Lesson video

Hi everyone.

My name is Rabbi London.

And today we are going to learn about the Jewish idea of chosen people.

Before we get started with anything, try and find a place to learn where you going to find the least amount of distractions.

That way it'll be a little bit easier to concentrate.

Try to, if you're able, turn off any notifications, for apps and any conversations you might be in the middle of.

For today's lesson, you're going to need your brain, a pen or pencil or something to write with and some paper or something to write on.

So today's lesson, when we're talking about chosen people, we're going to learn about, the Jewish view on God's covenant with Abraham.

We're going to learn about what does that word chosen people mean? And then we're going to learn a little bit about Isaac and Jacob and the 12 tribes.

As I said, today you're going to need a pen or pencil and some paper or something to write on and something to write with.

If you haven't already done so, please go now.

Press pause and go get those items and press play when you're ready to begin.

The word covenant means agreement such as a contract between two people or more.

The Jewish people see that their relationship with God as a covenant or an agreement.

The first covenant with God took place between God and Abraham.

Abraham is known as the first patriarch or father of Judaism.

Abraham was the first monotheist.

The Jews believe that Abraham was the first one to come and say that there is only one God, and that he believes in one God.

And so Abraham is known as the father or patriarch, and is one of the three patriarchs in Judaism.

Abraham originally had a different name.

His name originally was Abram.

So it's really very, very similar, but God changed his name and added a letter.

That way when translated from the Hebrew, which is what the Torah is written in.

Abraham's name now means the father of many nations.

Because Jews believe that Abraham is the father of the Jewish nation.

And we also can see within the Torah that Abraham had other children, namely Ishmael, who also came out with a nation.

A quick review, before we continue on.

what does the word covenant mean? Does it mean to make an agreement or promise? Does it mean to follow the law or does it mean to build a community? The word covenant means, to make an agreement or promise with another.

What was Abraham's original name? Was it Aaron? Was it Abraham or was it David? Correct, Abraham's originally name was Abram.

Who was the first person to make a covenant with God? Was it Isaac, Moses or Abraham? The first person to make a covenant with God was Abraham.

What does it mean to be a patriarch? Does it mean to be the father of something or a founder? Does it mean a man who believes in God or does it mean a man who has a lot of children To be a patriarch means to be the father of something or a founder.

Like Abraham is one of the patriarchs in Judaism.

So God and Abraham created a covenant with one another.

Meaning there's an agreement between God and Abraham.

The covenant went that if Abraham followed God, then God would bring Abraham to the promised land.

God promised Abraham that he would have descendants, children and children and grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren and all the way down the lines.

And God also promised Abraham that he would find blessings and redemption.

So now we're going to look at the three parts of the covenant between God and Abraham, according to Jewish tradition.

First, we're going to look at some verses.

The first verses we're going to look at are from the Torah, from the first book of the Torah, Genesis.

And so this comes from Genesis chapter 12.

We're going to read verses one, two, three.

And the LORD said to Abraham, go forth from your native land and from your father's house to the land that I will show you.

I will make you a great nation and I will bless you.

I will make your name great and you shall be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you and curse him that curses you.

And all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you.

So in these three verses, we can see that God tells Abraham that you need to leave your home, you need to leave the place that you have always grown up, you need to leave your father's house.

So it's not just that you have to leave the city, but you have to leave home.

And you're going to go to this place that I'm going to show you.

And if you see in these verses, God does not tell Abraham where he's going to take him.

And the second part of this covenant is also in these verses.

Where God says, "If you go with me, "then I'm going to make you into a great nation.

"and I am going to bless you "and your name is going to be great.

"And anyone who else around you, who shows you blessings "or blesses you, will also get blessed "and anyone who does something not nice to you, "bad things are going to happen to them." So this is a pretty big promise or a covenant between Abraham and God.

Let's look at the promised land.

So Abraham and his wife, Sarah, or at the point in time that we just read those verses, Sarah's name was Sarai, her name also gets changed, are commanded to go from the lands of Ur to Canaan.

Although, if you're looking at me and say, wait, those names weren't there, you're correct.

In the verses that we just read out loud, those names were not there.

They come up in later verses and in some commentary.

So Abraham and Sarah are commanded to go from Ur to Canaan.

Canaan, later became known as Israel.

Israel is actually named Israel after Abraham and Sarah's grandson, where we'll talk about him in a few minutes.

The land of Israel or the land of Canaan is known to in the Jewish community as the promised land because this is the land that God promised to give to the descendants of Abraham.

And the belief is that the Jewish people are the descendants of Abraham.

God also promised both in the first verses that we looked at and we're going to see a few here that Abraham would have many descendants, many children and grandchildren and great grandchildren going on for centuries and centuries.

God promises Abraham that his descendants will go into a great nation.

Later in Genesis, we can read, I will bestow my blessing upon you and make your descendants the numerous as the stars of the heaven and the sands on the seashore and your descendants shall seize the gates of their foes.

So in these verses, in this part of the covenant of the promise that's going on between Abraham and God, God promises Abraham, that he is going to have so many children or grandchildren and great grandchildren that they're going to be the number of the sand and the sea and the stars in the sky.

Now, have you ever tried to count how many grains of sand there are at the beach, or even in a sandbox? There's a lot, you're not really going to be able to count them.

So God's promise to Abraham is that his descendants are going to be so many that one is not even going to be able to count them.

Jews believe that God warns Abraham, that his descendants will be slaves for hundreds of years and will also promise that he will save them.

This ties in to the story of Exodus, which we will learn together in a few weeks.

So it is already within this covenant, within this promising that's going on between God and Abraham.

That Abraham is going to know that his descendants, although he's going to have them, there's going to be a time when it's going to be very tough.

But part of this promise that God makes with Abraham is that God will save Abraham's descendants from this time where they're suffering.

Another aspect that God promises as part of the covenant is that Abraham will live to an old age.

And God promises that Abraham's descendants will return to the promised land to return to Canaan or what later became known as Israel.

The covenant in the Torah was sealed through Abraham's circumcision.

Jewish people still carry out the circumcision on the eighth day after a boy's birth, as a sign of the covenant today.

Circumcision is a small procedure, removing the foreskin.

This is seen in Jewish community is as a continuation of showing the covenant between God and Abraham, and in turn God and the Jewish people.

This ceremony is known as a "brit" or a "brit milah" in Hebrew.

And the word "brit" actually means covenant or promise.

Let's pause for a minute, we just learned a lot.

So I want you to take a moment and please answer the following question in complete sentences.

Why is Abraham important to the Jewish people? Please press play, after you've finished answering the question.

I would really want to hear what you have to say and what you're thinking.

Here's my answer, Abraham is believed to have been the founder of Judaism.

He was the first person to worship one God in a society of people who worshipped many gods.

Extra points for anyone out there who used the word a monotheist, that Abraham was known as the first monotheist, the first person who believed that there was one God.

Now we're going to look at a little bit, little bits of family trees.

We're going to start off with Abraham, you can see him in the middle, in the box.

Abraham is married to Sarah, Abraham and Sarah were not able to have children right away.

And so Sarah told Abraham that he should marry their maid servant, Hagar.

Abraham and Hagar had a child, and their child, they named Ishmael.

Abraham and Sarah eventually were blessed with a miracle of having a child.

According to the Torah, according to the story in the Torah, story in the Torah, which is what Jewish people believe.

Abraham and Sarah welcomed in three strangers or angels, and Sarah was in the back of the tent, making food and overheard that these three men told Abraham that they were going to have a baby.

Now, Sarah was very old at that time, she was 99 years old.

And so she laughed and she said, "There's no way I'm going to be able to have a child." Well, a miracle did happen and she conceived.

She became pregnant and the name of their child between Abraham and Sarah, they named him Isaac.

Jewish people believe that God tested Abraham 10 times.

This was a way for God to make sure that Abraham was true to his faith and true to God and true to believing in God.

The 10th and final test that God gave to Abraham was God told Abraham that he had to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

Now, one can imagine how hard that must have been.

Abraham and Sarah tried for so many years to have a child to then be told by God that he has to sacrifice him.

But, Abraham goes without questioning God.

And Isaac also follows along willingly.

In the Torah, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham and Isaac walk together hand going in confidence and ready to actually sacrifice Isaac.

At the very last moment, so Isaac is already bound on the alter.

An angel comes down and stops Abraham's hand and a voice comes and says, "Don't kill your son, "this is not what I need you to do.

"I believe that you believe in me." And so Isaac is not sacrificed.

And Jews believe that Abraham passed the test to God.

And according to Jewish belief, the line then transfers over to Isaac.

And Isaac also has the faith to continue in his father, Abraham's footsteps.

I want you to pause the video to complete this task.

I want you to think and write.

This can be in complete sentences.

I want you to use your imagination a little.

Imagine you were Isaac walking with your father, Abraham, write a short paragraph, sharing what you are thinking about.

There are no right or wrong answers, this is about what you think is happening in this story.

Please, press resume once you're finished.

I wish I could see what you wrote.

when I think about it, I can imagine Isaac kind of struggling with, "Do I go with my father "and believe in this God that I've grown up with, "or maybe, I'm also a little bit afraid "this idea is scary to me." I am so curious to see what you have to set him.

So, as we saw, the Jewish tradition says that the lineage goes from Abraham to Isaac.

Isaac marries a woman named Rebecca and Rebecca has two children Esau or Esau, and Jacob.

Jacob is seen as the third patriarch or the third forefather of Judaism.

Judaism believes that there are three forefathers.

Now, that might sound confusing, but the word for father is F-O-R-E.

It's another way of sound saying founding.

So Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the forefathers of Judaism.

We're going to hear a little bit more of the story of Jacob and how he plays in to the greater story of the Jewish people.

Jacob leaves home, in order to find a wife.

He gets to the house of Laban and he meets a woman named Rachel and he really wants to marry her.

Rachel's father, Laban says, you can marry her if you want, but you have to work for me for seven years.

Now Rachel had an older sister, named Leah.

Laban was a little bit tricky.

And at the very last minute, as they were about to say, get married, he switched Leah in as the bride.

And so Jacob, after the wedding ceremony was over, he realised that he married Leah and not Rachel.

At first, he was upset as you can probably imagine and went to Laban and Laban said, well, the older one should get married before the younger, so if you want it now, if you really want to marry Rachel, you have to work for me for another seven years.

And so Jacob worked a total of 14 years in order to marry Rachael.

Jacob also marries two other women named, Bilha and Zilpah who are Leah and Rachel's made servants.

Together, Jacob and his four wives have 13 children and we're going to learn about them in a few moments.

Another story or aspect of Jacob that's important in Judaism is Jacob has a fight with an angel.

Jacob, along with his family, he goes to see Esau after not seeing him for many years.

Basically after he ran away from home to get married, he hadn't seen his brother and he's decided that he should go see him.

So Jacob trying to protect his family, separates them into different places and he sleeps alone.

And in that night, an angel comes and wrestles him.

And he gets a little bit injured as the sun was coming up, they had to stop fighting.

And there wasn't really a clear winner.

And the angel tells Jacob that his name will now be Israel.

So Jacob also gets his name changed by God or here in this case, an angel.

He goes from Jacob to Israel and throughout the Torah, one could see that Jacob is sometimes called Jacob, and sometimes he's called Israel.

One place that we see that happen is when we talk about the children of Israel, the children of Israel can mean or refer to the 13 children that Jacob meaning Israel had, or in some cases, the children of Israel or the Israelites are name for the Jewish people.

Jacob had 12 sons and one daughter and the 12 sons later become are the names of the 12 tribes.

Here are the names of the children of Israel or the children of Jacob, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun and Dinah.

Those are the children of Leah.

Gad, Asher, Dan, Naphtali.

Those two groups are the children of Bilha and Zilpah and Joseph and Benjamin are the children of Rachel.

Let's go over a little bit of what we learned today.

What did God promise Abraham if he followed God? Money, a house and camels, the promise land, descendants, blessings and redemption, to live forever, to be king and to have a castle.

God promised if you followed God, the promised land, descendants, blessings, and redemption.

How many years did Jacob work to marry Rachel? 10 years, 14 years or seven years.

Jacob worked 14 years in order to marry Rachel, he married Leah after working for seven.

What did God promised Abraham if you followed God? Oh, it looks like we answered that question already.

God promised Abraham, the promised land, descendants, blessings, and redemption.

It's always good to go over things more than once.

The three Jewish forefathers are, Moses, Aaron and Joshua, Adam, Noah and Abraham or Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The three Jewish forefathers are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

How many sons did Jacob have? Two, 12 or five? Jacob had 12 sons, he also had one daughter, her name is Dinah.

What name did the angel give to Jacob? Israel, Joseph or Joshua? The angel named Jacob Israel.

Thank you so much for learning with me today.

I hope you enjoy it, just as much as I did.

Today, we learned a lot.

We learned about the chosen people, we learned about the covenant, the promise or agreement made between God and Abraham.

That Abraham was promised by God, if he follows in God's ways that he will be taken to the promised land, that he will have many descendants, many children and grandchildren and generations to follow.

And that Abraham would be blessed with blessings and his descendants will also be redeemed.

We learned that Abraham and Sarah had a son named Isaac.

And Isaac had a son named Jacob and Jacob had 12 children, 12 sons, and one daughter.

Before you leave everything today, try and take a moment to write down three things that you learned.

And you can feel free to share that with a parent or a carer or even a friend or your teacher.

And don't forget to please take the end of lesson quiz.

I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and happy learning.