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Friday LetterFriday Letter Archive | Friday Letter AlertsFriday, December 11, 2009
Erev Chanukah – First Night of Chanukah. Chag Sameach! School Cancellation Procedures in Case of SNOW – Please find attached the snow closing letter outlining the Solomon Schechter School closing procedures. Thank you in advance for taking the time to go over these procedures. Click HERE for information. SHOPPING FOR SCHECHTER Everyone shops; some love to shop, and now your purchases can help support Schechter. We are participating in two programs that provide rewards directly to our school. Stop & Shop A+ Bonus Bucks By signing up for a Stop & Shop card (available at your nearest Stop & Shop location) and designating Solomon Schechter Day School as the school you want to support, we will accrue points rounded up to the nearest dollar amount, with each transaction made through March 25th. You can even shop without ever leaving your home by making online purchases with Peapod and Stop & Shop. SSDS will receive a check in April for the full amount we’ve earned. Please call 1-877-366-2668 or visit www.stopandshop.com/aplus with any additional questions. Target: RED Card and Take Charge of Education By designating SSDS as the school of your choice, 1% of the dollar value of your purchase comes to SSDS. If you don’t already have the card you can sign up for one simply by going to www.Target.com and enter Take Charge of Education or go to the Community section. In addition, you can go to your local Target, sign up in person and begin to provide real dollars that will help with our very real needs. Please peruse these exciting opportunities and spread the word. Discover how you can directly help our school with these initiatives. _______________ Dear Parents and Friends of the Schechter Elementary School, Today begins as the coldest day of the year so far, and by end-of-day, we will be welcoming in Shabbat and the holiday of Chanukah. Winter is truly here, and the light of the Chanukiot will truly be welcome this week! Today is also the final day of our 2009 Read-a-thon, a 2 week celebration of reading, during which we have celebrated “Crazy Hat Day,” “Pajama Day,” “Tie Dye Day,” and lots of other fun, days that have kept our spirits high and learning an adventure. As part of the Read-a-Thon, each student was asked to recruit sponsors. Half the proceeds will be donated to the Schneider’s Children’s Hospital in Israel, and half will go to support literacy programs in our own school. Over the course of the coming week, please have your child collect his or her pledges and return the sponsor sheets and Read-a-thon pledge money to the school by Friday, Dec. 18th. If you do not have a pledge sheet, see attachment below.There are many gorgeous photos taken throughout the Read-a-Thon on our school “Photo Gallery,” on the school’s website, www.ssdsnassau.org. The “powers that be” inform me that very few parents have been visiting the school’s photo gallery, so lovingly maintained by our computer teacher, Mrs. Sokoler. While you visit the photo gallery, click to see the 5th graders packing close to 200 toiletry bags to send to members of the US armed forces. You can also see scanned copies of letters written by students to soldiers and seamen by visiting the “Elementary School News” page of our website. I think you will be impressed and moved by our children’s words to those who defend our freedom. Chanukah will be celebrated in school each day next week, beginning at extended “Morning Assemblies” which will feature daily “Shira B’Tzibur” Sing-a-Longs. Parents are welcome to stop by and sing with us in the gymnasium at 8:00 AM. On Monday morning, the members of the 3rd – 5th grade choir will be singing a few selections, and on Tuesday morning, the 1st and 2nd grade choir members will be featured. Chanukah at Schechter is practically synonymous with the Parent Association, who support and enhance our celebrations in a myriad of ways. Beginning with the Chanukah Boutique this past week, at which children were able to shop for holiday gifts for loved ones, and right down to the last Sufganiyah and pieces of Chocolate Gelt next week, the PA is hard at work making Chanukah a special time at Schechter. For example, on Tuesday, we will all be enjoying a performance by ventriloquist Jonathan Geffner, called “Maccabbee Mishegoss,” thanks to the generosity of the PA. There will also be a Chanukah Teacher-Appreciation Luncheon on Wednesday afternoon. Most importantly, your children are learning about their history and roots, all day, every day. They know so much, have learned so much, and keep learning so much, not just the basics but the deeper meanings and reasons. At Schechter, it’s not just about mathematics and science, but about the Maccabees and Israel and the US armed forces and 19th century European art. In a recent article in the New York Times Magazine (Sept. 27, 2009), educational historian Diane Ravitch is quoted as follows: “The single biggest problem in American education is that no one agrees on why we educate. Faced with this lack of consensus, policy makers define good education as higher test scores. But higher test scores are not a definition of good education. Students can get higher scores in reading and mathematics yet remain completely ignorant of science, the arts, civics, history, literature and foreign languages. Why do we educate? We educate because we want citizens who are capable of taking responsibility for their lives and for our democracy.” Ravitch, of course, was commenting on public education. At Schechter we expect so much of ourselves and our students. We take it to a whole other dimension. At Schechter, we educate, as Ravitch suggests, because we want citizens who are not only willing to take responsibility for their lives and for our democracy, but also for our Jewish community. We want our children’s lives to be imbued with Jewish values and bound up in our deep and rich history even while they step forward with confidence into the future. Just like the Maccabees! Todah Rabah to Mr. and Mrs. Herzog and Zachary for the beautiful wooden Chanukiah we will be using all week. Wishing you a Hag Urim Sameach, a Happy Chanukah and Shabbat Shalom, Dr. Cindy Dolgin Elementary School Principal Dvar Torah In this week’s Torah portion, we read that because Joseph and his brother can’t say anything good about one another, tragedy ensues [v’lo yachlu dabro l’shalom]. Joseph is sold into slavery and the brothers become a disappointment in the eyes of their father, Jacob. This theme of getting along with one another has been on my mind this week as each time I turned on the TV, I heard stories of partisan bickering in Congress. One party is demanding an apology from the other for some insensitive remark made by the leaders of our nation, in a childish attempt to garner public support for a significant piece of legislation. Each one of us has someone we do not get along with, who seems to bring out the worst in us. How can we break this vicious cycle? How should we react when someone provokes us into anger? The JPS commentary, citing the commentator Shadal, offers one answer. The odd Hebrew language, dabro, really means “they could not abide his friendly speech.” In other words, Joseph reached out, but the brothers could not handle it. This may be true, but as the famous saying goes “it takes two to tango.” I believe that we learn from this story that we can’t change others, but we CAN change ourselves. Joseph, eventually grew up to be a mentch in Egypt, and in doing so changed the whole dynamic of his relationship with his brothers. This week, my elected officials acted like little children. Instead of spending 15 minutes e-mailing them (and getting a form letter back from one of their aides, which would only agitate me more!), I wrote this Dvar Torah. We can’t change the world (especially not the legislative branch of our government), but we can change ourselves. In the long run, I believe, this will do a lot more for changing the world for the better.
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Urim Sameach, Rabbi Moshe PDF filesChesed CornerRoller Skating Chanukah Party Community Wide Rally Read-a-Thon Pledge Sheets |
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