SAN DIEGO – Rabbi/ Cantor Dr. Linda Bernstein of San Francisco is a multi-tasker.
She is a doctor of pharmacy, a rabbi ordained by the Academy for Jewish Religion California, and is a member of the Cantors Assembly of the Conservative movement. She also is the producer, writer, and host of multimedia educational programs.
Her latest venture is a Mitzvah Power Academy series written for 5- to 10-year-old-readers in which children known as the Haverim Heroes perform good deeds at home, in school, in their community, in space, and during time-travel adventures in which they interact with Jews of the past.
Three titles have now been authored by Bernstein, who prefers to be called Rabbi Linda: Welcome Haverim Heroes: Jewpiter Mensch-Venture; 10,000 Matzah Balls?! A Passover Tale; and Ark Aid, A Shabbat Story.
Each book retails for $19.99 and was published this year by the Vita Media Corporation.
Welcome Haverim Heroes, written in rhyme, serves as an introduction to the series. The year is 3002 and Rabbi Leah has just been named head of the Mitzvah Power Academy. The school’s uniform is a blue and white version of Superman’s costume with a blue Magen David prominently displayed on the chest. The Haverim Heroes are boys and girls of all shades, including a wheelchair-bound girl. There is also a doggie mascot.
Their first adventure takes them to the far side of the Jewpiter where aliens Mayim, Chayim, and Shamayim don’t want to clean their room nor share their matzah ball soup. (Their names respectively are Hebrew for water, life, and heaven.)
The Haverim Heroes invite them back to the Mitzvah Power Academy to have fun learning to be menschen. With the Haverim Heroes, they clean litter from Jewpiter Beach. Rabbi Leah instructs them: “By doing a mitzvah, that is a good deed, we can help those who are in need.”
In A Passover Tale, the Haverim Heroes including Mayim, Chayim and Shamayim fly in their time machine to the Holy Land on Earth. A selfish farmer declines to provide food for hungry villagers, not even from the corners of his fields, disobeying the Torah command to allow anyone to glean food from those locations.
When cows get loose and eat much of the produce in the farmer’s field, he cries for help and the villagers and the Haverim Heroes round the cows up. The farmer has a change of heart and shares his produce with the villagers. Prior to Passover, the farmer provides enough unleavened wheat for a 10,000 matzoh ball feast-ival.
At the back of this book are children’s games for Pesach: an illustration of a maze labeled “Mitzvah Power Afikomen Hunt;” a seder word finder; and a tic-tac-toe game to be played with cut outs of small Magen Davids and matzah balls. There also is a Haverim Hero certificate with the reader’s name to be filled in.
In Ark Aid, the Haverim Heroes travel back in time to help Noah build the Ark. They convince the animals to help with the packing so Noah can take a rest on Shabbat.
When the engine of the time machine goes on the fritz, Noah offers to tow the vehicle of the future through the sea. That frees the Haverim Heroes to have fun on the Ark with the animals, whom they introduce to matzah ball soup. For their part, the animals put on a talent show. Flamingos dance swan lake; the elephant, giraffe and hippo perform in a jazz trio; the parrot shows off her ventriloquism.
When the Ark finally reaches dry land, the Haverim Heroes fly in their time machine back to the Mitzvah Power Academy, ready for their next adventure.
In addition to the books, there is a Mitzvah Power Academy website for children to peruse.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.