Hope for the future
I want to tell you about an amazing experience I had just before Purim. I was invited to Bridgewater Primary school in Berkhamsted to take part in a WOW Multifaith day where volunteers from various faiths ran workshops with different years to teach the children about their religion.
I worked with two Reception and two Year 2 classes to talk about Judaism.
I first introduced them to Shabbat by explaining that each religion had its own day of rest — for example the Jewish people had Saturday when they went to the synagogue, Christians had Sunday when they went to church and Muslims went to their Mosque on Friday which highlighted how similar the religions were.
I then taught them my Shabbat song Two Candles Burn and showed them candles, Kiddush wine and of course challah.
Next, I explained how this year three festivals all coincided – Purim, Easter and Ramadan – which showed how faiths celebrated their own festivals at the same time in harmony.
The children, all made greggors and rattles and I taught them The Wickedest of All, my “We hate Haman” song. They certainly loved the HAMAN BOO BOO BOO chorus.
In the afternoon, there was a whole school assembly where each year told 360 children what they had learnt. At the end, with the help of my Year 2 “choir”, I taught the whole school about Shabbat and Purim. It was wonderful to see some 720 candles being held during Two Candles Burn (each child holding up two fingers representing the candles)
But when it came to the Haman song – well, the sound of Boo Boo Boo was deafening, and the roof nearly did come off.
The next morning I received an email from the school that started: “Stephen, we have a problem.” I was worried about what had happened. But when I read the rest of the email: “All the staff and children are running around singing your songs! We can’t get them out of our heads! How fantastic! The children had the most wonderful time, they were so enthusiastic.”
It made me realise that even in these continued troubled times there is indeed still hope for the future.
Stephen Melzack Borehamwood WD6