Friday Letter

Salute to Israel Parade - Sunday, May 31, 2009

First Day of School for 2009 - 2010 - Wednesday, September 9, 2009

 YASHER KOACH

 I truly enjoyed Tuesday's middle school special Rosh Chodesh service, "Schechter Shacharit Live."

 For those who don't know, this program was 100% student initiated, composed and executed.  We are all so proud of our student leaders for their creativity and outstanding leadership.  It was really great watching our entire Middle School come together for services in such a festive and warm environment.

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:

• Grades 3-5: "What Tikkun Olam Means To Me"
• Grades 6-8: "What Does Going Green Mean For My School/Synagogue?"
• Grades 9-12: "Why Going Green Is A Jewish Value"

- 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)

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

Parashat Terumah

Dr. Cindy Dolgin is Elementary School Principal at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Nassau County, and a parent of two Schechter graduates.

For seventeen consecutive weeks, from the beginning of the Book of Breishit, then into the Book of Shemot, all the way to the end of Parashat Yitro, the Torah offers us non-stop adventure!  Each and every week, the narrative has been as compelling as an action film, able to capture the mind of a 5 year old, yet layered with meaning so complex that a person studying the weekly parasha for decades still can find new and interesting twists, even into old age.  Ever since the Shabbat after Simchat Torah, it hasn't been that hard to figure out how to convey with interest the lessons of the weekly Torah portion.

Last week's Torah portion, Parashat Mishpatim, is where the action stopped, where it starts getting hard to keep the attention of the five year olds.  Mishpatim is crammed full of laws to live by, so that our rag-tag mob of ex-slaves could be transformed into a holy people.  These do's and don'ts are at the heart of how we should act, so that the Children of Israel could be transformed into the Nation of Israel, but there's no compelling narrative contained in that list of laws! 

In this week's Torah portion, God instructs Moshe to build a Tabernacle so that God may dwell among the people.  It then goes on to give painstaking detail about every measurement and every building supply to be used in the construction of the Tabernacle, which will be extremely ornate, yet mobile.  Reading Parashat Trumah reminds me of manuals that come with model rocket ships.  No story.  No narrative.  No action.  How can you teach this stuff?  How can you even read it without your eyes crossing?

Ten years ago, when my children were 6^th grade students in our school, their TaNaKh teacher was a talented teachers named Mrs. Gadon who assigned a major at-home group project to her 6^th grade classes to figure out and implement Parashat Terumah, along with its companion portions, T'tzaveh and Ki Tissa.  Mrs. Gadon knew that tasking her students to build an accurate model of the Tabernacle and all its accessories would be a great way for early adolescents to learn the text that would have been kind of boring to learn in class.  The assignment involved working as a team, challenging children's minds, studying the Torah text super-closely, transforming the text into blue-prints and sketches, creating complex lists of building materials, doing the mathematical computations to scale down the project from Biblical proportions to dining room table proportions, creating a budget, shopping for supplies, splitting up responsibilities and constructing an accurate model of the Tabernacle. 

At the beginning of Parashat Terumah, God commands Moshe to "tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose hearts so moves him" (Ex. 25:2).  With the gifts of gold, silver and copper, and yarns of blue, purple and crimson, "Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.  Exactly as I show you - the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings - so shall you make it" (Ex. 25:8). 

Students at home - on weekends and evenings - worked in teams to turn God's exact instructions from Parashat Terumah into the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings.   I was a lucky parent who volunteered to host a team of 6^th grade Torah scholars, architects, pricing specialists, draftsmen, engineers, artisans, and interior designers to create their model on my dining room table.  I was the lucky parent who got to listen in to their deliberations and occasionally step in to offer a snack, just when differing opinions threatened to flair into all-out conflict.  "They shall make an ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high" (Ex. 25:10).  I was the lucky parent who listened in from the den as the students decided which wood to use instead of acacia (they had a strict budget for this model) and what modern-day measurement - in inches or in centimeters - could constitute a cubit.  "Overlay it with pure gold - overlay it inside and out" (Ex. 25:11).  The debates went on: should they use spray paint, glitter or thin sheets of gold-colored metal?  On and on the text of Parashat Terumah went, with detailed descriptions for constructing of the table and the lamp stand, other crucial accessories for inside the Tabernacle.

The text continued, "As for the Tabernacle, make it of ten strips of cloth; make this of fine twisted linen of blue, purple and crimson yarns, with a design of cherubim worked into them (Ex. 26:1).  Out came the calculators and rulers, and on went the debate around my dining room table, about using strips of felt versus actually weaving cloth out of yarn.  This project was hard!!  It turned out, though, that making the individual pieces of the Tabernacle was not nearly as complicated as putting the whole thing together.  "Hand the curtain under the clasps, and carry the Ark of the Pact there, behind the curtain, so that the curtain shall serve you as a partition between the Holy and the Holy of Holies."  (Ex. 26:33)  Huh?  Now these sixth graders sat bewildered, until one child noticed a footnote by Ramban explaining a method for "raising the Tabernacle."  I felt like I was witnessing an Amish Barn-raising!

Several Sundays and a couple of evenings were needed for a group of sixth graders to undertake a close reading of God's words - as passed down to us in exacting detail in the Torah, and then to created an intricate and accurate model of the Tabernacle in which God dwelled among the Israelites.  I don't know if the children felt it, but I certainly felt God's presence as this Tabernacle took form.  This may not have been what we typically think of as an action-packed adventure-parasha, but it sure was exciting to plan, build and then marvel at the completed model of God's ancient dwelling on earth.  Ten years later, I am positive that when Parshat Terumah comes around, the children who made a mess out of my dining room still have a clear mental image of the Tabernacle, and smile, and think of and their days at Solomon Schechter.

Shabbat shalom,

Dr. Cindy Dolgin