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MIDDLE SCHOOL NEWS
Candle Lighting - 4:15 pm
Havdalah - 5:03 pm
Parashat Vayeshev
TUITION RAFFLE
Every donation made to Schechter will automatically by entered into the Tuition Raffle. The prize is ten times your donation off your tuition - up to $3,600. Receive a second raffle entry for donations paid before December 31st. Receive a third entry for any donation that is larger than last year's. Qualified donations of over $1,000 will also be met by the Matching Challenge. Each and every donation is greatly appreciated! Donate online, by phone or by mail (please see link to flier below). Thanks so much for your help.
SENIOR ISRAEL TRIP COOKIE DOUGH CAMPAIGN
We have a few boxes of cookie dough available for purchase. Choose from Peanut Butter, Oatmeal Raisin, M & Ms and White Chunk Macadamia. Each box is $15. Please see Mike Hirsch.
CHANUKAH GELT
A Chanukah donation can be made to any of our school funds and a tribute card will be sent to your child's teacher; your child or your friends (please see link below for donation form).
INFORMATION
Last year the PA and the School's senior administration came to the understanding that there should be no organized collection of funds for the purpose of giving holiday gifts to teachers. The discussion came about last year because of concerns regarding equity and fairness. The PA and the School's senior administration reviewed the question again this year and came to the same conclusion. Like last year, we ask that you do not organize collective giving of gifts to our teachers. Parents/families that wish to express their appreciation of their children's teachers are encouraged to do so individually and privately. Thank you for adhering to this understanding jointly supported by the School and our PA.
COMING EVENTS
Sunday, December 21st
First Chanukah Candle
Tuesday, December 23rd
PA-Sponsored Family Game Night / Chanukah Celebration, 7 pm at the Jericho Campus (please see link to flier below)
Thursday, December 24th
School closed through January 4th
Saturday, December 27th
The Challenge: Watch Solomon Schechter vs. Kellenberg Memorial on News 12 at 6:30 pm and rebroadcast at 9:30 pm.
Monday, January 5th
Classes resume
SAVE-THE-DATES
Picture Retake Day: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 (please note change of date)
8th grade Shabbaton January 30 - 31, 2009 Join with students from Schechter Queens, East Midwood Hebrew Day School (Brooklyn), and the Brandeis school for a fabulous Shabbat together at the Waxman High School and Youth House at Temple Israel of Great Neck (please see link to information and registration form below).
Art Auction on Saturday, January 31, 2009. This year's event will recognize the dedication to our students of Coach Alan Brent and Coach Nicollee Inguagiato (please see link to flier below).
YASHER KOACH - ACTS OF CHESED
Josh Mendelowitz has initiated a campaign to raise funds for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. All monies collected for the Pennies for Parkinson's campaign will go to support research that can lead to the creation of better Parkinson's treatments. Collection canisters are located in classrooms and in the main office.
After being moved by the stories he heard on the Washington, DC trip in September during a program by the National Coalition for the Homeless, 8th grader Jordan Liebman felt that as a school community, we could do something to help. Jordan spoke with a representative of the Nassau-Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless to see what we as a school community can do to help. As a result, we've begun a series of collection drives to go through the Fall/Winter months. Throughout November, we will be collecting toiletries, soap, shampoo, lotions, etc... In December, we will be collecting socks and gloves, in January, coats and jackets, and in February, sweatshirts. The project will culminate in February following the Nassau-Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless' "Have a Heart for the Homeless" Candlelight Vigil on February 12. Details on our school's participation in the vigil will be coming soon. Please help us with our monthly drives to help those less fortunate throughout the winter months. Kol HaKavod to Jordan and the 8th grade for making a commitment to help make the world a better place.
Drop off your donated items at Michael Hirsch's office. Thank you!
Hello, my name is Nadav Gershon. I am in seventh grade and in a few weeks I will become a bar mitzvah. In honor of my bar mitzvah I am working with the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. I am trying to help raise money for Israeli soldiers. FIDF is an association that works to get funds that help ensure the well-being of Israeli soldiers. The FIDF makes a difference in the lives of these soldiers through social, education and recreation programs. The needs of the soldiers are their first priority. The program that I am trying to raise money for is a welfare program called "Dignity". It is a program that helps soldiers pay their bills, support their families if needed and even provide food for the holidays. Some sad and hard facts that are found in the FIDF literature are:
- One out of every five new IDF recruits comes from a disadvantaged socio-economic background and needs financial support.
- Several thousand soldiers opt to stay on their bases rather than go home on their days off simply because there isn't enough food at home to feed them.
- 11,000 soldiers have been recently classified as "soldiers in financial distress."
- Unit commanders and fellow soldiers often use their own meager salaries to help their comrades-in-arms through difficult times.
I have chosen this charity as my bar mitzvah project because these soldiers give up so much, some even their lives to ensure that we, the Jewish people have a Jewish state to call our own. I have been lucky to have visited Israel several times. Every time I see a soldier I get this deep heartfelt feeling of pride. My father is Israeli and he served in the Israeli army as did his father and most of the members of my family. My father speaks of his experience as a soldier with such emotion and fierce honor, it makes me so very proud of him and all the other men and women in my family. Please make a donation to this very worthy cause. Give with your hearts and help these brave and honorable young men and women. I am leaving an FIDF Tzedakah box in the main office on Lisa Eisner's desk or you can forward your donations directly to me or my mom, Sharon Gershon.
Thank you for your generous support!
Experience Limmud NY 2009
A 4-Day Festival of All Things Jewish in the Catskills
January 15-19, 2009
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FRIDAY LETTER
Parashat Vayeshev
Rabbi Iscah Waldman is a member of the Judaic studies faculty of the Solomon Schechter High School of Long Island.
Vayeshev is a Parshah with an unbelievable number of stories that beg to be deconstructed. It is tempting to pick one - any one - to look at and marvel at the dysfunctional relationships so evident among the families of the Torah. First, we are introduced to the repeating pattern of favoritism among siblings. Joseph is given special treatment by his father, while his brothers grow ever resentful and jealous of their father's love. Next, we are treated to the first set of Joseph's dreams which surprise even his father with their audacity. Joseph describes the sun and moon bowing to him (read: father and mother, even though Rachel is already dead) along with the eleven stars who seem to represent his brothers.
Joseph is then kidnapped and sold by his own brothers to a group of traveling merchants. They did this only after plotting to end their own brother's life, but luckily they are convinced by one brother, Reuben, to allow Joseph to be sold into slavery instead. The brothers then lie to their own father and inform him that Joseph has been killed by a wild beast.
The Parshah then turns to some other shockingly flawed relationships: Judah's son Er was ‘displeasing to God' and is killed by God, leaving Judah's second son in line to marry his wife, Tamar. Onan decides he will not waste his seed on the continuation of his brother's line and disrespects Tamar, causing his own death. Judah, unable to handle losing another son, all but directly lies to Tamar and tells her to wait for his third son, Shelah, until he is of age. Tamar realizes that she is being held off indefinitely, takes matters into her own hands. Upon the death of Judah's own wife, Tamar dresses as a prostitute and sleeps with her father-in-law, becoming pregnant with twins, who will be known as Peretz and Zerach. Judah, not realizing that it is he who has ‘defiled' his daughter-in-law, at first sentences her to death, until Tamar reveals that he is the guilty one, and he recognizes that she is right.
If this did not already seem like the fast-moving soap operas we are used to from contemporary TV shows, we turn to Potiphar's family. After taking in Joseph and treating him as the head servant of the household, Potiphar's own wife attempts to seduce young Joseph. Joseph righteously refuses her, and ends up being thrown in prison, falsely accused of the very seduction that Potiphar's wife attempted on him.
Even the family of servants of Pharaoh is in total disarray. The cupbearer and the baker have each done something that angered Pharaoh enough for him to send them to prison. After each one has a dream which Joseph alone can interpret, Pharaoh has one servant killed and one servant raised back to his original position.
How do we read these stories one after the other? Are they simply to be read independently as stories about poor parenting; sibling rivalry; dysfunctional family relationships? Do they serve merely to advance the plot of the Joseph's rise to fame? Read together, these stories seem to be a see-saw of fortune and misfortune: Joseph is up, his brothers are down, then they are up and Joseph is down, Judah is up and Tamar is down, and so on, even until the previously unknown cupbearer is up and the baker is ‘down.' Why does this series of stories seem so relentless in keeping the reader confused about who is the winner and who is the loser?
Perhaps Vayeshev is not simply about highs and lows, but is more about the complexity of human relationships. Joseph isn't simply the ‘good guy' who comes from nothing to become the benevolent ruler. He is a precocious child who is granted favored status by his father, and then uses it against his brothers. Judah isn't simply evil for keeping Tamar imprisoned in a betrothal that he will never honor, he is a father who is paralyzed by the fear that he will lose another son. Reuben isn't just another brother who tries to kill Joseph, he saves him, but still allows him to be sold off into slavery, and then lets his father wallow in grief In fact, the only story that seems to be simply up and down is the one with the baker and cupbearer, and is the only one which doesn't directly involve one of Abraham's descendants.
It seems that the ‘Good Book' isn't so called because it is full of the same flat characters that we find in any classic comic book However, these individuals have such crazy lives, we cannot imagine ourselves in similar situations. We are left with an enormous amount of rich material, ripe for interpretation and filled with twists and turns that keep the reader wanting more. Enjoy!
Have a Shabbat shalom and Chanukah sameach,
Allan Dalfen
Upper School Principal
PDF files
Chanukah Gelt for SSDS
PA-Sponsored Family Game Night / Chanukah Celebration
8th Grade Shabbaton at Waxman High School and Youth House
PA Art Auction
