HEY 1 & 2 - Mary’s Letter
Dear Hey 1 and 2 Parents,
It was a pleasure seeing so many of you and other family members at our recent Living Museum Program.
We hope you have had the opportunity to view our Digital Museum in its entirety. I encourage you to do so. Click here to see our museum.
Our Hebrew studies continue with ongoing Hebrew reading practice, building new vocabulary and grammatical concepts.
We have practiced reading the Friday Night Kiddush and learned the two main reasons that we celebrate Shabbat, to remember creation and the Exodus from Egypt.
Ashrei provided us with the opportunity to read from a difficult and long prayer and my Hey students rose to the occasion.
We have also been speaking about our joyous holiday of Purim. I hope that all of you will attend the Megillah reading and festivities at your synagogues on Wednesday evening. This is a fun and festive holiday which everyone should have the opportunity to celebrate.
Thank you for the opportunity to work with your children.
Chag Purim Sameach,
Mary
HEY 1 & 2 - Susie’s Letter
Dear Hey (5th-grade) Parents,
First of all, Happy Purim! Now that Purim is here, we know that Pesach and spring are coming soon, that is a good thing.
In our Torah class, we have been discussing some interesting questions about relationships. We talked about what are the character traits we would look for in a friend- kindness, honesty and loyalty were important.
Then we read the story of Eliezer (Abraham’s trusted servant) going to find a wife for Isaac and what he was looking for in a wife for Isaac- kindness, loyalty to family and hard working were the traits he thought were important. The consensus was kindness , honesty and loyalty were important traits to find in the people we surround ourselves with and we, in class, strive to be kind, loyal and honest with each other.
We have reached the end of Abraham’s life and are learning about his son, Isaac, and grandsons, Esau and Jacob. We learn that sometimes, the characters in our Torah stories show us how NOT to behave and we see the consequences of their bad choices. Neither Jacob nor Esau behave as role models of good behavior as they struggle over the birthright.
In the coming weeks, we will see Jacob make a bad choice as he deceives his father to take the birthright that is supposed to be Esau’s, the eldest child’s, right and has to flee for his life to Aram Naharayim and his uncle Laban.
The principal of ““מידה כנגד מידה measure for measure is demonstrated here as Jacob is deceived not once but twice in his long and difficult life as a consequence of his initial deception. Laban will deceive him, giving him the wrong daughter to marry first and, many years later, his sons will deceive him into thinking that that his beloved son, Joseph, was killed by a wild animal as they show him his bloodied coat of many colors.
Jacob is a complex character and some of our discussions in class revolve around the fact that Torah characters are shown realistically in both their positive and negative traits, teaching us that people are not expected to be perfect. We just all try to do the best we can in life.
Thank you for entrusting your children to us and for partnering with us in the holy work of raising them to be good people.
Happy Chag Purim!
Susie Chalom
HEY 3
Dear Hey 3 (5th-grade) Parents,
It was a pleasure seeing so many of you and other family members at our recent Living Museum Program.
We hope you have had the opportunity to view our Digital Museum in its entirety. I encourage you to do so. Click here to see our museum.
Our Hebrew studies continue with ongoing Hebrew reading practice, building new vocabulary and grammatical concepts.
We have practiced reading the Friday Night Kiddush and learned the two main reasons that we celebrate Shabbat, to remember creation and the Exodus from Egypt.
Ashrei provided us with the opportunity to read from a difficult and long prayer and my Hey students rose to the occasion.
Our study of Torah has followed our patriarch and matriarch, Abraham and Sarah. We witness Abraham’s qualities of being a peacemaker, showing hospitality, and honoring the dead. After Sarah’s death , his purchase of the Cave of Machpelah is the first piece of land that we owned in Canaan.
The promise, in the Covenant, of our becoming a great nation cannot be fulfilled unless Isaac marries and has children. Abraham makes sure that he finds a wife for Isaac so that the Brit can continue.
My students found the discussion of arranged marriages interesting, especially to learn that there are still such marriages today.
Our next unit is about the birth of Jacob and Esau, where a variety of family intrigues take place. We see that the characters in the Torah are sometimes imperfect and that we can learn how not to behave from them.
We have also been speaking about our joyous holiday of Purim. I hope that all of you will attend the Megillah reading and festivities at your synagogues on Wednesday evening. This is a fun and festive holiday which everyone should have the opportunity to celebrate.
Thank you for the opportunity to work with your children.
Chag Purim Sameach,
Mary