[HANASHIR:10838] Re: Plagues song

[Sholom Simon <sholom...>]

At 09:51 AM 2/4/2002 -0500, H & R Shubert wrote:
>I was introduced to this song (known as Frogs on His Head to the little
>ones) when I started teaching pre-school music many years ago and taught it,
>since it was part of the curriculum. Part of its effectiveness as a teaching
>song comes from its humor and the fact that it is fun to sing and act out.
>However, I never felt comfortable with it, because it seemed to celebrate
>the suffering (albeit in a cartoon-ish way) and just can't bring myself to
>teach it any more.  After all, we are taught to spill a drop of wine for
>each plague at the seder.  Am I being overly analytical or are there others
>out there who feel that way?

You raise a good issue, although I come down on a different side.  My view
is that it is a way to teach the plagues that is in a non-scary manner.  We
_do_ want to teach the plagues, and yet we _don't_ want to belabor how
awful it was, at least for pre-schoolers.

Spilling a drop of wine is still done, and precisely to teach the message
about others' suffering.

My two cents,

-- Sholom
+-------------------------------------------------------+
|   Sholom Simon     | sholom (at) aishdas(dot)org               |
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| proud daddy to Joshua Ari  4/18/93 - 27 Nissan 5753   |
|        and Eliana Rebekah  3/12/95 - 11 Adar-2 5755   |
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