Rebuilding The Beit HaMikdash Recycling Craft For Kids

Today is the 17th of Tammuz, a solemn fast day on the Jewish calender, and certainly a perfect time to work on my "Rebuilding the Beit HaMikdash" recycling craft with kids of all ages! Of course one could certainly use this idea to also learn about the Kotel (The Wailing Wall) which stands today and was one of the outer walls of the courtyard of the Beit HaMikdash.

Starting today, we enter a period of mourning for the next three weeks— mourning for the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem that was taken from us in 70 CE, (namely 1,943 years ago!) on the 9th of Av, the day which marks the end of this three week period of mourning. Of course our mourning has many facets, one of which is thinking about how each one of us can do his part to rebuild the temple.

Getting a group of kids to each paint part of a stone wall on a recycled cardboard box of some kind is a great way to communicate the message of unity and the importance of each of us using our unique gifts to do good in the world. In case you're wondering who painted that pink section, well of course that would be me, as one of my contributions to the world is to encourage creativity!

You'll Need:

• recycled cardboard food boxes, these were from energy bars
• paint
• hot glue, double stick tape or high-tack glue

How To:

Carefully open seams of boxes, and lay flat. Show kids how stones are generally used to build walls, here we just need to look out the window, you may want to show the kids some photos. Talk about using paint to create a suggestion of stone texture by using several colors, and set the kids free to create their unique stone wall!

Once dry, re-glue the box using hot glue, or high-tack glue, regular glue in generally not strong enough to hold the seams unless the boxes are quite small.

That's it, now go out and rebuild the Beit HaMikdash!