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Friday LetterFriday Letter Archive | Friday Letter AlertsMIDDLE SCHOOL NEWS Candle Lighting - 5:10 pm Havdalah - 6:06 pm Parashat Yitro A PENNY FOR YOUR SEARCH! Search the web with Yahoo-powered GoodSearch.com and they will donate a penny to Schechter each time you search! Also, shop at more than 600 GoodShop.com merchants, including Amazon, Best Buy, Macy's, Toys R US, to name a few, and up to 37% of the purchase price will go to Schechter! GoodSearch.com is a new Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue to the charities its users designate. Just select our school by selecting "Schechter" from the list as the organization you want to support. Spread the word! OPPORTUNITY TO LOWER YOUR TUITION COST Take this opportunity to lower your tuition for next year by soliciting ads for our May Gala Journal, for the new School Directory Yellow Pages, the School Calendar or all three. The businesses that choose to advertise in all three places will reach a wider audience and will receive a combination package discount. Click on the literature link to find all the information to help you. If you have any questions, please contact Elaine Dalfen at 516-656-5500 x1219 or edalfen@ssdsnassau.org. *** PESACH CHOCOLATE FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN *** The PA's Pesach Chocolate Fundraising Campaign is underway. Students interested in selling chocolate have brought home order packets. Please note that the deadline for submittal of orders has been extended to Friday, February 27, 2009. COMING EVENTS Monday, February 16 - Friday, February 20, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
MARK-THE-DATES End of Trimester 2 - Wednesday, March 4, 2009 Schechter Fine Arts Festival - Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 6:30 pm Gallery Opening, 7:00 pm Performance. The Fine Arts Festival will take place at the Glen Cove Campus (please see link to informational flier below). NY State Math Tests (8th grade) - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 and Friday, March 13, 2009 Purim Dance - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at Glen Cove campus from 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm (please see link to flier/registration below) Middle School Boys' Baseball and Girls' Softball Tryouts - Monday, March 16 and Tuesday March 17th after-school at the Jericho Campus. Transportation to Jericho will be provided. Salute to Israel Parade - Sunday, May 31, 2009 First Day of School for 2009 - 2010 - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 YASHER KOACH TO OUR STUDENTS Mazal Tov to seniors Logan Bayroff and Ariella Kristal on being named National Merit Scholarship Finalist!!! Kol Hakavod!! MORE YASHER KOACH Kol HaKavod to the middle school Knesset! With the strong leadership of our Knesset - Jordan Liebman, Josh Mendelowitz, Rebecca Cohen, Max Hirsch, and Deeba Abrishamchi, our middle school joined with the high school to collect goods to help the homeless. Yesterday, the Knesset leaders, along with other members of our MS and HS, went to SUNY Farmingdale to deliver our contributions to the Nassau-Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless (NSCH) at their annual candlelight vigil. We collected hats, gloves, scarves, toiletries, and over 560 sweatshirts! I am so proud of our school and the fact that together we helped make a difference in the lives of hundreds of homeless people on Long Island, almost 50% of who are under the age of 18. On behalf of Greta Guarton, Executive Director of NSCH, I want to thank all of you who helped us make this happen by donating, driving, and packing things up. USEFUL INFORMATION The Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY) Talent Search is a great way to assess bright students' academic abilities. As part of the Talent Search, high performing students take an above-grade level test that reveals more about their academic talents than in-grade level tests. All students who participate and test receive a recognition certificate, invitations to academic conferences, and a report that provides statistical data on the performance of their gifted peers who also tested through the Talent Search. CTY is hosting weekly webinars (web seminars) on the benefits and programs that we offer students. Please visit our website for a list of CTY webinar topics and dates. CTY's Talent Search is still open and accepting students this year. Students are encouraged to apply online or use CTY's school online order form to request applications. You can email questions directly to CTY at ctyinfo@jhu.edu, or call CTY at 1-800-548-1180. CTY is accredited for grades 5 through 12 by the Commission on Secondary Schools of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. For more information about CTY's programs, visit the CTY web site at cty.jhu.edu. CONTEST!!! Your artwork could win you an iPod! METNY's 2009 Proud To Be Jewish Contest Submit your work today! Contest is open to all students in grades 3 through 12 This Year's Themes:
- Submissions can be essays, poems, prose, or flat artwork - Written entries should be no more than 2 standard pages in length - Artwork submissions should be no more than 8.5" x 11" - One submission per student please Everyone who enters will receive a Certificate of Participation and one winner from each age group will win an iPod Shuffle! Have You Entered Yet? Submit your entries to your Solomon Schechter principal by April 1st to be considered The Proud To Be Jewish Contest is sponsored by the Metropolitan New York Region of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (METNY) REMINDER Re-enrollment for 2009-2010 School Year - Keep in mind that re-enrollment for the 2009-2010/5770 school year was sent to you by mail on Friday, January 9th. The mailing contains everything you need to re-enroll. Please read the cover letter which explains everything, including some changes and some innovations. Please don't put off completing the paperwork as the deadline for re-enrolling was today, Friday, February 13, 2009. Like other non-profits, Schechter is equally vulnerable during the economic downturn. Your timely re-enrollment helps us prepare effectively for the coming year. Re-enrollments received after today, Friday, February 13, are subject to a $200 late fee. Re-enrollment after February 13th does not guarantee placement (re-enrollment is subject to a wait list). Thank you. TRANSPORTATION NEWS The deadline for submission of the District Transportation Application is Wednesday, April 1st. Thus far, we have transportation applications for the following districts: East Meadow (3 pages), East Williston (2 pages), Farmingdale (1 page), Garden City (1 page), Glen Cove, (1 page), Half-Hollow Hills (1 page), Herricks (1 page), Jericho (1 page), Levittown (1 page), Massapequa (2 pages), North Shore (1 page), Oyster Bay-East Norwich (2 pages), Plainview-Old Bethpage (1 page), Port Washington (2 pages), Sewanhaka (1 page), Syosset (1 page), West Hempstead (3 pages). If your home district is not listed above, parents should reach out to their district transportation office to request an application. We will update you if we receive additional applications from other school districts (please see link to transportation forms below). FRIDAY LETTER "Moses and the Missing Hug" Parashat Yitro 2009/5769 Rabbi Charles Savenor is the Executive Director of the Metropolitan New York (METNY) Region of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. A Solomon Schechter graduate in Newton, MA, Rabbi Savenor previously served as Associate Dean of the Rabbinical School at the Jewish Theological Seminary. In Parashat Yitro we witness the reunion of Moses' family. According to the Midrashic chronilogical work, Seder Olam, Moses had not seen his wife and children for one year. The Midrash tells us that when Moses "left for work," when he departed for Egypt to serve as God's agent in the Exodus, he sent Zipporah, his wife, and their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, back to his father-in-law's house, the house of Yitro. Hearing about how Moses successfully led the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery and onto the road to the Promised Land, Yitro, assumes that the time has come to reunite the family. The scene is set: Yitro, Zipporah, Gershom and Eliezer wait for Moses to meet them. We can imagine that his sons cannot wait to hear about their father's adventures in Egypt and how their father split the Red Sea. The actual reunion is described as follows: "Moshe went out to meet his father-in-law; he bowed and kissed him; each asked about the other's welfare, and they went into the tent." In other words, with his wife and children standing right there, Moses only greets his Yitro, his father-in-law. And these two men go off on their own. Clearly something is missing from this Biblical encounter. We hear about Moses' reunion with his father-in-law, but what happened with his wife and sons? Where is this part of the story? About this interaction the Torah is silent. Two explanations come to mind to deal with this silence. The first possibility may be that the Torah takes for granted that Moshe greets his wife and children, so it did not need to report on it. In other words, the Torah takes for granted that a father will hug his children and his wife when coming home from a trip. The second solution takes a more literal approach to the text. Picking up on this subtle omission in the Torah, Ibn Ezra, a medieval Bible commentator, gives an astounding explanation. He asserts: "Moshe went to meet his father-in-law, in honor of Yitro and his wisdom. And not to meet his wife and his sons. For it is not the custom for an important and respected leader to go out [specifically] to greet his wife and children." Ibn Ezra holds that Moses goes out specifically to meet Yitro because he is a respected leader in his own right, not because he is his father-in-law. And according to this rationale, if it were not for Yitro, Moshe would have not left his work at all to greet his family. So Ibn Ezra concludes that no record exists of Moshe greeting his wife and hugging his sons, because it simply did not happen! Our knowledge of Moses' daily schedule following the reunion serves as a clue that the affection that Moses does not show to his family, what we may call the "missing hug," is not an oversight, but rather symptomatic of a larger problem. For, the next verse after the reunion reads: "The next morning Moses sat down to judge the people, and the nation stood before Moses from the morning until the evening." It is not my intention to discredit Moses, our greatest leader. In fact, I am both grateful and relieved that the Torah contains portraits of our ancestral leaders who are not perfect. These episodes show that he is caught in a bind that faces us all, namely the conflict between our family and our work. The Talmud tells us "A person is not a person without a home." By contrast, the book of Job asserts that "Man was born to toil." So how can we resolve this tension between these conflicting interests? Sigmund Freud once said that human beings are motivated by their desire "to love and to work." Freud does not advocate one or the other; but rather a balance of the two. Maintaining a balance between our personal and professional lives is an uphill climb, and sometimes an uphill battle. Balance is crucial because we do not get a second chance at life. The opportunities to reunite and connect with those we love do not last forever. Our children grow up too quickly, our friends will not always live nearby, and our parents and spouses will not live forever. This Shabbat Moses teaches us about the magnitude of simple gestures, such as hugs. Hugs come in many shapes and sizes: physical hugs take the form of an embrace; verbal hugs are expressed through words of confirmation and appreciations; and silent hugs occur when we listen. May this powerful lesson inspire us to maximize every moment with our family this Shabbat. Shabbat shalom. Have a Shabbat shalom and a wonderful February break! Allan Dalfen Upper School Principal PDF filesSchechter Fine Arts FestivalMiddle School Purim Dance Transportation Forms |
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