Do you ever read a text, feel full of questions, and wish you had a friend there to help you answer them? That’s what hevruta study is all about. It’s a method of digging into a text with a partner. Here are the steps of the process:
- Read the text.
- Ask questions.
- Offer answers.
- Agree or disagree and discuss. Use the text to support your position.
The text we studied this week was Exodus 20:15-18:
All the people saw the thunder and the lightening, the shofar, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they stepped back. They said to Moshe, “Tell us what to do, and we’ll do it. But don’t make us speak directly to God, or we’ll die.” Moshe answered the people, “Don’t be afraid—when you pass the test from God and the understanding of your relationship with God will be on your face, and you won’t make a mistake about the mitzvot (commandments) God just gave you. The people stayed back, and Moshe went up to the cloud where God was.
Here are a few examples of the amazing, deep questions your kids posed about this text and the brilliant answers they offered:
Who was being tested?
Answer A: Bnei Yisrael (the Jewish people), to make sure they would follow the mitzvoth.
Answer B: Moshe, to see whether or not he was a good leader.
Was God in cloud form? Or was God inside the cloud?
Answer A: Maybe God is on the cloud while also being a cloud. Or God was in a different form on or in the cloud without being the cloud.
Answer B: Maybe God was guiding the cloud.
Can God as the cloud fly?
Answer A: Yes! If God’s in the sky and moves around then God must fly.
Answer B: God doesn’t necessarily fly. God doesn’t use the wind to fly. God is the wind and gravity and the air everything else.
Answer C: It’s not that God can fly, but just floats around without ever touching the ground.
Was Mt. Sinai permanently God’s home? Or was God visiting Mt. Sinai?
Answer A: Maybe God lives on Mt. Sinai. Maybe God lives over there. Maybe God lives on your head. Maybe God lives in your glasses. Maybe God is the fog on your glasses.
Answer B: I think God doesn’t actually live someplace, but mostly changes around. Sometimes God will stay in a place for a long time for a certain reason (like getting the 10 commandments and Bnei Yisrael leaving Egypt). Like all the places you could think of are places God could be.
Answer C: God is everywhere so God must live everywhere.
Answer D: I think God covers the earth but can send some of God’s consciousness to one place.