Videos allow a glimpse through a window to a world of application beyond our classroom. In a class as practically driven as Halacha, videos afford the opportunity of being a part of a halachic experience short of experiencing it firsthand.
As 6B2 finished learning about the intricate halachot of the bracha of "mezonot," we applied these halachot to a practical Chanukah example. We watched the entertaining Kinderlach Productions' "Samurai Jew: The Eighth Night," (https://www.youtube.com/
1. Explain the halachic circumstances as introduced in the video under which one would say "Birkat HaMazon" on sufganiyot
and
2. Halachically prove that the boy in the video did not initially intend to finish all of his family's doughnuts
There was simply no way our class could experientially encounter what Samurai Jew does in the video, nor would Nurse Roberta allow any of us to eat enough baked grain mezonot products (in this case, Chanukah jelly doughnuts) to qualify as a shiur ke'viat seuda, an amount of baked mezonot grain that qualifies as if one has eaten an entire meal, and thus necessitate our saying "Birkat HaMazon" as the bracha achrona.
By applying our newly gained bracha expertise to an engaging video, we safely and memorably engaged in a active halachic process.
