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DECEMBER 31, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Around the Community
Chasdei Chashie L’Kallah Chinese Auction Event
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kallah’s expenses can quickly accrue leaving little leftover for basic items. Hundreds of applicants a year are fortunate to receive crucial furnishings – beds and sometimes a dinette set – from an organization which can discreetly deliver brand new essentials to an otherwise empty apartment. Started as a zechus for a refuah sheleima, and now as aliyas neshama for Mrs. Chashie Weiss and manned solely by volunteers, Chasdei Chashie L’kallah (CCL) assists brides all over the tri state area and beyond. On Monday night, December 28, Ahuva Berkowitz hosted their third annual event here in the Five Towns, li’luy nishmas her grandfather, Baruch ben Asher Zelig Halevy. In an ambiance of tasteful elegance, set with gorgeous decor and gustatory
delights, Rebbetzin Batya Krasnow, a kallah teacher in Far Rockaway, opened the event with stories about kallahs in our community that have been recipients of CCL. Guests of the event were treated to a video presentation describing its mission. Esti Goldberg, founder, provided the historical background of CCL. It was started over a decade ago by family and friends hoping to provide a zechus for Mrs. Chashie Weiss, Esti’s ailing mother. Beds were noted to be a neglected aspect of hachnosas kallah, and they set to fill that void. Unfortunately, Mrs. Weiss, a woman of bitachon and simchas hachayim, succumbed to her illness followed very shortly after by her husband. Left orphaned of their parents, the 11 Weiss children were determined to continue the legacy of chessed. Field-
ing over 75 phone calls a day, few organizations can stretch their budget as efficiently as this one. Today, over 2,500 kallahs later, CCL is still a relied upon resource for many more. The outpouring of the Five Towns support gives much chizuk to their committed volunteers. Thank you to the hosts, Ahuva Berkowitz and her husband Heshy and to Heshy for his indispensable technical assistance. Together with sisters Daniella Schwartz and Malka Malone, Ahuva helped create a beautiful evening for the neshama of their grandfather, Baruch ben Asher Zelig Halevy. May his neshama have an aliya and may he be a meilitz yosher for the entire Mapah family. Thanks as well to Miriam Leah Ungar for her constant help in all aspects – from mailing invitations
to soliciting prizes and everything in between – and to Chaya Ungar for coordinating refreshments each year at the Five Towns events. Thanks to “D Squared,” Devorah Dreifus and Dina Rogoff, for their tablecloths and decor, and to Mrs. Vera Solomon, Machi Muller, Esther Malka Jeidel, Dovid and Tzvi Ungar, Batsheva Golding, Mimi Schreier and Rachel Solomon for all their time and effort and for all the guests who generously purchased auction tickets. The live drawing will take place on January 13. If you missed the Cedarhurst party, another one will be held next week at the home of Mrs. Karen Portal on January 3, at 138 Elm St in Woodmere. Rebbetzin Sori Teitelbaum will be speaking. You can also purchase tickets online at www.helpakallah.org.
Tichon Meir Moshe High School: Remembering Sarala Ginzberg A”H
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s all members of this readership surely know, our neighborhood suffered a grievous loss five weeks ago with the petirah of Sarala Ginzberg. The loss was felt sharply, keenly, and achingly in the halls of Tichon Meir Moshe, the high school Sarala attended. By all accounts, of staff and students alike, Sarala was universally loved for her ability to enjoy and initiate good, clean, fun; for her emotional healthiness; and for her positive perspective on all kinds of people and situations. As one administrator put it, “Sarala was great at appropriate and fun nonsense, but she had no capacity at all for the nonsense and drama of high school politics. In fact, she was the one to diffuse many a potentially explosive situation among her classmates.” Her popularity was further enhanced by the open and welcoming household her parents, Rabbi Aryeh Zev and Rebbetzin Avigayil Ginzberg, provided. Class get-togethers were invariably held at the Ginzberg home, the side-splitting rendition of Sarala as Amelia Bedelia “dressing a chicken” was performed there; and the TMM classic of Sarala “hanging around” on a hanger in a closet was filmed there. Her petirah hit the high school very hard. Sarala’s vitality forever stilled was almost impossible to
comprehend. The girls missed her fiercely. And how could they reconcile the intensity of their tefillos for her recovery with the eventual outcome? The principals knew they had to do something to help their talmidos deal with the tragedy and their unresolved feelings. Sarala’s shloshim provided the forum to address these issues. On Thursday, December 24, after 30 days of grieving for their cherished friend, TMM held a shloshim tribute for Sara Chaya bas R’ Aryeh Zev. After a seudah in the Ateres Nechama Liba Simcha Hall, a group of very talented TMM young women performed a song and dance presentation that was both poignant and inspirational. The song was an original composition by Gitty Kleinberg and Temi Kadar about tefillah; and the dance, choreographed by Bracha Barak and Sarala Weinberg and performed by Bracha Ackerman, Basya Bender, Kayla Zar, and Michal Dina Friedman, was deeply evocative of the emotions involved in beseeching Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Following this moving presentation, Mrs. Gornish, TMM Menaheles, conducted a workshop on tefillah. The high school was divided into study groups to work on locating the sources in Tanach for various ma’amarei chazal which speak about tefillah.
It was a communal research project on a topic that the girls desperately wanted to understand. There is no greater motivation for seeking out an answer than the sincere desire to understand. The next day, Erev Shabbos Kodesh, saw the students gathered again – this time to hear from Mrs. Michal Horowitz (noted educator and lecturer) and Mrs. Zahava Farbman LMSW (Associate Director Project Chai). Regular classes were cancelled and the day was devoted to imbibing the wisdom that these two women had to offer. By using R’ Shimshon Pincus’ sefer, She’arim Betefillah, Mrs. Horowitz and Mrs. Farbman showed the girls how different types of tefillah can be utilized in ways practical and relevant to a teenage girl’s life. They were extremely articulate and their message was extremely impactful. They validated the girls’ feelings and gave them the tools to move forward. The program ended with a choral rendition of a song composed by the gifted Temi Kadar. This was the same song that Rabbi and Mrs. Ginzberg played at the gathering for Sarala’s shloshim on Thursday night in Congregation Beth Shalom (in a version taped and sung by a young boy). This was the same song that had the hundreds of men and women who attended that
shloshim sobbing unrestrainedly. Miss Kadar’s song spoke of the longing for Sarala’s smile, the acknowledgement that she was smiling from above, and the sheer heartbreak of missing her. The tribute continued on Monday. Rabbi Menachem Nissel, world-renowned lecturer and author, helped the girls realize that their tefillos were not ignored. Hashem did not say “No” to all their davening and hoping. Perhaps He used those tefillos in another way to help Sarala. But He did not and does not ignore. He does not reject. He does not say “No.” Rabbi Nissel provided an invaluable service for the girls, giving them a lesson for life in the value of their personal and private tefillos. It was an empowering and validating lesson. Knowing that their personal approach to tefillah is appreciated and beloved by Hashem gives each girl the impetus to keep davening, even in the darkest of times. The TMM tribute to Sarala Ginzberg may have ended officially on December 28, but there is no doubt that the tribute will go on in many unofficial ways for a long time to come. Every time a girl speaks kindly to a classmate, shares a smile, tells a joke, strikes a cute pose, lights up a room – it will be a tribute to Sara Chaya bas R’ Aryeh Zev, a”h.