Behrman House: About Us: Open Lion 6.4: Unlock Torah for Your Students with an Extraordinary Book

About Us: Open Lion 6.4

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Volume 6 Issue 4	Winter 1999

Unlock Torah for Your Students with an Extraordinary Book

So many of us struggle with Torah--where is its relevance, power, and mystery? Our students ask other questions: "How does Torah speak to me, and to my life?" We, their teachers, owe them answers. The Extraordinary Nature of Ordinary Things by Rabbi Steven Z. Leder can help. Use the moving stories in this book to open the hearts and minds of your students to the profound and simple truth that Torah is about them.

Are you looking for a way to make Torah's values real to your students? Have them read "God Bless You, Young Man," about an eight-year-old who tithes his allowance and hands it to a homeless man in front of a local coffee shop. Read in "Penny and Duane" about a fifth grader who meets his first poor classmate and what the Torah says he should do about it. Environmentalism? Try laughing your way with the class through "Lazy," a hilarious story ending with a midrash about a boy's pet frog that he agreed to be responsible for as a third grader, not realizing the frog would live for fifteen years.

[Extraordinary Nature COVER] Do you need a lesson about respecting and caring for the elderly? Read to your class about "Rough House Weinbach," a stroke victim and former professional wrestler from the 1930's visited in a nursing home by a confirmation class. Follow that essay with "Abe, Molly, Passover and Life," a story about a couple spending their last days together side-by-side in a nursing home.

Each story is a moving lesson your students won't soon forget.

Have you ever tried to teach mitzvot like kashrut or tefillin only to watch your students' eyes glaze over? Read "Dining with God," and "The Tefillin in the Basement," about one person's journey away from, then back to, tradition. Over and over again, the book teaches a realistic theology in essays that use settings such as a roller coaster, a small Texas town, a fishing boat, and a hospital room. If you want to get your students talking about God in their lives, read "Wise Up," "The Wild Thing," and "A Leap of Faith."

This book can make Torah real for you, for your students, and for their parents. It will grab you, and grab your students. It will have you and your students of all ages laughing, crying, and most of all, talking Torah.

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