Maimonides Community

BH. Cheshvan

10, 5776 / Oct 23, 2015

Candle-Lighting: Community Newsletter of the Maimonides Hebrew Day School of the Capital District 5:43 404 Partridge Street Albany NY 12208 (518) 453-9363/3434 www.maimonidesschool.org Shabbos Ends: produced by Rabbi Mendel Rubin & students in the TNT (Torah ‘n Technology) Program 6:42 Maimonides is accredited by the NYS Board of Regents & is a beneficiary of UJF-NENY

maimonidesschool@gmail.com

This newsletter is sponsored in loving memory of

Bluma Galperin

Yartzeit: 11 Cheshvan daughter of R’ Yankel Zuravitzer by her granddaughter Raizy Rubin and family

ISRAEL ON OUR MIND & HEART H.S. BOYS INTERVIEW TRIP Israel continues to be on the front burner, with continued terror and violence in Jerusalem and other areas. Last night there was a well-attended communal prayer gathering at CBAJ, co-sponsored by the Federation. Rabbi Lehrfield shared the terror killing of Rabbi Nehemia Levy as he tried to save Aharon Benet as a moving introduction and led the meaningful service of recitation of Psalms.

Malka Evan spoke of the significance of holding this event in a synagogue. The prayer was followed by a communal Challah Baking at CBAJ as part of the global Shabbos Project this weekend. Our classes at school continue to add prayers for Israel, the wounded & those affected by terror everyday. We are also encouraging all students to remember to bring in a daily coin for Tzedakah which will be donated to an Israeli charity. Morah Devorah Leah started the bulletin board project above in connection with the current events in Israel.

Each student was assigned a card to depict a scene, message or idea about Israel. It’s filling up day by day.

FRIDAY IS “ESTY LIBRARY” DAY Friday will be the day classes have some time to browse the Esty Library and take and return one book each week, on Fridays mornings.

HS MAZAL TOV SEREBRYANSKIS Mazal Tov to Rabbi Mendel and Chumie Serebranski and family on the birth of a newborn baby boy this week.

On Wednesday, Rabbi Rubin and our High School Boys traveled down to Monsey and Queens to meet with two men who survived the Holocaust via escape to Shanghai, one is 90, the other is 99. Both were happy to share their stories with our boys. They filmed interviews for the Shanghai documentary. The drive back and forth, time together and stops to eat was a fun time in itself. Pictures and report in next week’s “MC” newsletter.

A SCHOLARLY EXCHANGE

On the occasion of Rabbi Meir Shapiro’s (L) yartzeit on the 7th of Cheshvan (see this week’s High-5) Rabbi Rubin and the HS Boys learned a scholarly exchange of his with the GUESS YOUR CHILD’S CARD Chafetz Chaim (R) about the earliest Kohanim 3rd graders each and the status of Pinchas and its relevance to wrote Hebrew Halacha and Jewish history. Rabbi Rubin also cards with 5 showed them a copy of the Sefer which Rabbi hints (sentences Meir Shapiro gave to the Lubavitcher Rebbe as about their a wedding present in 1929. And they got to see siblings or a pet a list of some of his students and where they etc) which ended up after the war, continuing the legacy. describe themselves for MINCHA-MAARIVS ARE TIGHT parents at Open As the days get shorter, Mincha-Maariv House (this past Minyans start earlier and it gets harder to keep Wed) to guess which card was their child’s?

Minyans going. Come by when you can!

MAIMONIDES 404 Partridge Street Albany NY 12208

FIRST AMUD OF GEMORAH

HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES

6/7 grade boys finished their first complete “amud” (one-side of Talmud double-page, aka “Daf” or “Blatt”) of Gemorah Sukkah. They are doing lots of review, both via worksheets and by reading the text to prepare for their first test next week.

Mrs. Ramsay’s 8th grade Social Studies class took a look at the photos and works NEW HOOKS IN BACK OF 4/5 of Jacob Riis, a New hooks were put up in back of 4/5 grade.

Danish-American It’s a large class of students so its important photojournalist, that everyone have room to hang up their known as a stuff, especially now with winter approaching. muckraker for exposing the CREATIVE extreme poverty and squalid living conditions in NYC tenement housing. Some of his black WRITING and white photos have become iconic images @NaNoWriMo HS Girls are participating of the time, but his most enduring legacy are his efforts toward greater public in the National (actually awareness leading to sensitivity & International) Novel empathy for the suffering of others.

Writing Month program youth division, and will be working on writing ARCHITECTURE (IN) ART FALL SENTENCES IN HEBREW their own short novels by the end of the year Morah Devorah’s students made these colorful under Mrs. Crawford’s (herself in her 3rd year 6/7 grade with Mrs. Levin are focusing on architecture. They began by designing the Fall posters, each captioned with a Hebrew of the adult program at NaNoWriMo) floor plan of a 2-bedroom ranch house. Each guidance and tutelage. sentence written by the students. Top: “I am student was given graph paper (& scrap paper) raking leaves of all types of colors.” Above: “It and the basic elements (kitchen, dining area, is cloudy. My sister is jumping in the leaves.” bedrooms, etc) and did the design any way they wished. Mrs. Levin is going to bring 4/5 FINISHED Styrofoam blocks next week, to build the “FRINDLE” house they designed in 3D. Later in the year 4/5 graders all agree she looks forward to bringing a landscape that “Frindle” was a architect to school for the kids to explore great read. It was another element of design - and to realize that humorous and clever, there is design to be found everywhere! and also food for thought on how new words become accepted and part of the dictionary.

HS BOYS MONDAY SLEEPOVER This past Monday, at the HS Boys sleepover night at Shabbos House, they studied an unusual Talmud story about a Rabbi turned government detective and his deductive reasoning used to catch thieves, and also a nice piece of Talmud Aggadah about the three angels visit to Avraham (in next week’s Parsha Vayera). It was neat to see the original source of some of the classic Rashi and Medrash they’ve always known on the Parsha. Both pieces of Talmud are in the mid-80’s pages of Bava Metziah. They enjoyed a fascinating “Book of Life” story from Rabbi Mendel that was prompted by asking about a pair of Tefillin on the table (with a handwritten letter visible inside the plastic outer bag). And they played several rounds of chess over bowls of mushroom barley soup.

CHOCOLATE WELLS Guess what 4th graders made with Rabbi Yossi for their recent Chumash Siyumon Parshat Toldot? They built circular wells out of marshmallows and filled it with hot melted chocolate which they later covered with sprinkles. This was Devorah Leah K’s idea, and it connected with Yitzchak’s wells that he (re-)dug at the end of the Parsha.

SAND AND STARS

Kindergartens made these for Parsha LechLecha, which speaks of G-d’s famous promise Of course it is! That’s what suspense is all to Avraham that his descendents would be about. But Mrs. Crawford also showed the 8th likened to the sands and to the stars. graders that authors can put suspense in all kinds of stories, not only the usual suspects 39 CATEGORIES OF WORK like mystery or . Even children’s books can have suspense as an element of the plot. After In their Yahadus class with Rabbi Caras, 8th grade is learning the 39 categories of work reading a number (and different types) of suspenseful stories, they are now writing essays (known as “Melachos”) that are biblically forbidden to do on Shabbos. comparing two forms of suspense writing.

SUSPENSE IS SURPRISING

THE SHOFTIM CYCLE 4/5 graders report that Mrs. Dubarry’s big board chart of the scientific method (shaped as a cycle) helped them in their Navi class, when they learned about the repeating behavior cycle of Jews distancing themselves and falling under the influence and then persecution of the neighboring gentile nations, a Judge arises to fend them off from their enemies and uplift them once more, and things are OK for a while, until the Shoftim cycle starts up all over again, and again…

“THE GIVER” AND G.R.A.P.E.S. Mrs. Crawford’s 6/7 graders recently finished reading Lois Lowry’s classic “The Giver” and are now each creating their own imaginary utopia - at least on paper. At the same time, they learned in Social Studies with Mrs. Ramsay about G.R.A.P.E.S. as the acronym for basic elements of civilizations: geography, religion, achievements, political structure, economy and social classes. Aside for the connection, some students found it helpful to keep that formula in mind as they designed their own utopian society.

ZAYIN CHESHVAN the 7th of the month of Cheshvan

ALEF FOR AHAVAT YISRAEL Kindergarteners learned a lot about Alef this week (they get a second, more in-depth round of Hebrew letter learning for reading readiness after the introductory rounds in Nursery). Alef stands for Ahavat Yisrael, so each student was assigned a partner, and each one drew a heartshaped card describing the good qualities of the other. Two students are pictured here are holding the cards that others made for them!

2

SWITCH TO RAIN PRAYER: We wait until the start of December, but in Israel, this is the day when we switch to “V’sayn Tal uMatar L’vracha” in the middle of the weekday Amidah. Why do they in Israel wait to switch on this day? Because of the reason above. Don’t pray for rain until the last Jew gets home from his long journey.

3

LIFE LESSON ABOUT SENSITIVITY: The Lubavitcher Rebbe often spoke of the life lessons learned from the 7th of Cheshvan: Even if you are already home back at your own farm, you can’t pray for rain while another Jew is still making his way home. This teaches us sensitivity for others.

4

RABBI RUBIN’S UMBRELLAS: Most of our older students will remember the Zayin Cheshvan assembly a few years back, when we all took a picture with umbrellas that Rabbi Rubin put Hebrew lettering on about these messages of Zayin Cheshvan.

5

YARTZEIT OF RABBI MEIR SHAPIRO: (1887-1933) the founder of the daily Daf Yomi Talmud study and the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva, passed away on this day. He was a Chortkover Chassid. Being that his students were among the Shanghai refugees (one of whom Rabbi Rubin and the HS boys recently interviewed), and that Rabbi Rubin studied under Rabbi Hirschprung (who was a student of Rabbi Meir Shapiro) our HS boys know quite a lot about him!

WATER + WATER + WATER 3rd graders love finding connections between their learnings for TNT reporting. This week they learned about bodies of water in science class with Mrs. Maher, they learned about the prayer for water in connection with Zayin Cheshvan (see High-5 on right) and swimming was one of their spelling words this week!

FINDING SPELLING WORDS in a book! Max was thrilled to find “Empty” Have you noticed that the colored sneakers on one of this week’s 3rd grade spelling words in the wall in Mrs. Dubarry’s 4/5 classroom have two of the books he is reading right now.

Making connections between different areas of begun to make their way across the track on study, and especially from one’s studies to the classroom wall? What moves the shoes?

Completed homework does. Great scoring on other areas of life is something we really like at TNT/MC and at Maimonides in general. tests does, too. Good classroom behavior is another way to slowly but gradually get your GOOD sneaker (each of her students has a “sneaker” on the wall) further away from the starting BENTSCHING point at the door. The goal is to keep moving!

BEARS FRUIT

WHAT MOVES THE SHOES?

WHAT ARE THEY HOLDING?

1

LAST JEW RETURNS HOME: Simchat Torah feels like a long time ago by now, but back in Temple days with old modes of travel, the last Jews got home from their journey to Jerusalem on the 7th of Cheshvan.

Morah Devorah keeps filling up circles on this giant lunchroom apple, listing students who did a great job bentsching. There’s a group treat once the apples fills, and everyone inside a circle (inside the apple) and for every time your name is in a circle, you get a chance at a raffle for prizes. A new fruit is going up soon!

We don’t know! This picture (a nice shot!) came from one of our roving TNT student photographers, but we didn’t get the reporting along with it. We’ll find out by next week and ANOTHER 7 CHESHVAN LINK let our readers know what small things these Grades 6/7 learned in Mishna class that 7th of second grade students are holding - and why!

Cheshvan was a deadline when lost objects had to be announced. It tied to the last Jew SAVE SAM (THE GUMMY WORM) reaching home at the Euphrates River, which on a boat, with paper-clips, in 4/5 grade. they are now studying in Social Studies!

Why wouldn't the skeleton cross the road? He had no guts!

Why did the student bring a ladder to school?

He wanted to get to High School.

Which letter of the alphabet is a question? Y. Why do Jewish people like to answer a question with another question? Why not?

What do you call twin boys? A sunset (son set).

What kind of ship never sinks? Friendship!

Knock, Knock. Who is there? ToWho. ToWho Who? No, it’s to Whom!

at Maimonides and in the Community 10/23: CBAJ WELCOME SHABBAT welcoming new members, a communal Shabbat dinner tonight at CBAJ, in connection with the worldwide “Shabbos Project” effort this weekend.

10/24: RACHEL’S YARTZEIT

11/9: HSG TRIP TO NYC MUSEUMS Mrs. Ramsay, our Social Studies teacher, is taking the HS Girls on a day-long field trip to NYC to visit and study at the WTC site, and visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Stay tuned for their report in the “MC” on their return.

The 11th of Cheshvan is the yartzeit of Rochel Imenu. Usually our school has a special ceremony or assembly but this year it falls on Shabbos. Also just this week, UNESCO voted to consider her 11/10: “MY ITALIAN SECRET” burial place in Bethlehem as a Muslim (believe it or Another film about Holocaust rescuers, this one set not!) holy site, so it is all the more very appropriate in Italy. Kristallnacht screening 7pm at UAlbany’s to be aware of and connect with our own heritage! downtown Page Hall, with La Rabinessa Liora Kelman of Congregation Beth Israel sharing her 10/31: DAF YOMI NAZIR SIYUM family story, the Saranos from Milan, how they What do most people know about a Nazir? That were saved in the small Italian village of Samson was a Nazir? Our local Daf Yomi study Mombaroccio, during the Holocaust. group learned the whole tractate about it. Come learn & celebrate as they conclude this tractate 11/14: ESTY MEMORIAL LECTURE with a Melava Malka at CBAJ, Sat Night 7:30pm.

Mrs. Bronya Schaffer of Brooklyn, a noted counselor, educator and lecturer on Jewish 11/1: KIDS STUFF GARAGE SALE Womens issues and relationships will speak at the 9am-1pm at Albany JCC. Clothes, books, toys.

5th annual Esty Memorial Lecture. 7:30pm at Maimonides. For adults only. Refreshments served.

11/3: HOWARD GARDNER SPEAKS

Gardner is considered the father of the multiple 11/21: FIRST PIZZA NIGHT intelligences theory, especially important in the Save the date for the first Pizza Night of this year’s educational field and approach. He’s speaking at winter season. Eat-In/Take-Out. All proceeds go to Union College at the Feigenbaum Forum. Some of High School year-end trip and extra-curricular our Maimonides teachers will be attending. activities. Stay tuned for details!

11/7: ISIS, BDS ETC AT J-FED TALK Jewish Federation’s Joint Societies brings Dr. Asaf Romirowsky (anaylist and author, fellow at Middle East Forum) to speak on some of topics of the day: ISIS, BDS etc. Its’ open to the first 300 paid guests. $25pp, $10 for young adults. Includes a dinner catered by Agudat Achim’s kitchen. Event 7pm at Agudat Achim in Schenectady on Route 7. Register online: JewishFedNY.org or call 783-7800.

11/9: “NICKY’S FAMILY” IN C.P. Clifton Park Chabad and Clifton Park Library present “Nicky’s Family”, an award-winning film which tells the nearly forgotten story of Nicholas Winton, an Englishman who organized the rescue of 669 children during the Holocaust. Winton, who recently passed way on July 1st 2015 at 106 years old! did not speak about these events with anyone for more than half a century. His exploits may have been forgotten if his wife, fifty years later, hadn’t found a suitcase in the attic, full of documents and transport plans. Today this story is known all over the world. The film will be shown 6pm at Clifton Park Library on Moe Rd.

12/4: “SHABBAT 360” UALBANY A joint effort is being made to have a mega Shabbat dinner in the UAlbany Campus Center Ballroom on this Shabbat. Area college students are welcome to join! Stay tuned for more info.

12/14: MHDS RAFFLE-AUCTION and Chanukah Dinner, at the very last moments of the 8th day of Chanukah, Monday 5-7pm. Save the date, and also please consider donating or soliciting prizes as we have to finalize the packages before the last week of October.

12/28-31: HALF-DAYS AT MHDS On the half days at school during the last week of December, plans are in the works for an especially exciting and meaningful time. A one-day Camp Gan Israel Winter Camp is being planned, stay tuned! Our annual Breishis carnival will be on one of those half-days that week as well. Maybe an adult learning day on the week prior, too!

2/28: SPA FOR BODY & SOUL The 11th year! Stay tuned for info. Save the date!

ANOTHER LETTER IN NURSERY Morah Rivka’s Nursery students are now onto the letter Beis/Bet, and used bubbles (for the Bb sound) to decorate it. They love learning the Hebrew alphabet, especially with all of the hands-on activities and crafts.

PJ LIBRARY / SIFRIAT PIJAMA Maimonides was recently approved to be part of both the Hebrew and English free PJ book club for families of children ages 2-8 years old.

Enrollment forms and explanations of each of these book programs have been sent home and are also available at the school office.

TORAH365 This coming week, “Torah365” will be studying Mishnas 8-10 in the first chapter of Pirkei Avot. See www.cbaj.org/Torah365 for study questions on each Mishna, sample commentary, events and more info.

Here are some questions on Mishna #10 from Rabbi Rubin’s Pirkei Avot commentary: “Hate the Rabbinate!” (Avot 1:10) Why would Shmaya, himself a Rabbi, say something like that? (That’s why many translate “Rabbanut” in this instance as authority or lordliness instead of the Rabbinate). Was Shmaya a self-hating Rabbi? If the Rabbinate was so awful, shouldn't he practice what he preached by choosing another career? And shouldn’t we look up to & appreciate our leaders, teachers and mentors?

Besides: Hate is a strong word. We often tell our children to use milder words, like dislike, or “that’s not my taste.” Why hate the Rabbinate?

One more thing: His colleague Avtalyon (they were a pair who served together) opens his remarks (Avot 1:11) “Sages ought to be careful with their words.” What was Avtalyon referring to? What was he implying? Is this perhaps in response to Shmaya’s previous Mishna?

MAIMONIDES SCHOOL & COMMUNITY (Nursery / Elementary / High School) 404 Partridge Street Albany NY 12208 (518) 453-9363/3434 maimonidesschool@gmail.com Founded in 1980, Maimonides is chartered by the NYS Board of Regents and is a JF-NENY Beneficiary “A Beautiful Blend: Torah & Worldly Experience!”