Below is a list of statements about food that come from Biblical, Rabbinic, and modern sources. For this first activity using the statements, the teacher should use his or her judgment with regard to which sources and how many sources to give to each student or group. The teacher can give all the statements to all of the students, choose just a few of the statements to give to all of the students, etc. If a teacher is dividing the sources up, it would be most useful to give each group/student a mix of traditional and modern texts. Important: give students the handout version of the statements, which does not identify the source of each excerpt; the citations are for the teacher’s use and should be revealed to the students only after they have had a chance to hypothesize about them.

Before giving students the statements about Jewish values and food, tell students that they will do three things with the statements:

• Hypothesize about what time period the statement comes from;
• Hypothesize about who may have said it or from what source or type of source it came from, eg. “Moshe,” “the Bible,” “Deuteronomy;” “Pirkei Avot,” “the ancient rabbis,” “prayers in the siddur, in the Haggadah”, etc.
• Categorize the value(s) implied in the quotation, eg. “kashrut,” “gratitude,” “self-sufficiency,” “compassion,” “stewardship,” “health,” “environmentalism,” “fairness,” etc.

They might keep track of their responses to these three questions by drawing a simple chart with three columns, one each for “Time,” “Source,” and “Values,” and a row for each statement.

Once students have had a chance to work with the sources and have made their hypotheses and categories, have them share their responses in the large group. Help them to round out their understandings about what is being said in each statement and correct any misunderstandings about the sources that may have arisen, by giving them the references for each source and additional information you have from the Introductory Essay. Teachers might also have students read the introductory essay themselves. The Lesson 6 Document Study Jewish Statements about Food: Then and Now includes questions to pose for each statement, as well as some additional information about the content of some of the sources. Additional information can be gleaned from the Introductory Essay.