Each week at the “Beit Tsindlicht” Children’s Educational Center, the leading preschool of the Jewish Community of Dnipro, follows a dedicated theme that runs through all lessons and activities, allowing children to explore it from various angles.
This week, the little ones learned about the concept of “shadows” not just in a practical sense, but also as an essential element of the world’s structure. They explored how objects cast shadows, what factors influence them, how the size and intensity of a shadow relate to its light source, what the shape of a shadow can tell us – and much more.
“The children loved the shadow games,” shares Malka Averbukh, a preschool teacher at the kindergarten. “We guessed objects by their shadows and traced silhouettes based on shadows – this helped introduce the concept of ‘projection’. The week concluded with a shadow puppet theater performance and a spectacular light show, because the source of every shadow is light – shadows only exist where there is light.”
The metaphorical, philosophical, and spiritual interpretation of “shadow” appears in many foundational Jewish texts – including the books of the Tanakh, the Talmud, and classical Hasidic works, such as Tanya, the seminal book by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Founder of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
