“One rule. Do not climb on top of the challah, only inside of it,” Mishi Harari said on a recent morning while standing in front of a 6-foot-long plastic loaf of bread at the Jewish Children’s Museum in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Her listeners, a dozen fourth-grade girls from nearby Yeshiva Flatbush, nodded obediently before clambering all over a huge mock-up of a Shabbat dinner table, one of the museum’s more popular exhibits. Three little girls took turns shimmying through the tunnel in the middle of the giant challah. Other students clustered around a Shabbat culinary video, broadcast on television monitors tucked inside plaster matzoh balls bigger than their heads.

The mission of the museum, located at 792 Eastern Parkway, is no less than to bring alive the traditions, legacy and culture of Judaism through exhibits and child-focused lessons. But to steer their young visitors to the meaning behind the flashy interactive games and activities, the museum relies on the aid of tour guides such as Harari, a 21-year-old Lubavitch Jew from southern California who moved to Crown Heights last fall.

Harari said she tailors her group tours to the visitors’ needs and their existing knowledge of Judaism. Because her current guests receive specialized religious instruction everyday at yeshiva, Harari chose not to dwell on basic knowledge and moved at a quick pace, leaving more time for the fun stuff.

As preparation for the Shabbas dinner table exhibit, Harari first ushered the girls into a darkened hallway for an exhibit called “6 Days of Creation.”

She asked the girls, “What did God create on the first day?”

“Night and day!” several of them replied together. “Good!” Harari said, and pressed a button on the wall that launched an interactive exhibit, showing a sun setting on a television screen.

The private museum, a project of the Lubavitch Hasidic sect, exists far from the raging national debates about creationism, intelligent design and the big bang. There is no question here about who created the world.

Harari and the group moved through the Lord’s creations briskly, in a hurry to get to the payoff of the day of rest.
“What about on the third day?” Harari asked, and pushed a button that launched dry ice mist over a waterfall poster. “Water!” the girls shrieked. “Uh-huh, and dry land and plants. You see those trees and flowers?” Harari said, pointing to a rock pile covered with artificial roses, tulips and carnations. “That means plants.”

As they walked through the hall, one girl looked down at her feet and noticed the stickers on the floor that counted down the days until the day of rest. Pausing over the last sticker that read, “1 day til Shabbat,” Harari pointed to the wall and said, “What do you see going on during the sixth day?”

Clued in by the exhibit’s statue of a large gray sample specimen, one girl in a red sweatshirt shrieked “Elephant!” while others said, “God made animals!”

At the last exhibit, the girls stared raptly at a television screen, where a video played of people moving in fast motion, going to school, work and playing. A zesty fiddle tune accompanied the action. “What are they doing?” Harari asked the students. “The people are living their lives,” one girl ventured.

“They’re working so quickly,” Harari said. In the video, the music slowed down, a calendar flipped to Friday, and a family lit candles and prepared for dinner. “See what’s happening? They’re not going so fast anymore. What do they get?” Harari replied. “A day of rest!” the girls said.

“On?” Harari prompted her charges.

“Shabbat!” the girls said together.