them think about how sweet the year is going to be.

They might also eat a special kind of bread called challah.

And challah is very often like a plaited kind of bread, but they'll plait it in a circle to show the circle of life and the ongoing cycle of years.

And one of the most important things at Rosh Hashanah is that an instrument called a shofar is blown.

I'll show you a picture of a shofar here.

Here's a picture of a shofar and you can see that it's actually an animal's horn.

It's usually a ram's horn.

So it's a ram's horn that's been hollowed out.

And when it's blown, it makes a loud sound.

And the shofar represents lots and lots of things to Jewish people.

So Jewish people believe that the shofar sounded when God gave the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai.

They also think that the shofar is piercing the year because a new year is about to start.

The shofar also reminds them of the different commandments that God's given them, the 613 commandments that we talked about before.

And so that shofar will be blown on Rosh Hashanah.

So I have a question for you here to see if you've been paying attention to this important festival.

And the question is what does Shanah Tovah mean? What's the closest meaning to Shanah Tovah? Does it mean a ram's horn? Does it mean apples and honey? Does it mean have a good year or for a good year, or does it mean a type of bread? Put your finger on the one that you think is correct there.

They're all to do with Rosh Hashanah.

Which one does Shanah Tovah mean? Have you chosen your answer? Have a good year or for a good year.

Well done, if you've got that right, amazing.

We're already learning loads of what one celebration, Jewish festival, and we know lots all about how Jewish people celebrate that.

Let's look at another one, and it's connected to Rosh Hashanah.

So the next festival we're going to learn about is Yom Kippur, which takes place 10 days after Rosh Hashanah, 10 days after the new year.

Because as soon as Rosh Hashanah, as soon as that shofar blows, it sets a timer for 10 days and those 10 days are 10 Days of Awe, or 10 days of repentance.

And what that means is, it's where Jewish people ask for forgiveness.

They spend 10 days thinking about how, the things that they did wrong and how they can have a better year moving forward.

They might spend time finding maybe like friends or family that they've fallen out with and they're cross with.

And they'll heal those bonds during these 10 days up to the Days of Awe, up to Yom Kippur.

And they'll ask God for forgiveness, where they haven't acted in the way that they think God thinks that they should act or behave.

So this 10 days is very, very important for Jewish people.

And it leads up to the final day of Yom Kippur, which ends with 25 hours of fasting.

So fasting is where you're not allowed to eat any food, so nothing can pass your lips from food.

And there will be 25 days of fasting on Yom Kippur.

So Yom Kippur is the most holy day.

It reminds Jewish people to behave and act well.

And one story is often told and remembered in Yom Kippur is the story of Moses coming down from Mount Sinai.

Now we've already learned that story.

Moses went up to Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments, but something I didn't tell you when we first learned it is when Moses first came down with those tablets, with the Ten Commandments to give to the Israelites, something terrible had happened when he got down to the bottom of the mountain.

All of the Israelites, whilst they were waiting for Moses, because he was up a long time talking to God, while they're waiting, they melted down all of their gold and they'd made a golden calf, and they've made that golden calf to worship.

Now we know from the story of Abraham, that God did not want people worshipping other gods.

It was a monotheistic religion.

He did not want people making idols or symbols or objects of other gods to worship.

And so when Moses came down to see that this has happened, he was furious.

And he took the Ten Commandments on the stone tablets and he smashed them on the ground, 'cause he said, you broken these commandments straight away.

You've made this golden calf when God told us not to do that.

And he smashed the commandments on the ground.

When Moses went back up Mount Sinai, then Jews believe that God forgave Moses, forgave Israelites and gave them a new set of tablets, remade those tablets, so that, that shows Jews that God does forgive as long as you repent and say, "I did the wrong thing there," and ask for forgiveness.

And that's what Yom Kippur is all about.

So I wonder if you could draw a picture of that scene to help to lock that in your brain.

I'd love to see your pictures.

Maybe you could draw a picture of Moses smashing his stone tablets on the ground after coming down from Mount Sinai.

You might also like to draw the picture of the golden calf that the Israelites had made and all of the Israelites there, perhaps feeling a little bit, sorry that, oh no, we've done this bad thing.

We've made this golden calf and we shouldn't have.

So pause the video now and draw a picture of Moses smashing the tablets with the Ten Commandments.

Super! And like always I'd love to see those pictures.

Lots of you sending great pictures of the learning that we've been doing.

So ask your parents or carers to take a photo of your work.

You work hard on it, you should be really proud of it.

So ask your parents or carers to take a photo and send it in.

I know that there's tens of thousands of you out there.

So please send it in because I like nothing better than making a cup of tea and looking at all of your lovely work.

Let's look at another festival.

We've already looked at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Now let's look at another festival, another important festival in the Jewish calendar, which is the festival of Passover or Pesach.

So Passover is the English word, and Pesach is the Hebrew word.

So Hebrew, the ancient Jewish language, it's still spoken today.

So Pesach just means Passover.

And you'll remember it, you'll remember this comes from the Exodus story.

So let's remind ourselves of that.

So drawing the Exodus story, when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they were slaves in Egypt and he led them out and he led them across here.

He parted the Red Sea and led them across the Red Sea and into the desert.

And so during the Exodus, during Pesach or Passover, Jews will eat a very special meal, have a special ritual, and this will have a meal called the seder.

And it starts by eating this kind of special bread.

And the bread is, it's flat.

It's kind of like a cracker, it's flat, so it doesn't rise.

To make bread rise, you have to put yeast in it and you have to leave it for a few hours to prove.

You might have seen this, if maybe your parents or carers have made bread, or you've seen it on Great British Bakeoff or something like that.

Then you'll see that the bread takes some time to rise, 'cause the yeast needs to make it all rise.

Now the Israelites did not have time to wait for their bread to rise because they were rushing off to escape from the Egyptians.

They were rushing off to escape from the Pharaoh.

So they had to quickly bake their bread, so make it very flat.

It's called unleavened bread because it's unrisen, make it very flat and quickly put it on the fire, so it cooks very quickly in a minute or two, and they took that bread with them.

And so Jewish people will begin their meal with some of that flat bread, that unleavened bread.

But that's not the only thing they have in a meal.

Let's look at the different things that they will eat in, during the meal of seder.

So the first thing they'll have is bitter herbs.

They'll have some bitter kind of herbs that they will eat.

Now, these bitter herbs are to help remind Jewish people of the bitterness of slavery, how awful it was that Jewish people were slaves in Egypt.

Now very often, when people, when Jewish people are celebrating Passover, they'll all be given a cushion a little bit like this one, and they'll have this cushion and they'll lie down on it and laze down on the cushion.

And that's because they're saying, we're not slaves anymore.

Moses led our people out of Egypt, out of slavery.

So we get to relax.

And so they might lie down and eat that meal, relaxing on the cushion, but they do eat the bitter herbs to remind them of the bitterness of slavery.

They'll also eat a lamb bone, so something like lamb shanks, so a lamb with a bone in it.

And that reminds them that, first of all, it reminds them of the strong arm of God that that helped them.

And second of all, it reminds them of the lamb that had to be sacrificed because remember, during the Exodus story, when the angel of death came over Egypt, the last of the 10 plagues, they used lamb's blood to mark the doors of the Israelites, so the angel of death would pass over them and not take those babies.

So they'll eat a lamb bone to remind them the lamb that was sacrificed and they eat bitter herbs to remind them of the bitterness of slavery.

In fact, there will be two kinds of bitter herbs, the one they eat with the meat, so that even the meat is bitter.

And then one, usually a kind of lettuce, that would also be bitter, maybe romaine lettuce.

They'll also have a hard boiled egg.

Now a hard boiled egg represents mourning or sadness within Judaism.

Very often, after Jewish funerals, the first thing that people are given is a hard boiled egg.

And so it has connotations, that means links with sadness and mourning.

And so the hard boiled egg will remind Jews of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, how their temple's been destroyed, but also how they can be resilient.

Most foods, when you cook them, they go soft, you have a hard food and you cook it.

So you've got a carrot or something and you cook it and it goes soft.

Eggs are the opposite.

They start soft and weak and fragile, but the more you cook them, the harder they get like hard boiled eggs.

And that's reminding Jewish people that we can be resilient.

The more trouble that we're put through, the more difficulties, we get harder and stronger.

And so the hardboard egg reminds them of the resilience that they can show.

They'll also eat a sweet kind of paste called charoset, made of figs and fruits and things, and that reminds them of just how sweet it is not to be in slavery anymore.

But it also reminds them of the kind of bricks, the clay that the Jewish slaves had to make.

So when they were in Egypt, one of their jobs as slaves would be to make bricks.

So they would take kind of clay and they would put it into brick form and let the sun dry it.

And that would look a little bit like this paste.

So it reminds them of those clay bricks.

And lastly, they'll eat parsley, or sometimes celery, and that will be in salt water.

And the salt water reminds me of the tears of the Egyptian slaves.

Have you ever liked cried and then a bit's got in your mouth? And it tastes like salty.

So tears are kind of like salty, and so, by having salt water, it reminds them of the tears that the Egyptian slaves cried while they were slaves.

So take a close look at those, 'cause I'm going to muddle them all up in a moment and see if you can remember what each of the special foods during seder represents.

So we've got bitter herbs, the bitterness of slavery, a lamb bone, the sacrificial lamb that was sacrificed before they left Egypt.

Bitter herbs, again, reminding them of the bitterness of slavery, a hard boiled egg, reminding them of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and also their resilience, that Jewish people can show, the sweet paste, just reminding them of the bricks that the slaves had to make and some kind of herbs in salt water reminding them of the tears of slavery.

So here we go.

Are you ready? Are you feeling clever? I bet you're going to do really well at this task.

On the left hand side, there are the foods that are eaten during seder and on the right hand side, there are there things that they represent, but they're all muddled up.

I would like you to write the food and then write what it represents.

So choose the correct version from the right hand side, choose the correct thing from the right hand side and match it all up.

So I, look, first I would write bitter herbs and then I would say what do bitter herbs represent? Do they represent the tears of Jewish slaves? No, that's not bitter herbs.

What shall I write next to a better herbs? What does it represent? Pause the video and have a go at that now.

Great work.

Hopefully, you've got it all written out in your neatest writing so that you can remember the different things that are eaten during seder, that ritual meal on Passover.

Well done, everybody.

You should have got bitter herbs representing the bitterness of slavery.

Give yourself a tick, give yourself a big tick if you've got that right, 'cause you should be proud of yourself.

If you've got it wrong, don't worry, no problem.

We all make mistakes.

You can just edit it now.

So the right one gets stuck in your brain.

Don't leave it wrong.

The hardboard egg represents the destruction of the temple and also showing resilience.

The lamb bone represents the lamb sacrificed at the temple before they left for Passover, so they could Mark their doors.

The sweet, that sweet paste represents the clay that were, that was used to make bricks by slaves in Egypt, the Israelites slaves.

And the salt water represents the tears of the Jewish slaves.

Big ticks, if you've got those right.

If you've got them wrong, please don't worry.

Just make sure you edit it so that you get the correct versions in your head.

So let's find out all about Hanukkah.

Hanukkah is the Festival of Light, a very special festival.

It lasts for eight whole days and we'll find out a bit more about why it lasts for eight days in a moment.

It lasts for eight days.

It means a kind of dedication.

And that's because during this time they, the Jewish people re-dedicated a temple to God.

So they said, "This is for you, God.

"This temple is for you, we've dedicated it to you." So Hanukkah means dedication and it celebrates what Jews believe a miracle that happened over 2000 years ago, and it normally falls on November or December each year, so it falls at a similar time to Christmas.

And so, when you see some Christians celebrating Christmas, you might also see some Jewish people celebrating Hanukkah around the same time.

So what's the story of Hanukkah? Well, I'm going to tell you the story in nine steps.

I'm going to explain it to you.

And what I'd love for you to do is to draw a picture for each of these steps.

So at the end, you've got like a little cartoon strip of the story of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights.

So back in ancient Israel, there was a king called Antiochus.

and Antiochus was a king who wanted to take Israel.

So he wasn't an Israelite, he wasn't a Jew.

He was a king who wanted to take that city.

And he was successful.

He sent his army in and he took over Israel and he took over the holy city of Jerusalem.

And when he got there, he built a statue and he told the Jewish people there that they had to worship that statue.

Now we know from the story of the golden calf, that Jewish people don't believe that you should worship idols.

They don't believe that you worship other statues.

And so they said, "We don't want to do this.

"We don't want to worship the statue." However, King Antiochus said, "You have to." And so a group of Jews called the Maccabees fought against King Antiochus, and they said, "No, we won't do this.

It goes against our religion." And so they fought against him and they fought against him for three years, him and his army for three years.

And after three years, they were victorious.

The Maccabees were victorious and they got Jerusalem back.

When they got to Jerusalem, though, they saw that the temple had been destroyed.

Their temple for their God had been destroyed.

And so, the Maccabees cleaned up that temple.

And once they got in there, they said, "Let's light a light" And when we were learning about synagogues, we know that the ner tamid is the eternal light.

They said, "Let's light a light "to dedicate this temple back to God." The only problem is they only had one very small jar of oil.

So the light was an oil lamp and they only had a teeny bit of oil.

So they put the oil in and they said, "This will only last for one day, "'cause it's only one tiny jar." And so they had one small jar and they lit the light, but here's the miracle.

Instead of the light only lasting for one day, that light burned, Jews believe, for eight days.

And that's why with Hanukkah, you have this special light here with eight candles, and that's why the festival lasts for eight days.

Those eight candles represent the eight days that the light in the temple burned for.

So see if you can remember that story and I'd love for you to draw a little picture of each part.

That would be amazing if you could do that.

So have a look at my grid and then draw a little picture to show each part, to help you remind you of the story, and then you'll be able to retell the story as well, because it will help to fix it in your mind.

Pause the video and draw a lovely little picture for each part of the story of Hanukkah.

That's all that we have time for.

We've learned all about Rosh Hashanah.

We've learned all about Yom Kippur.

We've learned all about Passover or Pesach, and we've learned about Hanukkah, four festivals! You've worked so hard.

Well done for getting all the way to the end of the lesson.

You didn't give up halfway through.

You're amazing, you're so clever.

You're working so hard and you already know loads about Judaism.

I can't wait for our next lesson, where we're going to be learning about Jewish beliefs about the Messiah.

So you make sure that you tune in for that lesson and I will see you then.