Each month the moon "disappears" from the night sky, and the people of Chełm are forced to stumble in the dark streets. Can they find a moon to light their way throughout the month? This new and amusing adaptation to a well-known People of Chełm tale is a gem of Jewish humor about the nature of the moon.
Age Group: KINDERGARTEN
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cookingThe People of Chełm and Jewish Humor
A popular humorous Jewish tradition involves 200-year-old tales of the people of Chełm, a town in Poland. The stories were told throughout the generations in many versions, and collected in various anthologies by authors such as I.L. Peretz and Isaac Bashevis Singer. In them, the people of Chełm are reputed to come up with silly solutions to town problems. Bashevis Singer concluded his compilation of Chełm stories with the saying “All roads lead to Chełm; all the world is one big Chełm”. Perhaps these tales are so well loved and amusing because we all at times behave in ways that counter all logic.
He who sees the renewal of the moon says: “Blessed be He the Renewer of Months”
(Talmud Yerushalmi, Berachot, 65a)
The moon, in Hebrew יָרֵחַ, לְבָנָה or סַהַר (crescent), renews itself and changes each day. The cycle of the moon has an important role in Jewish tradition, since the Jewish calendar is lunar. The beginning of each Jewish month, Rosh Chodesh, is denoted by the new moon, and that is why a synonym for month is moon. The Jewish holidays are also therefore derived from the lunar cycle. In Jewish tradition, many a midrash, liturgical poem and blessing are dedicated to the renewal of the moon.
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Copies Distributed:
118,500
Publishing:
עגור
Year of Distribution:
1977 2016-2017
