My explanation of Ganesh Chaturhi

Here is the explanation I gave the boys about Ganesh Chaturhi:

Idol of Ganesh.

"Boys, today we are looking at a new religion- Hinduism"   This time we pull out the map and I explain that this religion is largely practiced in India and other parts of Asia, but people all over the world are Hindus.

"This holiday is for one of the gods in Hiduism- called Ganesh.  He is the god that Hindu's believe let's you know a lot of things and can help you achieve your dreams.  He has the body of a man and the head of an elephant."  

I tell them the story of how he got the elephant head- and answer many questions about it to the best of my ability.  If you find the story may be too violent I would suggest saying that god Shiva gave Ganesh the head of an elephant.  This is still true to the story and leaves out the other details.

"Ganesh Chaturhi is a holiday for people to celebrate Ganesh and be grateful for the wisdom they believe he has given them and to celebrate his birthday with a great big celebration.  People do this by making and keeping models or idols of him in their house so they are reminded to think of and celebrate him.  Then they go to a huge party with dancing while going towards a river or lake and then putting the idol into the river."

Ganesh Chaturthi

I am very new to exploring Hinduism.  I have casually known people who are Hindu but never really got into the nitty gritty of really talking about the religion.  So with the power of Google I tracked down as many sites as I could and here is what I have learned about Ganesh Chaturhi...

Idols of Ganesh

Ganesh Chaturhi, is a festival to celebrate Lord Ganesh who, according to Hindu religion, is the Lord of prosperity and wisdom.  Ganesh is the child of the god Shiva and goddess Parvati, although most stories of his creation say he was created by only goddess Parvati.  He is believed to be a remover of obstacles.  If you see a picture of Ganesh you will probably think it looks familiar as it is one of the more popular images in Hinduism.   Ganesh is the deity with the elephant head and man's body and sometimes is pictured riding on a mouse.  Ganesh's elephant head is symbolic of wisdom, his human body of humanity, and the mouse he rides on is a symbol for humility.  The story of how he got the elephant head may be violent, but it was interesting albeit confusing to my 4 and 6 year old.  A good explanation of how he got the elephant head can be found here and my quick summary is at the bottom of this post.  

Prior to the holiday celebration Hindus will make or buy models or idols of Lord Ganesh to place in their homes to pay homage.  There are rituals of paying tribute to Ganesh performed by a priest and for several days Ganesh is worshiped.  The time of worship is different depending on location, but 10 days seemed to be the most popular.  On the last day there is a large colorful festival where the idols are taken out and there is singing and dancing.  A procession goes towards a river/sea where the idols will be submerged in water which symbolizes the Lord Ganesh's  journey toward his home in Kailash while taking away with him the misfortunes of all man.  

I found an explanation on why the idols are submerged in water on hindu-blog.com, they say the reason that the Ganesh idol is submerged in the water is that the idols are typically made of clay ( a mixture of sand and water).  While the soul is formless and therefore difficult to worship, the idol is an object that can be used in celebration.  When the idol is submerged it is not gone, as the sand and water still exist, but the idols form will no longer be there.  So each year Ganesh teaches that forms change but the Supreme Truth remains the same- a body perishes but the soul residing in it remains constant.  

If you are interested in my conversation with the boys about Ganesh Chaturhi I have a summary of it here. 

Our craft of course was a playdough Ganesh.

We did a no cook playdough recipe that didn't require cream of tartar and it can be found here.    

The recipe was: 

Supplies

1 cup warm water

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

4 cups flour

1 1/2 cup salt

The recipe called for food coloring.  We did not have any but did have tempera paint so that is what we used to color our playdough. 

Pouring in the paint for coloring.

Teamwork on mixing the dry ingredients.

Working the ingredients into dough.

We separated the water into four bowls just like in the video and added the paint and 1/2 a tablespoon of oil to each bowl and mixed that up.  Then in a larger bowl we combined the flour and salt which we then divided evenly into the four bowls.  We made green, yellow, blue, and red.  We each attempted a Ganesh and then it quickly turned into making other things.  The playdough turned out nicely and is wrapped up in the refrigerator for another day of play tomorrow.

Diaper baby modeling the playdough.

I had thought about taking our model to the duck pond but wasn't sure if the playdough form would be hazardous to the ducks so I saved it in a baggy to be reused again- which I thought was fitting too since the playdough still exists and can be used to make another form:)

Yellow Ganesh

Red Ganesh

Our food for this holiday is Nan khatai.

I adapted the recipe from here:

1/3 cup flour

1/3 almond meal

1/2 cup gram flour

pinch of baking soda

1/4 tsp cardamom powder

1/2 cup unsalted butter

2/3 cup sugar

1 tbsp of sliced pistachios

I also did a last minute dash of cinnamon

Our ingredients

Method:

Preheat over to 375F/190 C

Mix flours, baking soda, cardamom powder in large bowl and set aside

Taking turns scooping while baby constantly mixes

Beat butter and sugar in small bowl until light and fluffy

Add butter mixture to flour mixture and knead into a dough

Divide into 24 equal parts and roll into balls and flatten slightly with your palms

Rolling the dough into balls

With a knife mark squares into the surface of each piece of dough by drawing 2 horizontal lines and 2 vertical lines and places nuts into each of these squares. We only did a nut in the middle of the cookies.

Bake the dough on a greased baking tin or parchment lined tin for 12-15 min or until golden brown.  Leave to cool

When I tasted the dough I was not excited for how the cookie would turn out.  After cooking they were better, but the next day they were great and all were gobbled up:) 

Posing with the finished product.

Here is my promised summary of Ganesh's head:

A quick summary :  In the Shiva Purana, the goddess Parvati created a boy out of the dirt of her body while she was bathing (I have to say as a mother of three boys I really appreciate the fact that her son is made out of dirt.  Sometimes at bath-time I think my kids lose a pound or two of dirt themselves).  She tasked this boy to guard the entrance to her bathroom.  When her husband Shiva returned, he was surprised and angry that a stranger would not let him into the bath and he cut off the boy's head.  Parvati was shocked and grieved so Shiva went out and searched for a head to replace the one he cut off to put onto the body.  He came upon an elephant and took its head and then attached it to the body of the boy.  Shiva restored his life and made him the leader of his troops.  Shiva also blessed him so people would worship him and invoke his name before undertaking any venture.

Thanks for reading! 

My main source of information for this piece was found on hinduism.about.com.

Rosh Hashanah

L'shana Tova to all my Jewish friends!

The first holiday we are going to explore is Rosh Hashanah which is the Jewish festival of the New Year.  Rosh Hashanah actually means "Head of the Year" and is observed over two days.  This year Rosh Hashanah falls on September 5th and 6th and will celebrate the year 5774!   This holiday is the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve, who according to Jewish religion are the first man and woman.  Rosh Hashanah is also about Adam and Eve's (and also mankind's) relationship with their creator, God.

Rosh Hashanah is not a stay up and countdown the hours kind of New Year celebration with confetti and noise makers.  Instead it is a holiday of prayer and reflection.  It is a time to pray, focus on kindness, charity, stop bad habits, and think about the relationship between God and humanity.  When trying to think of a way to tie it to our own lives so that my children can wrap their minds around this concept, I think of New Year's resolutions.

My guys are only 6, 4 and 16 months, so I could not explain it as much as you can if your kids are a little older- so my explanation went a little like this: 

 Guys I want to talk to you about a holiday that is being celebrated soon.  It's called Rosh Hashanah and its the new year for people whose religion is Judaism.

 (What's Judaism is of course asked.)  I explain that it is a religion that we are going to try to learn about this year and that one of their Aunt and Uncle are Jewish so we should make sure we tell them  "L'shana Tova" which is hebrew for happy new year.  

So Guys for Rosh Hashanah this time of year is a time when those who celebrate it think about how they want to behave and maybe think about times they were naughty and how next time they could react differently.  It's also a really good time to try to do nice things for other people and hopefully make it a habit.  (The question of what's a habit inevitably comes up- so that is explained as well) 

One of the traditions of Rosh Hashanah that I wanted my kids to know is the throwing away of sins.  Traditionally a believer goes to a spring or river where fish are and recites the Tashlich prayers while emptying pockets of bread.   (More info on these prayers found here)   

Feeding the very hungry fish.

The swans were also very interested in this tradition.

This is a symbol of bad habits or sin that will be cast away for the new year so to start fresh.  We grabbed some of our bread and headed to the pond to feed the fish, who were extremely happy to help us explore the casting away of sins by devouring every last crumb we had offered.  The swans and ducks were also happy to help.  My children are young and the concept of sin is a hard one to grasp, so for them I said its kind of like throwing out when you have been naughty and letting the fish eat any angry or mean feelings we have left in us.

Our craft for this holiday was a homemade shofar.  According to chabad.org,  the central observance of Rosh Hashanah is the sounding of the shofar , the ram’s horn, which also represents the trumpet blast of a people’s coronation of their king. The sound of the shofar is also a call to repentance, as Rosh Hashanah is also the anniversary of man's first sin and the repentance thereof.  

Our craft list included various sized funnels, plastic tubing, and washi tape for fun colors.

Baby decided to check out the supplies.

The shofar is blown to remind followers to reconnect to God, and recommit to their own divine mission in this world.  The shofar is blown a minimum of 30 times and sometimes up to 100 times.  While the shofar is typically blown by a rabbi or a professional we decided to create our own shofar.  I realize this may not have been the ideal craft because little boys love to make noise and this craft surely does encourage that.  While I am all for happy noises and happy boys I think that I may have overlooked the fact that we are currently in an apartment living situation and our neighbors may not enjoy the blowing of the shofar as much as we have.  Also we had to cut down the size of our shofar because it looked less like a rams horn and more like something you may find at a college frat party- and that is not the lesson I was trying to teach today.  

Working hard to make our shofar pretty. 

Picture of a real shofar.

Practicing brass instrument blowing method into our shofar

Apples dipped in honey!

My middle son has decided his favorite tradition of Rosh Hashanah is the eating of sweet foods.  It is tradition to eat sweet foods so that the year may be as sweet as honey.  While I saw some good looking recipes for honey cakes and breads, apples dipped in honey seemed to be what was suggested on every Rosh Hashanah site I found.  So our simple yet delicious snack for Rosh Hashanah was apples dipped in our local honey.  It was a sweet treat enjoyed by all three boys and a wonderful way to start our first experience with Rosh Hashanah.

I think this is a look of approval.

Please stay tuned because we will follow up with Yom Kippur-ten days after Rosh Hashanah is Yom Kippur and during these ten days is a time for continued reflection.  Thanks for reading and more to come!

For my main sources of information on Rosh Hashanah I used the sites chabad.org and reformjudaism.org. 

Respectfully simplifying

Before plunging ahead with writing this blog I had deliberated about whether this was a good project to tackle.  I mean, I am taking religious and cultural traditions and simplifying it into a short little fluffy blog piece.  So these great meaningful holidays will be written about by me, who is not a scholarly theologian, but just a woman who wants her children to have exposure to the different belief systems of the world.

I will do my best to honor the sanctity of each of these holidays in my explanations.  If you would like to add or adjust anything that I have said I would gladly welcome your feedback.  I also realize there are many sects within religions and different regions of the world may have different spins on traditions, so I will try to point out where I am drawing my information from.  I ask of anyone who posts to try to be respectful to each other and to me.  I am hoping to make this a space for learning and understanding.  Thank you for taking this journey with my family.