Haftarah Trope Challenge is May 5

Spring has officially arrived, and with the month of April we have exactly 6 Sundays and 6 Wednesdays left of school. This year has flown by! We have been working diligently on Haftarah Trope for the past months, and it is time to announce our final project – the Haftarah Trope Challenge.

The Haftarah Trope Challenge (HTC), like the Torah Trope Challenge, will demonstrate each student’s knowledge of trope and the blessings, so I can say with confidence that these kids are ready to begin preparing for their Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s. The HTC will take place on Sunday, May 5, 2019. It consists of each student chanting three parts:

1. Chant the Blessing Before Haftarah in Hebrew

2. Chant the Blessing After Haftarah in Hebrew

3. Chant 3 verses from our Haftarah example, Isaiah 54:1-3 in TROPE.

The students will spend the next month continuing to prepare. This Sunday, April 7, we will learn the 5th clause, R’vi-i. We will continue to practice the blessings before and after Haftarah, focusing on proper Hebrew pronunciation, the appropriate melodies, and understanding the meaning of our words. By the HTC, each student will be thoroughly prepared. Here is the rubric Assessment for Haftarah Trope Challenge 5779 for the HTC.

To help your student practice at home, if they so choose, there are many resources to help you. On the bottom half of our trope page, you can find recordings, musical notations of trope and the blessings, all the worksheets we have used in class, and transliteration of the blessings. Here are some helpful links:

Recordings of the Blessings Before and After Haftarah:

Recordings of the Blessings Before and After Haftarah with Transliteration: https://reformjudaism.org/practice/prayers-blessings/shabbat-morning-worship-services-blessings-reading-haftarah 

Musical Notation of the Blessing After Haftarah

Recordings of all the Haftarah Trope Clauses:

Musical Notation of the Haftarah Clauses

I will announce the HTC to our students in class today, and again on Sunday. Now that each student has their actual parsha (portion) given to them at the last B’nai Mitzvah Seminar, I know they are excited to begin looking at it and chanting through it. With our study of trope, one hour each week, I am pleased to be able to give them the tools to be Torah and Haftarah readers for life.

Leave a Reply