The Portal of Childhood

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With the Child / Janusz Korczak

One hundred children – one hundred people who have “never”, who “have still not”, not “tomorrow”, but who are already….now….today. They are people. Not a small world but rather a complete world. Not infants, but rather exalted. Not innocent – but rather humane, ethical, advantages, disadvantages, tendencies, aspirations.

 

I am still a child / Edna Peleg, Nimrod Tenne

The beautiful light blue sky

And I am drawing clouds

Then the parents say, “So child

We were also once children”

The adults ask: “So child

What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Such a confusing question

I don’t know at all.

 

How could I know?

I am still a child

It is a riddle

And I have no answer

When I know

I’ll no longer be a child

And in the meantime, the song is playing, playing

 

With these words and melodies

I will play happily with the songs

And the parents say

“So child”

And they say it and repeat it again and again

And I pretend to be a bit embarrassed

And think thoughts to myself

And I don’t even answer

When I grow up I’ll have the answers

 

How could I know…

 

Blessing of the kibbutz

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The Portal of Letters

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At home in the Tudra Village (reading)

At home in the Tudra village in the heart of the Atlas Mountains

They would take the boys aged five years;

They would put a wreath of flowers on his head, at home in the Tudra village

They would put a wreath on his head, when he reaches the age of five

All the children in the street would have a huge celebration for him

When he became five, at home in the Tudra village

 

And then the celebrant who had reached the age of five

At home in the Tudra village, would be taken to the synagogue

And they would write on the wooden board in honey from A to Z

All the letters in honey and they say to him: sweet child lick it off

And the Torah was sweet in the mouth like the taste of honey

At home in the Tudra village in the heart of the Atlas Mountains.

 

Shachar tastes the letters while listening to the words and the songs, when he finishes he lifts the board and everyone blesses him together

“Just as the honey is sweet in your mouth, so too will your studies be sweet for your mind”

Throw sweets on the children

 

Blessing by the children – Shachar

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The (Hebrew) Alphabet / Naomi Shemer (part of the song is translated as an example)

Alef – ohel (tent), bet – bayit (house)

Gimmel is a large gamal (camel)

What is dalet – it’s a delet (door)

That opens everything

(Alef-Bet-Gimmel-Dalet)

 

Hay – Hadas, and Vav is vered (rose)

That flowered in the dunes

Zayin – Heit – the two together

Is a wreath of lilies (Zer Havezalot)

 

Six year old and seven year olds

Alef-bet, alef-bet

Drawing with chalks and paint

Alef-bet, alef-bet

And we start to dance

Alef, Alef-bet

Twenty two letters

Alef-Bet

(A;ef-Bet-Gimmerl-Dalet-Hey-Vav-Zayin-Het)

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The Transitional Portal 

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Mishnah, Avot, Chapter 1

He said, the world stands on three things, on the Torah and on work and on charity

Mishnah, Avot, Chapter 1

Hillel says, Aaron’s scholars, love peace and pursue peace, love mankind and brings them to the Torah

Mishha, Avot, Chapter 1

Shamay says, always study the Torah. Speak little and do a lot, and Accept every person gracefully

 

The sweet children of Bustan will now come up and take part in an obstacle race

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Michael is Five Years Old / Yitzhak Katzenelson, Folk song

Michael is five years old

He spent them dancing

He didn’t work

He didn’t study

 

He had three friends

A barking dog in a kennel

A black licking cat

And a dove in a dovecot

 

Five years passed and on the sixth

He called to his friends

Goodbye barking dog, goodbye licking cat

Goodbye white dove

 

I am going to school

I will study every day now

Wait till the end of the school day

And we will have fun together again

 

Blessing by the parents – Yaara and Arnon

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Next year / Ehud Manor

Next year we will sit on the balcony

And count the migrating birds

Children on holiday will play tag

Between the house and the fields

 

You will see, you will see

How good it will be

Next, next year

 

Red grapes will mature by the evening

And be served chilly to the table

And dormant breezes will blow over the road

Old newspapers and a cloud

 

You will see….

 

Next year we will open our hands

Facing the flowing white light

A white crane will spread her wings

And the sun will shine therein

 

You will see….