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Friday Letter Alerts
MIDDLE SCHOOL NEWS
Parashat Bamidar
Candle Lighting - 7:42pm
Havdalah - 8:56pm
COMING EVENTS
Friday, May 14
Rosh Chodesh Sivan
Sunday, May 16
Final performance of Disney's Beauty and the Beast Jr. at the Jericho campus @ 2:30 pm. The premiere performance on Thursday night was ‘enchanting!' We look forward to having you Be Our Guest at the matinee show on Sunday!
Monday, May 17
Athletic Awards Night at the Glen Cove campus - 7:00 to 9:00 pm (please see link to invitation below).
Tuesday, May 18
Erev Shavuot - 1:30 pm Dismissal
Wednesday, May 19 and Thursday, May 20
Shavuot - School Closed
Friday, May 21
School Open - Gray Day
Sunday, May 23
Salute to Israel Parade - SSDS and SSHSLI will be marching with The Brandeis School and the Solomon Schechter School of Queens in the Salute to Israel Parade on Sunday, May 23. We have been designated SECTION 2W on 52nd Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues. Assembly time is 12:30 pm / Estimated time of Step-Off is 1:00 to 1:30 pm.
The parade extends up Fifth Avenue to 74th Street. Lehitraot!
** T-shirts available on a first-ordered / first-supplied basis in adult sizes medium, large and extra-large @ $7.00 each **
SUMMER GET-TOGETHER
Middle School Parents Social for rising, incoming 6th, 7th and 8th graders at the home of Genia and Stewart Taub on Wednesday, August 11, 2010 at 8:00pm. Evite to follow.
YASHER KOACH
Yasher koach to the 8th grade, and to your teachers Mrs. Goldstein Taub & Rabbi Rothberger. On May 11, family and friends were treated to a wonderful presentation on the life and times of the prophet Samuel. Entitled Shmuel-a-Gala, it featured improvised skits by each character; a Kinat David chanted by Gillian Bartell, Rebecca Cohen, Eva Muchnick and Harry Paul; the song "Party in the Palace," sung by the entire grade; the poem "Of Kings and Warriors," written by Alyssa Lipman and read by the 8-2 class; a choreographed dance to King David by the 8th grade, "Shmuperdy;" a Power Point game of challenges and questions prepared by the 8th grade, and an exhibition of the life and times of King David mounted throughout the gym. The morning was topped off with bagels, cookies and the like.
SYLVIE MOSCOVITZ'S BAT MITZVAH PROJECT
Dear family and friends,
I am collecting donations for UJA-Federation for my Bat Mitzvah project. I volunteered at JASA (Jewish Association for Services for the Aged) Long Beach Senior Center at Temple Beth El on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010. I brought my 2 cats, Dori and Becky to visit the senior citizens at JASA . The senior citizens greatly enjoyed holding, petting and playing with Becky and Dori. I also helped serve the senior citizens lunch and then helped to pack up kosher meals on wheels which were delivered to homebound seniors. "UJA-Federation (http://www.ujafedny.org/) cares for those in need, strengthens the Jewish people, and inspires a passion for Jewish life and learning." "UJA-Federation supports so many different programs that care for so many people all over the world."
JASA is a UJA-Federation agency in which senior citizens come to Temple Beth El of Long Beach and participate in activities and have hot meals. The senior citizens rarely go on trips so some of the money that I raise will go towards an exciting trip to the Bronx Zoo for the senior citizens at JASA in May. Any donation made out to UJA-Federation would be greatly appreciated and can be mailed or dropped off at our home, 2111 Oliver, Merrick, NY 11566 through June 13th.
Thank you very much for all your support,
Sylvie Moscovitz
For more information please call 771-8298 or email michelekmos@gmail.com
AMANDA ZUCKER'S BAT MITZVAH PROJECT
My name is Amanda Zucker and I am a 7th grader at Solomon Schechter Day School. As part of my bat mitzvah project, I am collecting arts and crafts supplies for the Child Life Program at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola. The program gives out arts and crafts supplies to the children staying in the pediatric unit. A hospital stay can be a difficult experience for anyone, let alone a child. My desire is to help make their stay more bearable. I chose Winthrop in memory of my dad, who spent many days and nights there during his illness.
Please help me in my effort to collect the following items: crayons, markers, colored pencils, scissors, glue, construction paper, coloring books and stickers. Please note that all items donated need to be brand new due to the compromised immune systems of the children involved.
There are collections bins set up at the following locations: SSDS Jericho, SSDS/SSHSLI Glen Cove, and Congregation Ohav Sholom in Merrick.
Thank you in advance for helping me carry out this mitzvah.
REGENTS INFORMATION
Following are the dates for the June Regents:
Friday, June 18 - 12:30 - Integrated Algebra
Tuesday, June 22 - 9:00 - Earth Science
Tuesday, June 22 - 12:30 - Hebrew
SAVE THE DATES
Sunday, June 6th, 2010 @ 6:00 pm
A CELEBRATION HONORING
RABBI NEIL KURSHAN AND ALISA RUBIN KURSHAN
Celebrate with us as we honor Rabbi Neil and Alisa Rubin Kurshan to commemorate their 25 years with The Huntington Jewish Center. Cocktail Hour, Buffet Dinner, Open Bar. Couvert $75 per person by May 14th. $90 per person after May 14th. All reservation due by May 21st. Click here to purchase dinner tickets, select a table and contribute to the scroll online.
Wednesday, June 16 @ 7:00 pm
Eighth Grade Siyyum at Shelter Rock Jewish Center
FRIDAY LETTER
What feeds us?
Rabbi Michael Tayvah - 7th & 8th Grade Rabbinics Teacher & High School "Bridges" Teacher
This omer period I've been thinking about the connections between Pesach and Shavuot.
There is an old teaching that many of our holy-days are connected into sacred seasons. This is most clear with Sukkot. The Torah begins the festival with a call to holiness, a "mikra kodesh" and ends it with a festive gathering or an "atzeret" which we know as Shemini Atzeret. Pesach too has an atzeret, but this one comes 51 days after the festival begins. So strong is the association of Shavuot as the atzeret for Pesach that the nickname for Shavuot in rabbinic literature is atzeret (mishnah hagiga 2:4) or its Aramaic equivalent, atzarta (bavli Pesachim 42b & 68b; Shabbat 110b, etc).
So what is the theme that runs all the way from Pesach to Shavuot? I think it has to do with being aware of what nourishes us.
We begin this season in our sacred calendar by focusing -- some would say obsessing! -- with food. We clean our houses, examine our pantries and purge our kitchens all to adhere to a set of food restrictions. At their core the halakhot of Pesach force us to use up and get rid of the last of the past year's grain crop precisely when next year's harvest is still growing in the fields. For our ancestors this time must have been fraught with danger. Anything could still happen to ruin next year's wheat crop: late rains to rot the grain on the stalk, insects to devour it, hail to flatten it in the fields. No grain meant famine and privation. When Pesach starts in Israel the grain harvest was still seven weeks away.
Seven weeks...? That sounds familiar... Yes, and the book of Ruth is set around the grain harvest. We move from clearing out the pantry to replenishing the granaries. The weeks from Pesach to Shavuot frame a crucial time in the growing cycle for much of what we eat throughout the year.
Yet humans do not live by bread alone; rather on all that comes-out from the mouth of YHWH do humans live. (Deuteronomy 8:3) Grain is only one kind of nourishment. We also need that which comes from God to sustain us.
In bavli eruvin 54b and other places Torah is compared to breast milk, that first source of nourishment and the perfect food for sustaining human life. One of the reasons we eat dairy on Shavuot is because of the association of receiving Torah with an infant receiving its physical nourishment in its purity and innocence. Like an infant must work to suckle at the breast, we too must make effort in studying Torah. Like the infant is in its mother's embrace while feeding, we too may feel the presence of the Divine around us as we drink in the words of Torah.
Shavuot began as an agricultural holiday within the growing cycles of grain, and it became zeman matan torataynu, the time of the receiving of Torah. May we celebrate this festival aware of both themes of nourishment reflecting on what deeply feeds us.
Shabbat shalom, | Shabbat shalom, |
Allan Dalfen, Upper School Principal | Rabbi Moshe Schwartz, Director of Jewish Life |
PDF files
Athletic Awards Night
