making bedtime Jewish

The basic linear progression is:

1. meal and clean-up

2. bath

3. pjs, teeth, loveys and lights
4. review the day
5. books

6.Sh’ma

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1. meal and clean-up

Food blessings for before and after meals.

For Jewish kid dishes, bibs, cookie cutters, and pretend food, see here.

Our favorite Jewish kid cookbook is The Children’s Jewish Holiday Kitchen.

See also:

Kosher by Design: Kids in the Kitchen

Jewish Holidays Cookbook (for kids)

2. bath

•Jewish bath books

•Foam Hebrew letters

•Toys

•Music (songs or CDs)

Add a Jewish bath book, foam Hebrew letters, or toys that can act out Torah stories or holiday themes. Noah’s ark sets are aplenty, and Jonah & the Whale sets are not unknown, but you can make any boat into the Ark with a little imagination. Any Torah story or Jewish storybook plot is ripe for re-enactment.

Foam Hebrew puzzles do double duty in the bath: they stick to the sides of a wet tub and introduce the aleph bet. (You can also use them as rubber stamps.)

Music is a great way to cut the stress of the end of a long day, and to have fun with Jewish songs, holiday songs, and new music. If you don’t know any, see our suggestions in the Show & Tell page and Links page. Set up a boombox near the bathroom and sing along.

3. pjs, teeth, nightlights

•Jewish Pjs

•Turning off the water

•Jewish sleep friend/lovey

.•Jewish night lights

PJs: On some Jewish Parent networking sites, we see moms kvelling over holiday PJs or kitschy Yiddish tees. You can make your own with fabric paints, embroidery, and fabric crayons.

Water: Turning off the water while brushing teeth is a great time to introduce the mitzvah (commandment) of B’al Tashcheet, roughly translated as Do Not Destroy Needlessly. You can even invoke Tikkun Olam, in the sense we are helping preserve the earth by not wasting resources. Putting a Jewish name to an everyday value or righteous act reinforces the idea that Jewish is everyday. See chart.

Loveys/Sleep friends: Plush torahs, velvet Stars of David with faces, bears with yarmulkes, Plush critters of all kinds, Oy Toy Macca Beans beanie babies, etc. DIY: just cut a circle of felt and sew it on a stuffed animal’s head. It works for us.

Lites: Jewish night lights! They come in AlephBet blocks, a Miriam figure, Chai (life) symbol, Lilah Tov in pink and in blue, and Noah’s Ark. If you know of any more, email me and I’ll add a link. A Jewish night light makes comfort in the dark specifically Jewish! OyToys.com has a selection.

4. books

Thanks to the invigorating influence of the PJ Library, books for little Jewish kids are more available than ever. Tons to choose from. See our personal pics in Show & Tell and the current holiday page.

Bedtime books can be divided in these categories:

• God

• Bible stories

• Folktales

• Jewish life

• Holiday

• Bedtime-themed

God: Books like God’s Paintbrush, Does God Have a Big Toe, Thank You God, and God’s Quiet Things.

Bible Stories: Single stories or collections. Don’t ignore books of “Old Testament” stories: sometimes these can be great (the phrase Old Testament is not a Jewish term). See for example, the Usborne Bible Stories from the Old Testament. For quickies, see Shari Lewis’ One-Minute Bible Stories-Old Testament.

Folktales: Tons of these. The Way Meat Loves Salt: a Cinderella Tale from the Jewish Tradition, Mishka the Kvetch, Just Enough is Plenty, and so on.

Jewish Life: Books like A Mezuzah On the Door, My Jewish Home, The Colors of My Jewish Year, Challah Time, etc.

Holiday: Individual holidays and books of all the Jewish holidays. Keep them out year ‘round: little kids love holidays, period, and if they want a book about Rosh Hashana during February, great. At least they want it!

Shabbat, of course, is a holiday that happens every single week: My First Shabbat Book, Look at Me I Can Celebrate Shabbat, A Holiday For Noah, etc.

Bedtime: Several new books incorporating the Sh’ma are out. See the three big ones in the box far left, and our Show & Tell page of Bedtime books. My favorite, though, isn’t even “Jewish:” God’s Quiet Things is a lovely picture book with few words, good art, and an ending that naturally flows into a recitation of the Sh’ma. The first two words of the book are “Shhhh. Listen.” The last two words of the book are reversed: “Listen. Shhhhh.” How perfect to sustain the Shhhhh into a Shhhhhhhh’ma, Yisroel......

For parents who are new to using the Sh’ma at night with kids, this book or one of the Jewish books that add it for you are easy, gentle ways of approach.

Why say the Sh’ma at all? It’s a traditional prayer for bedtime and waking.

5. review the day

All this means is sitting with your child as they are tucked up in bed, and asking about their day. “Can you remind me where we went this morning?” or some such question helps kids think in narrative, linear fashion, and put activities in context.

Add questions and discussions about what they did today to make the world a better place....Did you pick up trash? Turn off the lights? Hug a sad friend? Feed the dog? Put these in Jewish terms by using the Hebrew names of the value or mitzvah (commandment). Picking up trash falls under B’al Tashcheet. Feeding the dog: Tza’ar Ba’aley Chayyim. See our link for a handy chart of these, designed for Jewish preschool teachers. The accompanying article with in-depth explanation is here.

6. Sh’ma

See above paragraph.

Need a copy of the brief Sh’ma?

Here’s a link that lets you print a handy card to keep beside the bed. In Hebrew and English.

It also includes the Modeh Ani prayer for morning.

Note that different traditions use different parts of the prayer. In Conservative and Orthodox traditions, for example, the second sentence that begins “Baruch Shem Kavod..” is never spoken aloud except on Yom Kippur.

If you have questions about this, ask your Rabbi or spiritual leader.

One of the popular Sh’ma bedtime books does include this particular phrase, so we thought we’d give you a heads-up (the Bedtime Sh’ma by Sarah Gershman).

Bedtime links

Best all-around site for Jewish Going to Bed/Waking Up resources:

Lailah Tov, Boker Tov: Going to Sleep and Waking Up Jewishly: Books, Websites, Music and Crafts (from ACAJE)