Mrs. Weinberg's 8th Grade Chumash Class

Over the past few weeks, the girls in 8G have been learning about all of the various holidays as they are written in Sefer Vayikra. We have discussed leap year calendars, agriculture and the desperate need for water in Israel. We started the year learning mussar haskel, a moral lesson from Rashi. We are supposed to treat the holidays with the same respect as we treat Shabbat and that is therefore the reason why Shabbat is mentioned in the same perek as the holidays. We are ending this unit with a serious discussion about the holiday of Sukkot and what the reasons are for some of the specific mitzvot related to this holiday. We talked about the four species and the interesting characteristics that they have. We are ending the perek with a meaningful discussion as to the reason behind why we sit in a sukkah. The girls sat b'chevruta analyzing a commentary of the Ramban. He brings a well known debate regarding the mitzvah of having a sukkah. We understand from the pasuk that Hashem made for us sukkot when He took us out of Egypt. SO, are these sukkot like the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer? Are they the clouds of glory? Or are they like the opinion of Rabbi Akiva? Are they real sukkot? Think about it...and YOU decide!!