In the morning, it was just Rabbi Michael and myself, with a class of 12/13 year olds - unfortunately, as I feel the need to be honest, this didn't go excellently. But despite the children's best efforts to be disruptive and uncooperative, we managed to get through a bit of the seder, and we even heard from them, at the time of Halach Ma'anya, who they would invite to their ideal seder. (I believe that Rabbi Michael actually received a letter from the class apologising for their behaviour).
All I will say is I am pleased this was not the last seder, as the next two were great.
After this, we were in the big hall with classes 1-4. Although a couple of the sedarim had been big, looking out at a hall with over 100 children is still quite a daunting prospect. We didn't attempt to go through the whole seder with them (in the room and with those numbers it would have been pretty difficult). So insteasd we took them on an interactive seder experience, which included travelling back in time, in our very own time machine, meeting Abraham, Sarah and their family, and then bargaining with Pharoah to free the Israelites (we even acted out some of the plagues). It was fantastic working with children of about 6-10, they are so enthusiastic, so ready to learn, and take part, virtually everything is possible.
After that there was one more seder, it was the home straight, and this one was going to involve every member of the team (Rabbi Michael, Julia, David, Josh, Zina, Zanna and myself), that's a pretty big team for a class seder. But it was really nice for all of us to be involved, as we'd been working together in various ways for the last week, but this was the first seder we were all able to do together. It was great, we had really developed an understanding so that each person knew when to take the lead, and when to let someone else come to the front. I got a little demob happy, and sang along with a bit more gusto than usual. It was a great seder to finish the programme with.
Obviously this concludes the posts about the sedarim and actual activites. But I feel it would be remiss of me not to write a little bit about St Petersburg, and not to write some final thoughts. So these blogs will be following soon.
And finally (hopefully it encouraged you to keep reading) here are the answers to the Pesach Pub Quiz Questions:
Numbers Round:
1 49
2 40
3 5
4 127
5 13
Names Round:
1 Esau
2 Osnat
3 Abraham
4 Pharoah’s daughter
5 Aaron
6 Nachshon
Danny, thank you for this - I just had a second to catch my breath after all these exciting events and I have enjoyed a few minutes reading the blogs. This really is very helpful to see all the mayham through someone else's eyes - helps me understand that the schedule was really demanding and it wasn't just me getting tired all of a sudden:)I did get a written apology from the 7th grade and will go back into the lion's den next week... I really love those kids anyway!Thank you for all your help and for helping the world hear about us and our Passover celebrations!b'vracha,
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