Pragmatic Attic

For Vayeitzei, a pull apart challah for the stone on which Yaacov laid his head, and a ladder challah (fougasse) for the ladder in Yaacov’s dream.

To make the ladder, make a rectangle that is 8″x4″ and cut slashes for the rungs. When you stretch out the rectangle to a longer length (16″) you make space between the slashes for the rungs of the ladder.

I got the idea for using a pull apart challah from Parshah mom, who has some other really great ideas. For example, she hands out cards, each with a word that has the same gematria as Sulam (ladder) according to Ba’al Haturim and asks the person who gets that card to explain the metaphor (e.g., “a ladder is like money because . . . .”).

Rabbi Frand explaining how ladder (sulam) is like money (mammon).
Rabbi Kahn, gematria of sulam as the same as Sinai and kol (voice).
Sedra Selections: gematria of sulam the same as oni (poverty), tzome (fasting) (also how fasting, voice, and money equal teshuvah, tefillah and tzedaka, which are done on earth, but reach the heavens).
Shoresh.org has a complete discussion of this topic.

Tags: parshah

This entry was posted on November 30, 2011 at 6:52 pm and is filed under bread, Parsha Project, projects with kids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.