Shalom from TBD Religious School
Shabbat newsletter compiled by Gal Kessler Rohs, Education Director
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Our Sunday morning doors opened on Sunday last, with the voices of happy, singing children! Our lobby was filled with families, incoming and returning, parents filling in registration forms with the help of engaged parent volunteers
Dafna Abrea, Abby Silver
and
Jenn Serio
. Our members were greeted by our security committee fathers
Anthony Serio
and
Gavin Wasserman
, and all of us were called into our sanctuary for our opening assembly by
Steve Bermann
through the blowing of the shofar! Our Rabbi,
Rabbi Lachtman
, opened with words about renewal as is fitting to the month of Elul, I
Gal
, introduced our faculty, and our Cantor,
Cantor Orly Bernstein
brought us to a Shehechyanu moment- a moment of thanks for reaching this blessed moment!
It was a bridging moment- bridging between the end of the summer break and the beginning of the new year, bridging between incoming and returning families, a bringing moment of parent volunteers, a holding of hands of our faculty, uniting of all classes together, a bridge between our Judaic and contemporary traditions, and a bridging of friendship making through the cutting of apples, and dipping them in sweet lavender honey.
Our connections are credited to doing mitzvot, as is the saying “mitzvah goreret mitzvah” (one good deed leads to another). That’s because being kind in infectious, in a good way. It brings us to do things together, as a community, and it ensures we do so LeDor VaDor. We’ll talk about the meaning of this, and all that it entails, this Sunday, at our 9.30am Hebrew and B’nai Mitzvah orientation.
This will be a meeting led by our clergy, as well as our 5/6th grade teacher,
Rabbi-in-training MinsterCheng
, our students, and myself. Part of the agenda will include students who have been or actively going through the B’nai Mitzvah process, who will provide first hand experience to our incoming B’nai Mitzvah students. Haskala’s room parent,
Dulce Dubin
, has advised students in the class to bring their “show and tell” from their Bar/Bat Mitzvah, as a tangible object to share. In the orientation will be a demo of our innovative digital Hebrew learning material, ShalomLearning. Students and parents are advised to bring their Chrome books, or tablets with them to the meeting.
While doing mitzvot is at the core of Judaism, being a daughter or son of the commandment is our affirmation to do so. Our goal as Jewish leaders is to extend Sunday’s invitation not only to teen students within our school, but also to those adults within our community who wish to become children of the commandments. Might any of you, readers, adults and teens alike, be interested in affirming your commitment to doing mitzvot? Let’s chat about it on Sunday, as we come together for our continuation of building our bridges, this time, bridges around the doing of good deeds.
Shabbat Shalom,
-
Gal Kessler Rohs
,
Director of Education
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Shabbat Services tonight
open house service
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Thank you Volunteers
lots of shout outs this week!
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Thanks so much to the following who stepped up to help this Sunday on the first day of Religious School:
Dulce Dubin, Larry Alpert, Barbara Yamada, Dafna Brook, Jenn Serio, Mathew Legoretta, Abby Silver, Anthony Serio
and
Robin Evans
.
Shout out to
Miriam Beltran
and
Susan Grodsky
, our early childhood teachers, who have collaborated with their apples dipped in honey and discovery of the sanctuary curriculum.
Shout out to
Miss Doris Robin
for always being our supply guru. Thanks for those wonderful Tzeddakah boxes you supplied our students, and for your extended generosity!
Shout out to
Rabbi-in-training MinsterCheng
for looking into digital Hebrew curricula for our 5/6th grade students, and to
Steve
Bermann
for his collaboration leading into the BM process and Hebrew learning.
Shout out to
Jason Moss
for his elaborate overview of the religious school Haskala year, and his flexibility with engaging his students in a child centered manner!
Thank you wonderful religious school parents for attending our first day religious school meeting, sharing your thoughts, and engaging with us to make a wonderful upcoming religious school year!
Shout out to
Ron Robertson
and
Crystal Drysdale
, who prepared the pre High Holidays packets.
Shout out to
Cantor Orly
and
Linda Elyad
for leading a beautiful Meditative Service this past Friday!
Thank you to
Jan, Ron, Crystal
and
Steve
who have been helping around in the office.
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Torah Portion this week
Ki Teitzei כִּי־תֵצֵא
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Ki Teitzei (כִּי־תֵצֵא — Hebrew for "when you go," the first words in the parashah) is the 49th weekly Torah portion (פָּרָשָׁה, parashah) in the annual Jewish cycle of
#Torah
reading and the sixth in the Book of Deuteronomy.
It constitutes
Deuteronomy
21:10–25:19. One of the 74 commandments from Ki Teitzei relates to the
Tzitzit
.
Any time we wear a four-cornered garment, we have to
attach
strings, called tzitzit, at the corners. The strings have 10 knots in them to represent the
Ten Commandments
. In order to do this mitzvah at all times, we wear a special garment with four corners with the strings attached. That garment is called tzitzit as well.
(Pictured are Cantor Orly and Laurie with a tzitzit after ritual meeting planning for the next upcoming services at TBD)
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Elul
the month of introspection, renewal and hearing the shofar
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During the month of Elul, from the second day of Elul to the 28th day, the
#shofar
(a hollowed out ram's horn) is blown after morning services every weekday.
The shofar is not blown on Shabbat. It is also not blown on the day before Rosh Hashanah to make a clear distinction between the rabbinical rule of blowing the shofar in
Elul
and the biblical
mitzvah
to blow the shofar on
RoshHashanah
.
Four blasts are blown:
tekiah
,
shevarim
-
teruah
, tekiah.
Rambam
explained the custom of blowing shofar as a
wakeup
call to sleepers, designed to rouse us from our
complacency
. It is a call to
repentance
. The blast of the shofar is a very piercing sound when done properly.
(Pictured is a young TBD member blowing a shofar. Which blast do you think he is attempting?)
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Gallery
here are three of our favorites from the first day of school
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Flyers, flyers, flyers
flyers, flyers, flyers
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Wishing you Shabbat Shalom
and a shout out to Jan for the delicious home made raisin Challa!
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