Why does Ellen need to help her mother clean their house? (Number the Stars) They are preparing for the Sabbath
They clean the house every day
Thursday is Jewish New Year
They are going to visit relatives

the bundle of the sticks, talks about union and how sometimes people need a different point of view. when the father in this story asked his sons to break the bunch of sticks, they could not, but when they grabbed one stick each, it was easier for them to break, because they worked together.

in hofus the stonecutter shows a simple happy working man, but one day when he delivers a load of stone into the house of a rich man, he wishes to be a rich man as well and so the mountain spirit grants him that wish and many others, until he realizes that even getting all his desires and wishes come true, he just needed to be humble and have genuine reason to live and be a better man each day.