The Significance of Ritual

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Aaron, water

Excerpt from Enjoying Exodus: The Bible in Rhyme by Marcia Goldlist

Aaron and his sons and their future generations are to wash their hands and feet before serving God.

Discussion Questions:

• What does spiritual cleansing mean?
• Do you think that the washing was used for a physical or spiritual cleaning?
• Washing before serving would have been a ritual.
  • What is ritual?
  • How could a ritual help people concentrate on their job?

Creative Thinking:

• Give as many reasons as you can for why washing hands and feet would be important?
• Why would the feet and hands be picked for cleansing?

Activities for Homeschool and Afterschool:

• Research how water cleans.
• Research a ritual from another cultural that you didn’t know about before.
• Write a diary entry for the water about how it felt being used to wash the hands and face of Aaron and his sons.
• Write a comic strip featuring the hands and feet talking to each other during the washing ritual.
• Write a tweet or a blog post for a descendant of Aaron being washed for the first time.
• How do you think Aaron’s thoughts would differ from that of a descendant while being washed for the first time?
• Research ways to wash yourself when there is no water available.
• See how many different things you can find that water is good for.

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Water in the Bible

Tags

Aaron, water

 Excerpt from Enjoying Exodus: The Bible in Rhyme by Marcia Goldlist  

Before Aaron and his sons were brought into the tent of meeting they were to be immersed in water.

Discussion Questions:

• Aaron and his sons were to be immersed in water before they did their work. Think of other instances where there is something done before someone starts doing something. (eg stretching before doing exercise)
• Do you think that getting ready to do something in the above ways is important? Why?

Creative Thinking:

• Why would Aaron and his sons need to be brought to the the tent of meeting? Why would they not be allowed to come themselves?
• What was the purpose of the  water?

Activities for Homeschooling and Afterschooling:

• Research water. Find out:
  • how much of the world is water
  • how much of the human body is water
  • how much of animals is water
  • why some water is salty
  • what exactly water is
• Aaron and his sons were to be immersed in water. Find out how various religions use immersion in water.
• Find at least five times that water is mentioned in the Bible.
• Aaron and his sons were to be brought to the tent of meeting. Write about other official entries (monarchs, prime ministers, presidents, etc.) where someone is brought to a specific place for a specific purpose.
• If so much of the world is made up of water why is it a scarce resource?
• Take a map of the world and see if you could sail around the whole globe returning to your starting point. Try to map out a route. If you can’t get through on a route where are you blocked?
• Why do you think water was used to immerse Aaron and his sons?