Schechter Chai-lights is a brief monthly newsletter for parents of alumni, alumni, current families, and friends of Schechter connecting you to all things SSLI, the latest news, events and more.
We hope you will share your thoughts and stories with us.
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January 18, 2021 / 5 Shvat 5781 |
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For Human Beings are Trees of the Field
Later this month we celebrate the holiday of Tu Bishvat, which is not only the “Birthday of the Trees,” but also considered one of the four new years of the Jewish calendar. Why do Jews place such value on a holiday for trees? Actually trees, both in their physical form and as metaphors, are one of the most prevalent symbols within Judaism. In part, this is because trees represent continuity and life.
The Torah is referred to as a Tree of Life, an Etz Chayim. Human beings themselves are compared with trees. As it says in Dvarim, Chapter 20, Ki ha’adam etz hasadeh, “for human beings are trees of the field.” How are trees like people?
A tree has three primary parts: the roots, which anchor it to the ground and supply it with water and other nutrients; the trunk, branches, and leaves that make up its body; and the fruit, which is eaten and which contains the seeds by which the tree reproduces.
Like trees, people need to be fed and watered by deep roots in order to reach their potential. Our families, our friends, and our communities (including of course our beloved school community) each contribute to the root structure that allows us to grow and develop. Like trees, people have trunks, branches and leaves that represent their physical bodies, their minds, and their spirit. When properly nourished, these can stretch and reach for the sky and beyond.
And finally, like trees, people have fruit and seeds. The fruits are the accumulation of the knowledge and experience that we have acquired in our lives, and the seeds represent our desire to invest in the future that we may not even see. This reminds me of a favorite, famous tale from the Talmud:
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There was once a man named Honi who was walking down the road when he saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi asked the man, “How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?” The man replied, “Seventy years.” Honi then asked the man, “And do you think you will live another seventy years and eat the fruit of this tree?”
The man answered, “Perhaps not. However, when I was born into this world, I found many carob trees planted by my father and grandfather. Just as they planted trees for me, I am planting trees for my children and grandchildren so they will be able to eat the fruit of these trees.”
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May we all be privileged to eat the fruits of our inherited trees, and continue to plant trees for those generations yet to come.
Rav-Hazzan Scott M. Sokol, PhD
Head of School
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Spotlight On Alumni
Though the words “sustainability” and “green” often invoke the idea of environmental scientists, this narrow view does not accurately represent the diversity of the field. While the “scientific” careers are certainly part of the industry, there are many other options leading to a future in the Sustainability or Green professions. At the core is the opportunity to strategize and put in place environmentally sustainable solutions, whether the topic is energy conservation, developing public spaces or ecotourism.
While one person might work in an office, another may spend the majority of their time outdoors. This is a field that offers many diverse options as exemplified by our alumni who share their stories below.
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Tu BiShvat is a Jewish holiday occurring on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat. It is also called Rosh HaShanah La'Ilanot, meaning 'New Year of the Trees'. As we celebrate our ecology, it would be fitting to reflect on our built environment. As an Architecture graduate, I learned all about functional design, structural systems, and material properties. What we did not learn about was the total environmental impact of buildings. “The buildings and construction sector accounted for 36% of final energy use and 39% of energy and process-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2018, 11% of which resulted from manufacturing building materials and products such as steel, cement and glass.” (IEA 2019, http://iea.org). Not to mention the toxic ingredients we use in the creation of our building materials and the leaching effect they have once installed.
It became clear to me that we needed to find a better way. I began researching carbon negative materials and net-zero energy design. One material, very similar to the material used to build the Great Wall of China, caught my attention. Hempcrete is a bio-composite of hemp stalks, limestone, and water. The material acts as an insulator and moisture regulator, is non-toxic, and carbon negative. It also outperforms traditional building materials in fire resistance, mold resistance, and insulation value (R-value).
Since hemp has been illegal in the US for over 50 years,this industry literally needs to be built from the ground up. Farmers are not familiar with the best methods of growing or harvesting hemp, and processing has not seen much innovation since the steam engine era. For this reason, I have decided to focus my business on popularizing hemp locally using food products, which have been on the US market for over 20 years. This way I can generate revenue to invest in farming and processing innovation. Consequently, farmers will be inclined to grow hemp and utilize many aspects of the plant, specifically for sustainable building materials. Hemp requires less water, minerals, and energy to grow, therefore creating an agricultural crop that has the potential to subsidize our dependency on trees.
With Tu Bishvat in mind, I can’t help but link my passion for sustainable architecture with my Jewish education. Schechter has provided me with a foundation of Jewish values, with a strong emphasis on Tikkun Olam. On this Tu Bishvat I feel extra grateful that this mentality and passion for environmental sustainability was ingrained in me from a young age. This has brought me to create products that are environmentally sustainable and health conscious from source to consumption.
Mateen Pouyafar (SSLI '11) is the founder of SEEDLY (eatseedly.com), a family-owned business with the mission to craft clean, nourishing, specialty foods that contribute to the well-being of others and build resilience for our earth.
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Tu Bishvat celebrates a new year for trees, and asks us to commemorate them for the bounty they provide us each year. We cannot separate this celebration from the need to protect them, the habitat they provide for us and so many creatures, and the sustenance they supply.
My love for the holiday began at an early age at Solomon Schechter. I’m not sure whether it was the dates we got to eat or the fun performances, but it was always one of my favorite experiences each year in elementary school. In fact, my earliest recollection of my passion for sustainability began at Teva, Solomon Schechter’s 5th grade trip. We learned many different things about recycling, water conservation (abstaining from flushing toilets too often), and cutting down on waste, specifically food waste. I remember coming home from the trip and singing “Oo-a-oo” to my parents and younger siblings and reiterating my particular concern over food waste.
My love of architecture began at a fairly early age, but until I began my career at COOKFOX, I didn’t fully understand the impact that the built environment has on our planet and the people that inhabit it. Our health and the health of our planet are so deeply connected. From construction materials, to the upholstery on our furniture, to the air we breathe in our homes, all of these elements have an impact on our health and function. These resources also have a very real effect on ecosystems all across the world. Luckily, in recent years, manufacturers have made a greater effort to source materials in more sustainable ways: wood can be sourced from FSC certified forests; we’re seeing a prevalence of recycled building materials; we’ve discovered new methods of building and creating with rapidly renewable resources like certain types of grasses, or bamboo. At COOKFOX, on our green roof, we grow a variety of foods like kale, berries, carrots, and corn, among many other varieties. We also source honey from our apiary, and we get a chance to learn about the process along the way. Bees are an irreplaceable part of the world that feeds us, and they’re in need of our protection.
I’m lucky to work at a firm that places such emphasis on our wellbeing, especially during a time when that’s more important than ever. I’m excited and hopeful to see the rest of the industry, and other industries, follow suit.
Brooke Rahmanan (SSLI '11) works as an Architectural Designer at COOKFOX, NYC.
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This year is my eldest daughter’s Bat-Mitzvah year and although it has been a year unlike any other, full of uncertainties, among them the question of will we be able to have her service in our temple, will we be able to celebrate with friends and family, she is preparing for it with the certainty that whatever form it takes, later this year she will become a Bat-Mitzvah with all the responsibilities associated with this special milestone. As part of the process of her preparation, we are participating in a larger B’nai Mitzvah class exploring many facets of Judaism, and on a larger scale how our religion informs and relates to our day to day lives. As I sit and ponder the path I have walked in my life I cannot ignore the connection between my career and passion for landscape design and vegetable gardening and my Schechter education where I learned of the seemingly miraculous powers of Israeli farmers turning the dessert into a land of bounty, as well as the upcoming celebration of the holiday Tu Bishvat or The New Year of Trees, when since ancient times Jews celebrate the fruiting of the trees that have sustained us.
The root of my love of plants certainly stems from my mother who always had a green thumb and tortured my sister and me by constantly reciting the Latin names of plants as we passed them wherever we were throughout our childhoods. However, I didn’t realize I wanted to pursue it as career until shortly after I began my first job at a media buying firm in Manhattan post-graduation from Emory University. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I wanted to do something more creative, tangible, and tactile with my career; something dynamic and full of renewal. One afternoon as I peered from my office window down at the United Nations, I noticed workers beautifying the UN gardens and it occurred to me that a pursuit of landscape design would satisfy my professional cravings. Creating a landscape forces one to utilize creative energy, temper it with practical concerns, marry disparate materials, colors, textures, and aromas into a cohesive living breathing work of art that constantly changes and grows. The process can be frustrating but always satisfies as you solve the riddles that each unique space presents.
As I have worked in this field, I have grown to understand more and more how vital these spaces can be for families. Whether it be for leisure, for gathering as large groups, for personal contemplation, the landscape provides a vital location for individuals and families to recharge, reset and bring joy and peace into their lives. Particularly in an urban setting, where I have focused, the value of a beautifully and functionally designed outdoor space cannot be overestimated. With the passage of time my interest has been shifting slightly with more of a focus on the productive aspects of the landscape and how growing one’s own food can be rewarding in various ways.
After fifteen years of living in New York City without an outdoor space of my own, moving back to Long Island with the opportunity to grow fruits and vegetables right outside our back door was an incredible gift for my family. The garden benefits us in so many ways. First and foremost it provides us with fresh, tasty food whose provenance we are certain of (which has been particularly reassuring during the pandemic); the garden itself is an aesthetically beautiful component of our yard; working it is not only a therapeutic activity but teaches us about the complexity of how nature functions and allows us to nurture the earth all while showing our children the value of hard work (wouldn’t you know that they love eating the veggies they had a hand in growing); finally and maybe the most rewarding aspect is it gives us a beautiful delicious bounty to share with family and friends.
Every avid gardener knows that each season presents a new set of obstacles, mysteries, failures and of course rewards. It is a continual process of learning and exploration, in its own way, similar to the study of Torah. The deeper you look the more complex and intertwined things become. To understand how to produce healthy plants that in turn provide delicious fruits and vegetables of high nutritional value one must begin to understand the chemistry and biology that takes place in the soil, and recognize the symbiotic relationships between plant roots, fungi and the microorganisms living in it. Fun fact: one tablespoon of healthy, rich soil contains over one billion organisms, and they are working hard serving many different functions in a miraculous ballet taking place under our feet. Unfortunately, there are many widely held practices in both farming and home gardening that produce short term results in the form of high yields, like the use of chemical fertilizers, that ironically deplete the soil of the nutrients necessary for this microbiology to thrive and end up making the soil infertile in the long run. Soil scientists predict that the planet only has 60 years left of fertile soil if we continue farming the way we are now. With an exploding global population, we are in danger of eliminating our ability to grow food for ourselves unless we adopt more sustainable practices like planting cover crops to replenish the soil after harvesting. The ancient Jewish sages may not have understood the science of what made their gardens and orchards flourish, but they understood how important it was to the communities’ survival and made a point to pay the proper respect through commemoration.
This year as we celebrate Tu Bishvat and give thanks for the bounty the trees provide us year after year let us do more than just eat some fruit and say some prayers. Let us exalt that which feeds, clothes, shelters, and fills the lungs of our families by learning more about the complex systems at work that give us the fundamental things we need to survive and thrive and make small changes to make sure we sustain that which sustains us.
Josh Speisman (SSDSNC '00) is the founder and head landscape designer of Urban Landscape Concepts (urbanlandscapeconcepts.com)
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Something I will always cherish about my Schechter education is that I always felt encouraged to discover how Judaism could influence my life in ways that are meaningful to me. As I realized pretty early on, for me, that meant dedicating myself to helping the environment. In some ways, this meant making the typical life changes; eating vegetarian, recycling, drinking from reusable bottles. As I found out, however, environmentalism is much more than the physical changes we make in our own lives, it is a concept that is also at the root of our neighborhoods and communities, and affects us in ways we may not even realize. The clean water we drink, the electricity we use in our homes, and even the safe disposal of all the waste we produce are all feats of human technology working in tandem with nature. Studying environmental engineering opened my eyes to ways in which we can work together with the environment in order to help our communities, while causing minimal harm to our planet.
In light of the recent political climate, I have found myself thinking a lot about how environmentalism manifests itself across diverse communities. This concept of environmental justice has been weighing on me as I have been learning in class about the health risks that landfills, poor water treatment and air pollution pose, and learning in the news that poorer or less educated areas are often victims to such environmental negligence. In the face of such seemingly insurmountable inequity, it is the efforts of motivated and innovative individuals to alleviate the stress of unjust environmental impacts that have continued to inspire hope and, more importantly, awareness for environmental justice and what it stands for. Organizations working to repurpose waste into building materials, companies that have found ways to convert methane into an energy source without wasting water in the process, cities that have found ways of providing clean and easily accessible water for their homeless populations, all these innovations are the reason I fell in love with environmental engineering. Tikkun Olam is at the core of what we learn and who we grow into at Schechter, and implementing that value into my college education and my professional life has been an enriching experience. Environmentalism and Tikkun Olam are one and the same; giving back to the Earth inherently means giving back to ourselves, our communities and paying it forward to future generations. I can only hope that as members of the Schechter community we can continue to educate ourselves and others on the importance of environmental issues, and to keep empowering ourselves to bring about sustainable, positive change.
Aimee Teplitskiy (SSLI '18) is currently a Junior at Lehigh University majoring in Environmental Engineering.
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BRINGING MEANING TO TU B’SHVAT
Whether you are 6 or 60 the pandemic has put a strain on all of us and impacted our opportunity to celebrate. Tu B’Shvat, also known as “New Year for Trees” takes place on the 15th of Shvat, January 28. This is a perfect time to embrace your inner tree hugger and find alternative ways to mark the festival and consider some environmental New Year resolutions.
- Plant a tree sapling, seeds, or a garden.
- Build a bird house to hang on a tree.
- Organize a park, beach, lake or roadside cleanup.
- Make something from recycled wood for your home.
- Adopt and beautify a community square, play area, or neighborhood street.
- Host a virtual seder.
- Commit to recycling paper goods and reduce or eliminate your use of disposable plastic and Styrofoam.
- Create an environmental art project.
- Make your own paper.
- Pledge to not run the tap water as you brush your teeth or wash.
- Give mugs and reusable water bottles as gifts.
- Rethink energy use in your home. Can you lower the temperature and are lights left on unnecessarily?
- Become involved with wildlife advocacy.
- Create a family tree.
We live in a time where both the means of destruction of our planet are more widespread but also the ways of protecting the environment are much more advanced.
We hope this year you will take advantage of the opportunity to strengthen your connection to the environment.
Please share your Tu B’Shvat photos and videos with us.
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On New Year's Eve, alumni from the classes of 1998 to 2016 joined on Zoom for a Mixology New Year's Eve Party!
Guest bartender Anthony taught participants some mixology tips and techniques while guiding the mixing of the SSLI Signature Cocktails featuring some of our faculty:
- The Randy Tea (Mr. Trupin).
- Chesler on the Beach (Rabbi Chesler).
- Virgin Senorapolitan (Senora Cahn).
- Ofra Sunrise (Mrs. Hiltzik).
- DokSok PopRocks Shock (Dr. Sokol).
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SSLI
2020-2021 Mid-Year
in Review:
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Dear Schechter Community,
As we close the books on the calendar year 2020, I want to say Thank You for your generous donations to this point.
During a year of historic challenges, your investment in the Schechter School of Long Island has been a blessing and an inspiration.
Thanks to your donations we are more than halfway to our annual goal.
Our fundraising year continues until July 2021 and we are confident that with you as our partner we have every chance of achieving and exceeding our targeted goal.
We wish you a safe, healthy, and happy 2021.
Eileen Olan Bohrer
Director of Institutional Advancement
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Careers in the fine and performing arts are uniquely rewarding. Many people dream of using their creative abilities and these occupations allow one to express themselves and demonstrate their vision and gift.
Job opportunities in the fine and performing arts are highly competitive but because of the nature of the work the variety of opportunities can be endless.
Please contact Eileen Bohrer at 516.935.1441 ext.1131 or ebohrer@schechterli.org if you're involved in the arts and would like to share your story.
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Mazal Tov to Sylvie Moscovitz (SSLI ‘15) daughter of Michele & Steven Moscovitz & sister of Sarah Moscovitz (SSLI ‘18), and Max Librach, son of Judy & Cliff Librach on their marriage in Toronto!
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This months tributes:
In Honor/ in Memory
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If you would like to honor a person's memory or mark a celebration with a contribution to Schechter LI, you may make an online donation, or send your donation to the Development Office. The family will be notified of your contribution.
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To discuss making a donation to Schechter LI, please email Eileen Bohrer, Director of Institutional Advancement to ebohrer@schechterli.org or call 516.935.1441 ext.1131.
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