My daughter had a great idea for improving on our Hebrew language skills.
Start small…as in children’s books.
She got a few of these from the library and it actually was fun to read these.
Aside from taking me back a few years in parenthood and bonding as a family over these, I found it useful to solidify my learning.
Dr. Seuss definitely had the right idea. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal with attribution to book בּובי בוא בובי לך by אמי רובינגר)
So this guy in my Ulpan class brought in these bookmarks for us that he makes.
He takes these Israeli stamps like the one for Judges of Israel and Social Welfare for the people, laminates them, punches a hole and strings it.
And voila, these cool bookmarks from Israel.
We had just learned the Hebrew word for bookmark and he thought to bring these in for the class.
He was so nice that even though he couldn’t make the last classes before the Summer recess, he dropped these off with the teacher for us
Some people are real mensches, and these are the people I personally appreciate. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal
Love these strawberries (i.e. Tutim) from Israel.
(Hebrew classes are paying off…)
Large, red, and sweet to eat.
They look so appealing and delicious.
G-d’s beautiful fruits (and vegetables).
What an amazing world He has created for us. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So I received an email last night from the teacher of my Ulpan class.
She was passing along a message from a wonderful man in class letting her and us know some terrible news.
His son suddenly and unexpectedly died at just 28-years old this past week.
He wrote about how tragedy like this impacts a person and family, and that obviously he didn’t know when he would be coming back to class.
The message from this man who had just prematurely lost his son in the prime of his life really hit me.
Life is so tenuous–where everything truly hangs in the balance by a thin thread.
You can think you are building a fortress of success where no one and nothing can touch you, hurt you.
But life has its own catapults, battering rams, siege towers, and explosive moments in store.
You can’t really plan for these things, and you are never ready when they happen.
Having to bury a child is not the normal way of the wold, and the pain of this is unimaginable.
A child is the culmination of all our efforts and represents the future, even while we are the past.
I am so sorry for what happened to my friend from class and I wish him my sincerest condolences and that no one should have to go through such tragedy any more.
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So who would’ve thought that Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham” comes in Hebrew.
I watched this video, and loved it!
It is amazing that this can translate over.
One critique that I have is that the book should’ve said that the main character didn’t want to eat the green eggs and ham, because he is kosher (instead of not being hungry or not loving the food).
But then again, he would’ve had to stick to his guns and not have eaten it in the end.
One other thing that I learned from this video/book, is that even though I am loving learning Hebrew in Ulpan class, I still have the vocabulary of a 9 year old. LOL
But I’m learning… 😉
(Thank you to my daughter, Rebecca for sharing this with me.)
It was so nice tonight at Ulpan.
Morah Degani had a special night planned for us tonight to celebrate Chanukah.
She called me up to light the candles for the 3rd night and recite the blessing.
Then she played Chanukah songs and we sang along to the Hebrew words on the screen.
We later read and talked about the story of Chanukah and all the meaning and significance of it for having freedom of religion/worship and to maintain our religion and not assimilate.
It was a beautiful way to learn and practice our Hebrew.
Happy 3rd night of Chanukah! 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
This was a beautiful song that we learned this week in Ulpan.
I love it–being Jewish and the song! 😉
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel, Sukkot: A Time of Man and Earth.
“In celebrating Sukkot, we compare Adam and Adamah. Just like a man is dependent on seeding his teachings and good deeds which then leads to reaping his personal life harvest, so too the earth is dependent on seeding and watering which leads to harvesting its produce.”
Hope you enjoy and Chag Sameach. 😉
(Inspired by a movie of a farmer in Bishvil-Haivrit)
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So yesterday, I started Ulpan classes to improve my Hebrew language skills (currently, I’m not very skillful with it).
It was 2.5 hours and it was such a joy for me and my wife and one of my daughter to have the wonderful opportunity to participate in this.
It wasn’t like in Yeshiva where we focused on learning the Biblical and prayer book Hebrew, and on Aramaic from the Talmud, but was more focused on modern-day conversational Hebrew.
I loved learning and speaking the words, for example to describe a large cosmopolitan city like Tel Aviv.
We also listened to recordings of others speaking, read the text, and learned verbs.
It reminded me of my mom, who also used to love to take Ulpan, and carried around her notebook with the Hebrew words and their translation and the many descriptive verbs–she was so happy learning and practicing.
Given my horrible language skills, it was funny for me that I was asked if I wanted to join the advanced class…ah, no! (or at least not yet…)
While so many languages (and cultures) have died over the ages, Hebrew and the modern State of Israel is a complete revival–it’s truly miraculous!
There were people in the class from Asia, South America, and all over the world!
And from all the people there, I felt a tremendous love not only for the language, but for the land of Israel, and the Jewish people.
I wish like this beautiful language we all embraced, everyone could love and not hate us anymore!
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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