Ma Chadash? Bites
13 Sivan l Parshas Naso l June 5

Parsha Lesson


Background
In this week’s Parsha there are two very famous situations of Halacha, or Torah Law, written right next to each other. These are that of the Sotah, or wife who is suspected of having strayed; and that of the Nazir, or someone who, for the sake of Hashem, takes an oath against consumption of wine amongst other things. 

Rashi explains- why is it that the Torah places these two Laws next to each other? To teach us that if someone sees a woman going through the process of being shown to be a wayward wife, he should respond by accepting upon himself the oath of ‘nazir’ in order to refrain from wine which leads to immorality.


Question
Someone who sees a wayward woman receive her punishment, and beholds her being degraded for having strayed in her marriage, is MOST inoculated against immorality! Why would this person have to then accept upon himself abstinence from wine?

Other people, who have not seen the terrible repercussions of immorality should have to refrain from wine! This person, however, has seen firsthand the severe consequences of illicit behavior, and he would seemingly be more protected from committing the same himself! Why then does he need to accept this extra stringency?



Answer
Since this person has seen firsthand the repercussions of immoral behavior, he most understands the dangers of immorality. This person would therefore also have a heightened sensitivity to behaviors and actions that lead to immorality. Therefore, when he drinks wine, it has a different meaning than it does to other people. 

Being that the imprint of the evils of illicit relationships is MOST imprinted on his conscience, and being that wine can lead someone to this transgression, wine therefore has much more heightened meaning to him. When he drinks wine he is now more of a step closer to immorality than a regular person.



Lesson
Due to the difference of perception of different people, certain behaviors can be much more dangerous for some people rather than others. 

In example- someone who has a heightened awareness of the dangers of climbing a high building will be more likely to fall off than someone else who is oblivious to the danger. The fear of the consequences themselves often are the cause for someone falling into them.

It is so important in life to be very real and personally attuned. There is no such thing as “but someone else does this”, everyone is different and different things carry different meaning and significance to different people. We need to be honest with ourselves about what it is that these actions do to us personally, despite them not being so harmful to those around us.




Wishing you a wonderful Shabbos!

Rabbi Eli Meir Kramer


What's Happening...
Judaic Studies

Morah Goldie Krancer- 6th/ 8th Grade

Preparing for Shavuos was both fun and inspiring! With beautiful stories and thoughts about our most lucky position in the world as Hashem's chosen nation, accompanied by a moving musical presentation about the preciousness of our Torah, our girls came into the Yom Tov inspired!

We created beautiful floral napkin rings to enhance our Shavuos tables! Our girls also contributed at home to the Yom Tov preparations with pastries and delicacies made by our girls themselves!

Not only did we choose "kibud av v'em" as a mitzva to learn about in honor of receiving the Torah, but we are also learning how to accomplish this mitzva of honoring our parents in practical ways! We have chosen the wonderful book, "My father my mother and me" as our text.

We are including in this article our napkin ring and some of their yummy pastries! I am sure they would take orders from anyone who is interested- they are professional! Looking forward to sharing much nachas from our growing girls!
General Studies

Ms. Chaya Leiter- Middle School Math

Middle school math continued to "zoom" and soar over the past few months! Even though we are learning virtually, we are thankful to have a lot of options and resources. The students have access to different kinds of materials including: examples, practice problems, videos, and additional practice as they are learning the new material through Envision Math. We all have a great time doing problems together with everyone annotating on the screen helping to solve the problem cooperatively!

In addition to Envision Math, the students recently signed up to ST Math, a visual math program that builds a deep conceptual understanding of math through rigorous learning and creative problem solving. You can check out this wonderful program on   https://www.stmath.com/  .  
I am looking forward to ending off our final weeks with continued success!



Pre- School

Morah Susan Leibowitz- Nursery

Nursery has been very busy learning how we keep ourselves healthy this week. We talked about how food and exercise can keep our bodies strong. We even did some really fun exercises and read a book called ''Ele the Healthy Elephant.'' We learned about washing our hands and how we are supposed to do it.

We did a really cool germ experiment with a plate of water, some black pepper and dish soap. The pepper are the germs and when you put soap on your finger and dip it in the water the pepper runs away just like germs do when you wash your hands!

We talked about the Doctor and the dentist and we were very lucky that Morah Susan's brother in law is a Dentist because he showed us some real dental tools and how to brush your teeth correctly. Thank you, Dr. Brian! Then as always, we have puppet show Friday with Morah Sharon to end our fun week on Zoom! We miss you so much!

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