Friday Letter

SCHECHTER TUITION RAFFLE

Make a donation to our school and be automatically entered into the Tuition Raffle. Your donation may yield you up to $3,600 off your tuition payment (please see link below for informational flier).

THINGS GO BETTER WITH COCA-COLA

Help Schechter by bringing in Coca-Cola and Coke products bottle caps with printed codes on them from the My Coke Rewards program. There are boxes to drop off your bottle caps in the Jericho and Glen Cove offices and also in the Lunchroom and Student Life Office in Glen Cove. Alternatively, please visit the SSDS My Coke Rewards web page to donate your points online. Thank you for your support!

SHOPPING FOR SCHECHTER

Your day-to-day purchases can benefit our school. Stop & Shop and Target stores have programs which designate a percentage of your purchase to your school. When you next visit a Stop & Shop or Target store, simply sign up for a Stop & Shop card or a REDcard at Target. Alternatively, follow these links online for all the information you will need: Stop & Shop Card and Target REDcard. Our Stop & Shop School ID is 07427 and our Target School ID is 116021. Thank you!

PARTNERSHIP WITH BARNES AND NOBLE

During the dates of Friday, January 15, 2010 - Monday, January 18, 2010, simply present the vouchers (please see link to vouchers below), or the school's ID # - 10082220 - to the sales clerk at any Barnes and Noble store in the country. Our school will receive a percentage of the net sales.

All merchandise including café sales are eligible. Barnes and Noble memberships and gift cards may be used to pay for purchases. EXCLUSIONS: vouchers are not good on the PURCHASE of gift cards or B&N memberships, nor are they good for online purchases or for purchases made at cafés operated by Starbucks.

SAVE-THE-DATES

PA ART AUCTION 

PA Annual Art Auction at Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation, Motzei Shabbat, January 23, 2010. Preview: 7:15 pm and Auction: 8:00 pm. Please see link below for Raffle Basket Form and Auction registration.

SALUTE TO ISRAEL PARADE

The annual Salute to Israel Parade will take place on Sunday, May 23, 2010. Details to follow.

FRIDAY LETTER

Parashot Vayigash and Vayechi

Over winter vacation, we will read the concluding Torah portions from the book of Genesis.

Why is Jacob's blessing to his grandchildren, Efraim and Menashe such a centerpiece of Parshat Vayehi, and why has it become the way Jews bless their children for all time?

To a large extent, Sefer Bereshit, the Book of Genesis is a series of stories of our ancestors dealing with family challenges, problems and their resolution. In the coming week we finally read the conclusion of these stories, about Joseph and his children.  There are a number of areas in which Joseph succeeded where his forefathers did not.

According to the 19^th century commentator known as the Netziv (Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin who headed the Yeshiva in Volozhin), the reason the blessing of Efraim and Menashe became the paradigmatic bracha for our people is because it represents the different paths that children can take: Efraim focused on Torah (intellectual study), Menashe on derekh eretz (interpersonal relationships). In this regard, it could it be argued that Jacob may have been fearful for the future of his grandsons, who were the first generation to come from an intermarriage, and lived outside of their ancestral homeland of Canaan. It reflects the well known statement of King Solomon in Proverbs 22:6 "chanoch l'na'ar al pi darko," teach a child according to his way (and he will never depart from it).

My friend and colleague, Rabbi Dan Lifshitz noted that the Netziv points us to an earlier commentary, the Targum Yonatan who specifies that this bracha is specifically said at a bris, the point when the child's future has maximum flexibility.

An additional reason this has become the "bracha for the ages" might relate to the fact that Menashe shows no jealousy of Efraim despite being passed over for the primary blessing. We can see Joseph's role in developing this humility and lack of jealousy in the way he tries to correct the placement of Jacob's hands. One of Joseph's missions as a parent has been to avoid the mistakes of his upbringing. In doing so, Joseph has rectified the issues that plagued his forefathers. Through Joseph's intervention, we do not view one blessing as being primary (in contrast to Isaac's blessings of Jacob and Esau), and that is why, historically, we bless our children like Efraim AND Menashe. It is under this framework that the Book of Genesis can now end and Jewish children will be blessed for all time with the blessing of Ephraim and Menashe.

May our secular year end on a similar note and may each of us take the blessings given by Jacob with us in the coming year.

Warm wishes for an enjoyable and restful winter vacation,

Rabbi Moshe