Sivan – Shavuot: The Holiday of the First Fruits

• The students will learn about the holiday of Shavuot and the custom of the First Fruits (Bikurim).
• The students will learn about the Seven Species of the Land of Israel.

Opening Activity

• Share with the students about the different aspects of the holiday of Shavuot (as described in the Background for the Teacher). Announce that we will learn about the holiday as the Festival of the First Fruits (Chag HaBikurim).
• Explain to the students about the custom of the First Fruits on Shavuot and about the pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem.
• Help the students to experience the ancient pilgrimage to Jerusalem through guided imagery. Ask the students to close their eyes, relax their bodies, and imagine themselves inside the story. Read the story to them (Supplement 1). Incorporate a spirit of celebration, and theatrical flourishes into your reading.
• Upon completing the reading, ask the students: In the pilgrimage that you imagined, what did you find exciting or meaningful? Try to focus on the experience of visiting Jerusalem and the Temple. How does that make you feel? Would you want to participate in the festivity of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem? What would such a pilgrimage look like if it happened today?

Part 1: The Festival of the First Fruits in the Mishnah and Today

• Pass out the worksheet (Supplement 2) to the students. Invite the students to read the Mishnah’s description of bringing of the First Fruits to Jerusalem and to complete the worksheet. As a class, go over the questions and answers.
• Share with the students that in ancient times Shavuot was the holiday of bringing the first fruits to the Temple, as described in the Mishnah. You can screen this AI video, which puts us into a time machine and models the description in the Mishnah. Since the destruction of the Temple, Shavuot has mainly been observed as Chag Matan Torah, the holiday of the giving of the Torah, because according to tradition, the Torah was given at Mount Sinai on this date. When they began to return to the Land of Israel, the pioneers, especially those on kibbutzim, began to celebrate this holiday as Chag HaBikurim (the Festival of the First Fruits), in light of its connection with working the land and the Land of Israel.
• Show the students a video of the Bikurim (First Fruits) ceremony at Kibbutz Beit Alfa. The video is long, so choose which part you want to show the students.
• In ancient times, the bikurim were actual agricultural crops. But, today, kibbutzim have a custom of presenting all the babies born in the past year and a variety of products as ‘bikurim’ – agricultural and industrial alike. Ask the students: What are the differences and similarities between the kibbutz ceremony and the traditional ceremony described in the Mishnah?
• To conclude, remind the students that bikurim are the first fruits of the harvest, the first produce after many months of hard work.
• Invite the students to draw a picture of a basket of bikurim that contains things in their lives that began in the past year or successes that they have enjoyed after working hard for a long time.

Level 1:

• Screen the presentation about the song “Our Baskets on Our Shoulders”. Explain its content and talk about the ceremony of bringing bikurim to the Temple. Ask the students: What feelings are expressed in this song? When you hear the song, how does it make you feel? What about the song makes you feel that way? Why are the people happy? Based on what we’ve learned about the bikurim ceremony, what are they carrying in their baskets?
• Pass out blank sheets of paper to the students and ask them to draw themselves in the festive procession. Ask them to describe what they would have in their basket: a favorite food, their pet that would want to join the procession, a musical instrument that they like or that they play, etc. Remind them not to draw any background, just themselves and their baskets. Then, cut out the figures that they drew so that they can be hung up on the wall with all of the other students’ figures, to depict a procession.

Part 2: The Seven Species

• Tell the students that the produce that was brought to the Temple was the produce of the Seven Species of the Land of Israel. Write “Seven Species” on the board and ask the students to name them. Write down all of the answers, both correct and incorrect.
• Then, invite the students to use the presentation about the Seven Species to check their answers. Show the presentation and speak about each of the species. You can refer to the information window (i) that appears on each slide. After you have watched the presentation, erase the incorrect answers from the board and add any species that may have been missed.
• Ask: Which of the Seven Species have you eaten recently? In what form did you eat them? Were they unprocessed, just like they are harvested, or had they been processed in some way? Are there any of the Seven Species that you have never eaten? Which ones?
• Prepare a domino-like card game about the Seven Species. Each student will get a sheet of paper with domino-like cards on it (Supplement 3). On each card, instruct them to draw a picture of one of the Seven Species on one side of the card and the name of a different member of the Seven Species in Hebrew and English on the other side. Then, cut out the cards and play together as teams or as a class. Instructions for the game: Place all of the cards face-down in a stack. When a person has a turn, they take one card from the stack. If it matches one of the cards that has already been turned over, it is placed next to that card (like dominoes). If there is no match, the card is returned to the bottom of the stack. The goal is to match as many cards as possible.

Conclusion

• Remind the students that Shavuot is also called Chag HaBikurim, which refers to the custom of bringing bikurim (first fruits) to the Temple. Explain that the bringing of the bikurim was an expression of gratitude and happiness about the agricultural harvest. Today, we can also express our gratitude for our successes and for new things in our lives and, of course, be happy about them.

Computer Game – Seven Species Game

This digital game is based on identifying the Seven Species. The students will need to identify the hidden member of the Seven Species, based on clues and pieces of a larger picture. Level 1: Move the cursor over the picture and let them guess the hidden plant. Then, click on the arrow to reveal the picture. Level 2: The game can be played alone, in pairs, or as a class.