Maimonides Community

BH. Tishrei

13, 5781 / October 1, 2020

‫ב“ה‬

Community Newsletter of the Maimonides Hebrew Day School of the Capital District Candle-Lighting: 404 Partridge Street Albany NY 12208 (518) 453-9363/3434 www.maimonidesschool.org 6:16 1st Days Ends: produced by Rabbi Mendel Rubin & students in the TNT (Torah ‘n Technology) Program 7:12 Maimonides is accredited by the NYS Board of Regents & is a beneficiary of UJF-NENY

THE THREE DAY SCHOOL WEEK This week we had no school Monday for Yom Kippur and no school on Friday Erev Sukkot.

The newsletter has to be ready before school ends on Thursday, so there’s only 2.5 days of reporting to make this week’s edition. No MC over Sukkot, see you on the other side!

maimonidesschool@gmail.com

MAIMONIDES 404 Partridge Street Albany NY 12208

This MC Newsletter is sponsored in loving memory of my mother

MAZAL TOV SHMULY G.

Rebecca Amann

And to the Gordon family for Shmuly’s BarMitzvah celebration to be held locally over Chol HaMoed Sukkot.

Rivka bas Shmuel Yartzeit on 2nd Day of Sukkot

by Maxine Morgenbesser & family

MAZAL TOV GORDONS and Mazal Tov to Morah Dini and Reb Itche and all the Gordon siblings at Maimonides on the birth of a baby girl whom they named Bracha today at Torah reading. Wishing them much Nachas!

DOTING ON SUKKOT

Pictured above are Nursery kids are using inkAnd to the Itkin family on Meir’s Bar-Mitzvah blotters/dotters to decorate their Sukkot papers. They also over Sukkot in Kingston, with a Zoom made very nice celebration to join over Chol HaMoed. & useful napkin or bentscher LEAF DRYING holders for the WATER CYCLE ON WINDOW EXPERIMENT Sukkah (see left) 2nd & 3rd grade learned about the water-cycle Mrs. Mattice’s first among other and did this experiment with colored water in graders are learning holiday projects. bags hanging up by the main entrance upper about habitats and its window. This is timely for Sukkot, the festival also now Fall, so they which celebrates water. Some of our used different types Talmud classes learned about the of (simulated) leaves famously super joyous Simchat Beit to understand HaShoeva (water-drawing ceremony & different habitats. celebration) in the Jerusalem Temple.

First they cut out a paper leaf with a RISING “A TEFACH HECHER” triangular bottom, There’s a Chassidic expression (popularized by then a leaf with more the 8th Day Band) to COLORFUL SUKKOT CHAINS of a square or live one-hands-breath rounded bottom. They dipped both papers in Some of Morah Rivi’s art classes made a (Tefach is a biblical water and then held them up to drip dry. huge mass (one pile pictured) of colorful measurement) above Which do you think dried faster? Which shape paper-ring decorative chains for Sukkot. the earth, to rise a is better suited for a very wet habitat like a little higher. These rainforest? They did a similar experiment with ALL OF THE BOOK OF JONAH kids are enjoying two same sized & shaped paper leaves, got The 2nd Haftorah of Yom Kippur is the walking about outside them both wet but left one out to dry and put Book of Jonah, so Rabbi Mathless’ 7/8 on these “can-stilts” the other inside wax paper. Guess which one grade Chumash class prepared for that by donated by the Levins stayed moist longer? Guess which type of leaf learning the whole book & story (with rising a little higher coating is better for a dry place like the desert? Midrash and more details) over a few days than the sidewalk in a instead of their regular Chumash class. fun engaging way!

MAZAL TOV MEIR I.

THE IN-BETWEEN WORDS Morah Sara’s 5th grade ELA (English Language Arts) students are now learning Prepositions (in, on, to, about etc) and Conjunctions (and, still, either, yet, for, etc) and they learned about the two types of coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.

BUDGET @PERSONAL FINANCE Ms. Coffey is now teaching math at a school district nearby, but she’s still teaching one course at our school, a distance course for our High School students on personal finance.

They’re now learning about creating a budget, what goes into the budget and the need to keep to that budget.

WHAT IS A TACHASH?

ABOUT CHARLES DICKENS Rabbi Mathless’ Chumash class is learning the Mishkan design and construction and came across the unique rare Tachash animal said to be one-horned whose colorful hides adorned the Mishkan. The common misconception is that it refers to the mythical unicorn but Rabbi Mathless shared an interesting illustrated Powerpoint shiur made by a colleague that goes through the Talmudic and Midrashic references and commentaries.

Ms. Bacon’s HS English students read a piece from Charles Dickens autobiography focusing on his emphasis on “parallelism” using matching words or phrases within a sentence.

NAPKIN OR BENTCHER HOLDER Similar to the Nursery version, FUN FRIDAY: BANANAGRAMS but of a different Morah Chani’s 2nd graders enjoy their Funconstruction style Friday games and activities. Last week (after the newsletter Kindergarten went to print) students made they learned their own how to play popsicle-stick Bananagrams, holder for use in and some the Sukkah. students were eager to try to make it work using their weekly spelling words!

KNOTTED STRIPS OF FABRIC For her Creative Parsha class, Mrs. Chaya Bracha Rubin brought in strips of fabric for each student in Creative Parsha class to analyze and jot down various attributes of that fabric (examples include: its simplicity or complexity, lightness or purity, strength, stretchiness, (RE-)DEFINITION OF HOME flexibility etc) and then cut each piece in half.

You can’t see it from this (social-)distance but Then they knotted the broken parts together, these first graders are learning about habitat thereby shortening the cloth, bringing its two and their pages are open to a basic definition extreme ends closer together than they of “home”. This is an interesting though as we were originally. All this was a hands-on head into Sukkot when a bare-bones basic thoughtful exercise and discussion on Sukkah helps us redefine & reimagine personal growth and a Teshuvah metaphor. how we think of home and shelter.

SHABBOS TABLE SET These two kids were quietly playing on their own in Nursery and they set up their own Shabbos table, complete with covered Challah, candle-sticks, foods and more.

Nice job!

PLACE VALUE EXPRESSED Speaking of a place setting, Morah Sara’s 5th grade math students learned this week how to express “place value” in standard, expanded and word forms.

NEW YEAR & TORAH CYCLE Mrs. Chaya Bracha’s Creative Parsha students read an article on something to be learned from the fact that the annual cycle of Torah readings doesn’t reset at Rosh Hashanah, instead it resets on Simchat Torah - so the new year & the annual Torah cycle doesn’t exactly line-up. The writer learned a psychological message from this that it is OK to leave loose ends, not everything is clear-cut, imperfection or not exactness is OK.

SUMCHOS SUGYA STILL ON Rabbi Mendel’s 7/8 grade Gemorah is still very invested in the Bava Metziah 2b sugya whether Sumchos’ ruling on “The Calf in Question” case can be reconciled with the “Two Holding a Tallis” case in our Mishna on page 2a. It’s a rich, complex back ‘n forth stretch of Talmud, needs lots of review, a bunch of worksheets in and we’re still in the middle of it. We didn’t shy away from a tough piece of Talmud even in this choppy schedule of shorter school weeks in between the holidays. We’ll get right back into it after the long Sukkot break.

WHY IS SUKKOT IN THE FALL Morah Devorah Leah’s 3rd graders took a closer look at the origin of Sukkot connected to the divine protection after the Exodus from Egypt. So why is it not celebrated connected to Pesach, similar to Shavuot? Why so far after Pesach? These 3rd graders learned why!

WALK THE NEIGHBORHOOD Once a week, High School girls take a period to walk the neighborhood with Jennifer: The Weekly Wednesday Walk. But this is no casual pleasant stroll. Gotta keep up! It’s a fast-paced brisk walk around and about the New Scotland Ave area, this week they walked to Albany Academy and back. Good news, even a fast-paced walk gets to see the varied local neighborhood: interesting architecture, people’s gardens, different types of trees and landscaping, even people sitting on porches!

MORAH DEVORAH’S FIRST GRADE SUKKOT POSTERS ARAVOT FIELD TRIP 5th grade Yahadus class with Rabbi Motti happened to be learning about Aravot just in time for Sukkot, and they didn’t have to go far to go on a hands-on field trip… the Ungerman Aravot (willow) bushes are growing vigorously this year along the south side of our school!

The students got to see first hand some of the detailed laws they are learning.

They worked on so many posters! They made laminated posters of the blessings on the Sukkah and on the Lulav, a Hebrew welcome sign and a poster about the Ushpizin guests in the Sukkah. They are pictured here in their classroom, masked so it may be harder to see their faces, each holding up at least two of their Sukkot posters, eager to take them home to their families. They are all laminated (many thanks to Mrs. Sharona Backman in the school office) so weather-proofed for use in the Sukkah.

SAT NIGHT KIDDUSH COMBO

This Motzai Shabbos will be the second night of YomTov, so it’s time for “Yaknahaz” - the Pemdas-esque order of operations that some of DISCUSSION ABOUT DEBATE our students learned about in the Gemorah in Ms. Ramsay asked her middle school history & past years, how to properly combine all the EROSION IN EARTH SCIENCE HS Participation in Government/Civics components of Kiddush (for YomTov) and 7/8 Earth Science with Mr. Sid Stark learned students to watch the debate so they could Havdalah (for Shabbos) in the same ceremony. about weathering and erosion this week. discuss it in class afterwards. This time there This year we also have the added wasn’t as much to discuss in terms of policy “Leishev BaSukkah” blessing which VELOCITY IN PHYSICS issues, but more about the tone, style, and how adds another little piece!

HS Science with Mr. Sid Stark is learning it went down and why many students felt about velocity, distance and displacement. confused, let down, disappointed or embarrassed. Their discussion became more of a Maimonides Middos class REALITY VS. FANTASY and sadly, a lot of Kindergarten analogies came One of the things Mrs. up.

It was inevitable that talk of this spilled Mattice’s first grade class over into other classes as well. In the 7/8 discusses each time they read Gemorah class they came up with two relevant a story in “Reading Street” Mishnas from Pirkei Avot: 5:7 and 1:9. Best is: Is this fantasy or reality? when turned into a learning exercise & lesson!

Often stories can have a mix of both so they discuss which elements of the story are reality ANCIENT FOODS IN CLASS (could actually happen) and which elements are fantasy. Sometimes its hard to tell!

This week Morah Rochel shared with her 7/8 LULAV: THE PAPER VERSION grade Navi class Farro (an ancient barley-type A paper Lulav (or the toy ones pictured on WHY BLESSING ON THE LULAV grain that’s become available again) in page 4) is not Kosher to fulfill the mitzvah, but connection to what Why not on the Etrog, the darling and most it is certainly very good as an educational prop they learned about expensive of the Four Kinds? Or make the to prepare and learn all about the set. Our Avshalom and Yoav. students have been learning all about the blessing on “the Four Kinds”? Why does the She brought cooked Lulav and Etrog set in many of our classes and blessing single out and emphasize the Lulav fruit-compote in among all the rest? And what can be learned gaining a hands-on and deeper appreciation connection with 5th grade Chumash class from this? HS Girls took a closer look at this for it depending on their grade level. learning about Liftan in Parshas Vayigash. question in one of their pre-Sukkot classes.

at Maimonides and in the Community 10/1: L’CHATCHILA ARIBER Today, the 13th of Tishrei is the yartzeit of Rebbe Shmuel (4th Rebbe) of Lubavitch who was known for this slogan/motto which encouraged people to soar above an obstacle, take a higher route, not to let the obstacle bog us down and tie us up.

10/2-12: LONG SUKKOT BREAK No school from Erev Sukkot Friday through Isru Chag of (the day after) Simchat Torah. School resumes 8am on Tuesday. Make the most of this special holiday stretch with family and return uplifted, invigorated and inspired for a back-toschool that we hope will follow in good health!

10/3: FIRST NIGHT IN SUKKAH The first night of the holiday is an extra special mitzvah to eat in the Sukkah, and if possible we should make an extra special effort to eat in a Sukkah on this night if we can.

10/3: FIRST DAY OF SUKKOT The Sukkot holiday begins on Friday night this year so the first day is on Shabbat, no Lulav until Sunday. But we get off to a joyous start with Hallel, the festival Amidahs, (and depending on your custom there’s a modified or not at all Hoshanot on Shabbos) and of course, another one of many delicious holiday meal in the Sukkah.

10/4: FIRST DAY FOR LULAV Sunday, the 2nd day of YomTov is the first day of the Lulav shaking this year.

We continue to make a bracha each day we shake the Lulav (during the daytime) until Friday, Hoshana Raba.

10/4: VIRTUAL “JOY -IT” SUKKOT CELEBRATION End the first days of YomTov with a bang! 8pm on Motzai Yom Tov, Sunday night, with 8th Day Band, fire juggling and brief words of inspiration about Simcha. This online event is in memory of Esther Aidel (Rubin) Cohen as we near her 10th yartzeit on the 25th of Tishrei. Join via Zoom ID: 836-1534-3357, see flyer (on bottom left) for Password or call any local Chabads for more info.

10/5-9: CHOL HAMOED WEEK It’s the longest stretch of weekday Chol HaMoed we’ve had in a long time. And so far the weather forecast looks good, too! We’re looking for ideas for nature hikes, outdoor outings, fun things to do - that are available even during Corona. We’d love to make a nice list to share. Look for a Sukkot children’s rally/program on one of the days, too, likely Wednesday morning at 10:45am. And a limited distanced short farbrengen after Maariv on one of the weekday nights in the Shteeble Sukkah.

LULAV & ETROG Do you still need a Lulav set? Didn’t order yours yet? Call Rabbi Nachman Simon 518-439 -8280 to order or by appt a $75 (Yanover-style)

NO SUKKAH? RESERVE A SUKKAH-MOBILE VISIT Rabbi Mathless will be operating (one of the) local Sukkah-Mobiles this holiday. If you do not have a Sukkah, this little truck does house calls!

Call or text Rabbi Mathless: 518-522-1872 to schedule a Sukkah-Mobile visit to your home during one of the Chol HaMoed days. Don’t have a Lulav? They bring Lulav shakes, too!

10/13: FIRST DAY BACK School starts back up again with an 8am start on Tuesday, the 25th of Tishrei. It is also the 10th yartzeit of Esther Aidel (Rubin) Cohen, a special program is being planned for that day.

10/13: THE HUMBLE TOAST CBAJ is bringing another traveling Kosher restaurant to the area, delivering pre-ordered and deconstructed gourmet sandwiches from The Humble Toast in Teaneck. Stay tuned for announcements of pre-orders, menu, pricing etc.

RAFFLE-AUCTION PRIZES It’s still some time away and we do not yet know what format this year’s Raffle-Auction will take, but we are going ahead with this annual fundraiser. If you have a prize to donate, or can help solicit prizes, please be in touch with Raizy, the Raffle-Auction coordinator.

Wishing our school family, students, parents and teachers, their families, our alumni, all of our MC readers and the entire community a very joyous Sukkot!

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!”