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Friday LetterFriday Letter Archive | Friday Letter AlertsHappy 5th Birthday, Aden and Ashley Bentov!
Parashat Nitzavim Candle lighting 6:27 p.m. Mon. Sept. 29th – Erev Rosh Hashanah – SCHOOL CLOSED Wed. Oct. 1st – Rosh Hashanah – SCHOOL CLOSED Thurs. Oct. 2nd – Classes Resume Fri. Oct. 3rd – Kabbalat Shabbat. 8:15 a.m. Parents are welcome. Fri. Oct. 3rd – Principal’s Breakfast, with Dr. Cindy Dolgin. 8:10 a.m. If you would like to attend, please make a reservation with Kathleen at kniebling@ssdsnassau.org. Sun. Oct. 5th - PA Sponsored Kindergarten Shabbat Fair. 11:00 a.m. All kindergarten families welcome. Pre-registration required. Wed. Oct. 8th – Wed. Oct. 15th – Yom Kippur, Columbus Day, Sukkot – SCHOOL CLOSED Wed. Oct. 8th – Erev Yom Kippur Thurs. Oct. 9th – Yom Kippur Mon. Oct 13th – Erev Sukkot Tues. Oct. 14th – Sukkot Wed. Oct. 15th – SukkotThurs. Oct. 16th – Hol HaMoed Sukkot – CLASSES RESUME. Lunch in the Sukkah Fri. Oct. 17th – Hol HaMoed Sukkot Mon. Oct. 20th – Hoshana Rabbah. EARLY DISMISSAL AT 1:30 p.m. Tues. Oct. 21st – Shmini Atzeret – SCHOOL CLOSED Wed. Oct. 22nd – Simchat Torah – SCHOOL CLOSED Thurs. Oct. 23rd - Bloomingdale’s The Shopping Benefit - at Bloomingdale’s Roosevelt Field, Walt Whitman and The Furniture Gallery at Roosevelt Field. The Shopping Benefit will feature storewide entertainment, discounts and fashion events. With your purchase of a $10 ticket, you are entitled to take15% off almost every purchase and 20% off when you spend $300 or more on your Bloomingdales card that day. 100% of the ticket price will benefit SSDS. Please open the PDF file at the bottom of this email for more information. Sun. Oct. 26th – PA Sponsored FAMILY MATH DAY. Pre-registration required. Early-Bird Reminder – there will be no district transportation on Tuesday, November 11th in observance of Veteran’s Day. Some private transportation providers will provide bussing as usual. Please check with your transportation provider, and if necessary, make arrangements to drive your child to school on Tuesday, November 11th. Hot Lunch Update: 2nd Tuesday Chicken Schwarma was replaced with Chicken Nuggets. Also, please let your children know that on any given day, if they do not wish to eat the main course served at lunch, they can request a bagel in place of the main course. However, they cannot receive both the main course AND a bagel. If they come back for a bagel, you will receive a bill for $1.50. ************************************************************************ Dear Family and Friends of SSDS Nassau, As you can see from the above listings, there is so much going on over the next few weeks, and very little of it will take place in school! We are about to embark on the Jewish month of Tishrei, technically the seventh month of the Jewish calendar, but which we for all intents and purposes think of as the first month of the Jewish year. It is also a month that contains four distinct haggim, Jewish holidays, grounded in the Torah, and for this reason, there are many days on which families gather at the synagogue and children do not come to school. Though the series of Tishrei holidays always begins on the first day of the month of Tishrei, we always think of the holidays as either “coming early” or “coming late.” We can all agree that this year, the holidays have come late and the result has been a full 4-week stretch of uninterrupted school days, leading to well-established patterns and routines. This coming Monday evening, all of us, and Jewish people throughout the world, will begin the celebration of Rosh Hashanah, but at Solomon Schechter Day School of Nassau County, the learning and celebrating began weeks ago. Since there are so few actual school days once the holidays get started, the children have been learning about ALL of the Tishrei holidays: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shmini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah. On Wednesday, our youngest students, three classes full of kindergarten boys and girls, took their very first field trip, when they paid visit to the Midway Jewish Center. There they were greeted by the warm and entertaining duo: Rabbi Peri Raphael Rank and Cantor Danielle Bensimhon. With humor and with charm, Rabbi Rank and Cantor Bensimhon introduced our students to all the symbols and symbolism of the holiday of Rosh Hashanah. You must have heard the peels of laughter and sounds of indignation when Rabbi Rank said, “Tapuchim U’D’vash means Meat and Potatoes, right?” No, no, of course not!! All the children knew that this means “Apples and Honey,” and to prove it, the children sang a beautiful song about apples and honey that they had learned from their six fantastic teachers, Riki Joselewitz, Rosalie Goldstein, Levana Lichter, Pam Shampan, Naama Kalker and Jodi Zaroff. When the Rabbi and Cantor put on their pure, white Kittel, or robe, the children thought they looked like doctors or scientists, at least until they put on their Tallitot over the robes. And when Cantor Bensimhon strapped on her guitar, the children sang several holiday songs, with so much joy and so much kavanah, or deep feeling emanating from their souls. Rabbi Rank then pulled out a small ram’s horn, put one end to his ear and the other to his mouth, and said, “You guys have probably never seen this, but this is my new cell phone.” Well, you can imagine how the crowd erupted, again with squeals of laughter and indignation. Of course that was not a cell phone. All the boys and girls knew that it was a Shofar, a horn of an animal, hollowed and made into a musical instrument, used to call the Jews to attention to begin the year anew. You should have heard the spontaneous ovation given to Rabbi Rank when he blew the Tekiyah Gedolah, the final long blast of the shofar, but that was nothing compared to the length and strength of the Tekiyah Gedolah that our very own Rabbi Moshe Schwartz blasted.
I wish you a sweet, happy, healthy new year. Shanah Tova U’Metukah Dr. Cindy Dolgin Principal, Elementary School
Rabbi Lev Herrnson is Head of School/CEO at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Nassau County and High School of Long Island. His daughter Alana is a student in our 6th grade.
In Parashat Nitzavim, the “policing” of no-good-niks is a joint effort. Moshe warns the people concerning idolatry: “Concealed acts (nistarot) concern the Lord our God; but with overt acts (neeglot), it is for us and our children ever to apply all the provisions of this Teaching.” (Deut. 29:28) While the distinction is clear, the meanings of “concealed” and “overt” remain ambiguous. Rashi [11th C. Franco-Germany] suggests that “concealed” shields the community; it will not be punished for the indiscretions of the individual. Furthermore he notes that the community will be punished collectively if it does not execute judgment upon those who transgress overtly (and then not until the Israelites cross the Jordan River, as indicated by the marks over the words “for us and our children until.”) Maimonides [12th c. Spain & Egypt] says “concealed” refers to the reason for the commandments, known by God alone, as opposed to “overt acts” which refers to the performance of the commandments by Israel. Still Jeffrey Tigay notes that modern commentators understand “concealed” to mean “the future, which only God knows.” Thirty-five years after first listening to The Shadow, Parashat Nitzavim prompts me still to wonder about the no-good-niks. While the problem of evil is real, we moderns are more familiar with the lesser sins of indiscretion, omission and other schemes—that on occasion plunder goodness from our day-to-day lives, rather than stone and wood idols. More commonly we might be faulted for an idolatrous fondness of material comforts and conspicuous consumption, for instance. What happens, however, when the secret schemes of one or more impinge on us personally? Collectively? Who holds them accountable? According to the verse, God will reconcile transgressions against Heaven; we humans are responsible for policing ourselves for crimes against one another. Additionally, Rabbi Yochanan ben Baroka taught, “Whoever profanes the name of Heaven in secret will suffer the penalty in public.” (M. Avot 4:4) Despite these financially concerning times, some dealmakers will exit the markets largely without personal injury. Their transactions, however—intended to reap huge profits, have caused havoc to our financial markets. Schemes conceived in the seclusion of Wall Street’s back offices were intended to be covert. Yet over the past few months covert business deals now face scrutiny in the light of day. The fall of Lehman Brothers, and the multi-billion dollar bailouts of Bear, Fannie, Freddie and AIG leave me contemplating the concealed acts the so-called financial “Masters of the Universe,” dreamt up for profit at others’ expense. Here, what was intended to be concealed or covert ends up overt. And who pays for their “conversion”? We all do. The dichotomy of concealed and overt acts lends itself to analysis via another, familiar paradigm. During the month of Elul through the Days of Awe, we contemplate two categories of transgression, namely: bein adam la-maqom (transgressions between man and God); and, bein adam l’khaveiro (transgressions between humankind). While it is incumbent upon us to seek forgiveness from those we have harmed, only God can release us from those sins we’ve committed against God. And while acts committed against God can be either concealed or overt, it’s fair to say that the vast majority are concealed. Similarly, transgressions against others can be concealed, but are typically overt. The covert transactions of the dealmakers jeopardized the welfare of the community. And while we will find forgiveness in our hearts, we’re all still going to pay.
PDF filesChesed CornerShopping for a Cause Family Math Day |
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