Birth & Birth Stories

Share a Jewish birth story (e.g., the matriarchs); invite children’s own birth/arrival stories.

Children wonder and discover; you facilitate more than you lecture.

• What Jewish stories do we tell about birth?
• What is the story of your birth?
• What rituals mark a Jewish baby’s arrival?

Judaism celebrates new life with naming and welcoming. Children share their own arrival stories — by birth, adoption, or other paths.

• Leidah — birth
• Brit / Simchat bat — covenant / celebration for a daughter

“What if I don’t know my birth story?”

That’s okay — we can tell the story of how you joined your family, however that happened.

• Children can articulate Jewish and personal birth stories.
• Children identify brit milah and simchat bat as welcoming rituals.

Explicitly include adoption and all family-formation stories so every child has a story to tell.

Folktale. The Midwives Who Said No (Tanakh) — Shifrah and Puah, two brave midwives who quietly protected newborns.

Changemaker. Shifra and Puah — the midwives ordered to kill the Hebrew baby boys who quietly did not. The Torah records their names and never records Pharaoh’s.

What does it mean to welcome a new life? (Many answers.)

“We shared arrival stories. Try at home: tell your child the story of the day they joined your family.”