It started with my son taking the Egged bus to and from Yerushalaim everyday in grade 7.
A neighbour told me that she sees him solving a crossword puzzle with the bus driver on the way home.
Then he started to bring the crossword puzzle home with im , to show me what they had solved, and maybe even see if I can fill in any gaps.
Sinec then, I am addicted. I must have my fix of Yisrael haYom - Hebrew version - crossword puzzles every day. When someone comes home with the paper,w e all grab pens and write on top of each other - a real family sport.
I am learnign a bit of Hebrew vocabulary, but I also know a lot of the answers because every puzzle, in this regular, ordinary, not-religious newspaper, has questions that are part of the lifeblood of Torah Jews.
And i don't mean the simple ones like "gadol baTorah" is "rav." Today there were two clues that were "one of the Trei Assar neviim"; "Yishamel's mother"; "one of the ten plagues"; "month in the Hebrew calendar". Yesterday there was "the Rmabam " (answer : "haNesher haGadol"), "parshan" of the Tanach (Rashi), son fof Avinoam ("Barak") There are often clues such as "Talmudic scholar" or "Mishnaic scholar", "date in the Omer", "father of David Hamelech"
While Jews in golus have to specifically look for Jewish content games to show that Torah isn't just in the shul or school, BH here Torah is just a part of EVERYTHING, even the silly things like a free newspaper's crossword puzzle; and in way this shows that every citizen is "expected" to know some basic Torah facts and personalities.
Hillel's partner, anyone?
