Optional parental preparation:

1. Using the directions provided here, re-enact the "miracle" of the oil giving everybody in the family a part (invite friends and neighbors too). One person, who plays the widow, will actually experience the miracle. Everyone else plays a neighbor. The widow's cruse (cup) should be a different color to distinguish it from all the others, not leaving the table throughout. The first neighbor brings an empty cup. However, each subsequent neighbor brings a full cup of water (pretend it's olive-oil). Every time the widow leaves the room to store a container of "olive-oil", while she's gone the next neighbor carries in a cup of olive-oil, pours it into the widow's cruse on the table, and stands holding their now-empty cup, awaiting the widow's return to give the empty cup to her. First, you need a brief background about the ancient Biblical Israelis. Preserving the dignity of the poor was a top priority. Individuals didn't take credit for acts of khësꞋëd, rather, the results were done anonymously and credited to the work or "Hand of ה'". As in may similar cases, this was the case in helping the widow. Ël•i•shâꞋ ha-Nâ•viꞋ had to think creatively how to help the widow without her feeling like a charity case. The help had to come from "Hand of ה'" That meant starting with something the widow had, that the "Hand of ה'" could prosper. She had a cruse of olive-oil, which was highly valued and readily marketable. The challenge,then, was to figure out how the "Hand of ה'" could multiply her oil so that her dignity was preserved and she wasn't made to feel embarrassed as a "charity case". Here's how, with the cooperation of some neighbors who could afford to help, Ël•i•shâꞋ ha-Nâ•viꞋ did it:
   1. The widow produced a cruse of olive-oil.
   2. Ël•i•shâꞋ ha-Nâ•viꞋ instructed the widow to pour oil from her cruse into a new cruse, brought by a neighbor, and then, leaving her original cruse on the table, go to a storage room, closing the door behind her and her sons, to store the new cruse of olive-oil in the storage room.
   3. While the widow is absent, a neighbor brings a container of olive-oil and pours it into the widow's cruse, then stands holding the empty container.
   4. When the widow returns – surprise, the cruse is full again!!! The widow takes the empty container from the neighbor and fills it from her cruse. Again leaving the empty cruse on the table, the widow takes the container of olive-oil to the storage room. Then go to #2 and repeat until there are no more containers to fill. Then the original cruse is finally empty.
2. Note 2 – Insisting on storing the oil behind closed doors suggests that, beyond wanting the door closed to conceal the charity operation to preserve the dignity of the widow and her sons, the reason the widow could relate to was more likely to rig some kind of secret noise alarm in case anyone might dig into the storage room. This, in turn, suggests that, perhaps, her poverty resulted not from poor business but from a robbery of her inventory. 

Questions you might anticipate that your child might raise and be prepared to discuss:

1. What does first-press, extra-virgin, top grade olive-oil from Israel look (greenish) and taste like? What's it used for?
2. Note 1 – If the widow didn't have anything why didn't they give her food? The topic they were discussing here was paying off her creditors to redeem her sons from indenture. There was no food stamps or social security. Widows had to earn an income somehow. Ël•i•shâꞋ was asking about her income-producing tools and inventory. Moreover, restoring her income producing efforts would enable her to feed herself. Archeological digs show that olive-oil cruses were ubiquitous in Israel during this period (Iron Age II, ca. B.C.E. 891), and probably used to prepare bodies for burial. The widow's answer implies that she was engaged in marketing cruses of olive-oil used by families for a last anointing of the bodies of deceased loved ones for burial. In that context, we learn that she was down to her last cruse of olive-oil and her creditors had taken all of her money (and her two sons – who may have manufactured her cruses or worked in fragrances and blending with the olive-oil) leaving her financially unable to replenish her stock of cruses or olive-oil. The challenge, then, was to restore her anointing-oil business. 
3. When are the events of this Ha•phᵊtâr•âhꞋ relative to the time of Avᵊrâ•hâmꞋ? (Avᵊrâ•hâmꞋ's events occurred ca. B.C.E. 2100, about 1,200 years before Ël•i•shâꞋ, who lived ca. B.C.E. 890.) Explain how B.C.E. and C.E. works, and how it relates to this year.