Happy Birthday! Or should we say “Yom Huledet Samaech!” In Hebrew School, we celebrate each child’s special day on the Jewish Calendar. Using the nifty Jewish Birthday Calculator (link) we calculate each child’s Jewish Birthday.
How do we celebrate? Our 3rd graders can tell you that a Jewish birthday is celebrated in 4 ways:
-
We think about others and give extra Tzedakah (charity);
-
We think about our potential and make a New-Year-Resolution;
-
We think about our identity as a people and share a Torah thought or story;
-
A year has passed and surely we accomplished a lot in that year…what a reason to celebrate! No birthday is complete without a party!
At Hebrew School we celebrate the coming week’s birthdays by giving each child whose birthday is coming up our ‘Birthday Box’. Inside is a Decorate-Your-Own-Cupcake, a coin to give to Tzedakah-charity, a card to write the Resolution, and a short Torah story.
