19 Adar, 5777
This Week at Rochelle Zell
Happy Purim
March 17, 2017
Shushan Purim Celebraퟣ�on Costume Contest Spiel City Social Service Pi Day Model U.N. Students in the News STAND Food Drive Library News Sponsor Ad Book P.O. Book Group Alumni Trivia
And on the fi塪�eenth day of the twel塪�h month, the month of
A Taste of Torah
Adar, the windows of Heaven were opened and the snow poured down! And the Lord said unto Noah,"Get you up into the Ark, you and all the animals who are with you."
Community News
Class Schedule Monday, March 20 No School
Thus spake Noah, "They're not animals, they're seniors, and we can't take the train from the ARK, because Metra doesn't go that far west. If we need to take refuge, we'll be at Braeside, and we pray that you send the Shalom Bus bimhera b'yameinu
Tuesday, March 21
Amen, 'cuz it was spring last week and we're freezing out here."
C
Wednesday, March 22 A
Thursday, March 23
B Friday, March 24 CC
The great Purim blizzard of 2017‐‐yet another pracퟣ�cal joke
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played on us all this year by the fates‐‐did not succeed in dampening the fesퟣ�viퟣ�es at Rochelle Zell Jewish High School! The white rabbit welcomed everyone to this year's Shushan Purim party ("You're late, you're late‐‐Tefillah begins at eight!"), with teachers taking over services, goo埸�all tefillah PowerPoints, and a sumptuous nut‐free Purim brunch bar. In lieu of a carefully planned schedule of Torah learning, leyning, and Monday megillah reading, the Va'ad Tefillah carried through the plan they've been threatening to implement for years, and just passed the mike to Mrs. Eliaser. The panicked physics teacher managed to stand up for the occasion with three whole blocks of Hamilton‐style Mordechai rap, cribbed on a sheet of graph paper under the amud, before the buffet was opened and anyone's ears got singed off. May both the weather and the naퟣ�onal news surprise us in the Purim spirit of nahafoch hu, turning the world upside down in the best and jolliest possible way for everyone!
RZJHS.org Calendars Lunch Menu Edline Give Now
Save The Date
March 15‐19 Model U.N.
March 20 Professional Day
March 31‐April 1 All‐School Shabbaton
Costumed Concepts
April 6 Spring Musical
April 10‐19 Pesach Break
April 20 School Resumes
April 23 Wagner Insퟣ�tute
May 1‐12 AP Exams
2017 was the year for sports, with football players, hockey
players, RZ Tigers, and everyone's favorite sports teams. We get Screen Queens, Super Mario Brothers, hippies, Zoot suits, and freshman switches. Max Lava carried off geek honors as Robin, with close second to Meira Groth's dance‐hall Cat in the Hat. Avi Pretekin's Bernie Sanders reliably lost every single elecퟣ�on in the costume contest, while Aitan Maeir's self‐ owning Carrot Top award was carried off by Sammy Hoffman, who wanted the gi塪� card. The sophomore girls won the costume contest with their femme Beauty and the Beast posse; the senior girls' Hawaiian Punch suits faced off against the seniors boys, who came as Azerbaijan and Armenia.
The faculty wasn't far behind, with Mr. Reimer as James "Ionic" Bond, Ms. Kramer as Where's Waldo, Ms. Steinberg as a Mexican Oleh, and Mr. Scher clowning around as usual. The Student Impersonators' Brigade was in full force, with Coach Marퟣ�nez in the knit Xmas onesie of Jon Silvers, Mrs. Eliaser in the Eagle Scout badges of David Weisskopf, and Ms. Feinstein who was, not, I repeat, not dressed as Alex Bernat. The Judaic Studies faculty came as party animals; the math department came as Pi Minus One in happy anퟣ�cipaퟣ�on of 3.14; and the Language Department's clever Scrabble pun took a liៀ�le figuring out...especially with one leៀ�er absent for illness. But keep your eyes open...you'll never guess who's around the next corner!
Spiel City
Doff those bowlers and rev up the honky‐tonk‐‐it's Purim spiel ퟣ�me! The faculty played a silent movie lampooning our efforts to herd the seniors into tefillah, dance the "Where's My Kippah?" Macarena, and police the snack machine during fast days. In the junior spiel, Greatest American Heroes was profiling Jake the Athleퟣ�c Trainer, without whom none of our athletes would make it back from the court in one piece, and Joe the Security Guard, who's picking up Hebrew on his rounds of keepin' it real. MTV profiled the bromance between the senior basketball players, starring Felix's mustache with a life of its own and a lot of senior girls who seemed primarily to be composed of flying hair and squeal.
And in the spirit of Gone With the Wind, Ben Hur, Hamlet, Roots, and other great film classics nine hours long, the senior Purim spiel presented a full‐length television episode of How I Met Your Imma, starring Yoni Maltsman and Mollie Kramer as Rabbi Zach Silver and Ms. Tamara Frankel, who celebrated their wedding last autumn. This heartwarming musical retrospecퟣ�ve of life at CJ included Masechet Dusty, as performed by the senior Talmud nerds in full lashon hakodesh, the grey day of Andrew the Tech Guy, locked in his office waiퟣ�ng for the server to go down or a Spanish
teacher to trip over a cord, the ulퟣ�mate coolness of the freshman girls (who seem to have turned the heads of all the senior boys), and the never‐ ending line of argyle sweaters in Mr. Scher's closet.
Service Projects
With no classes in session, the morning was open for some well‐earned R&R! New this year, DEAP sponsored a Ping Pong tournament, with proceeds going to Project Ezra. There was also some preៀ�y raucous karaoke on stage in the Beit Knesset, and for the second consecuퟣ�ve year, the Chesed Club sponsored a 3‐on‐3 basketball tournament to benefit Save a Child's Heart in Holon, Israel.
Masks came off and coats came on for the a塪�ernoon community service projects! Freshmen played bingo with the residents of the Gidwitz Senior Center on Lake Cook Road. Sophomores shelved and sퟣ�ckered 3,600 boxes of matzah at the ARK's Chicago food pantry, helped out by chemistry teacher Ms. Sarah Moyer and her liៀ�le birthday boy Julian, who had collected canned goods for his special day. Juniors packed over 1,500 books for immediate distribuퟣ�on to low‐income schools and pediatricians offices at Bernie's Book Bank in Lake Bluff, while others stocked the West Deerfield Food Pantry. Seniors staffed the donaퟣ�on warehouse at PADS, the homeless shelter in Waukegan.
Model U.N.
World events paled before the mighty snowstorm that swept over Chicago and hammered New York City the very week of the Model U.N. tournament. A塪�er not one, but two cancelled flights, the RZJHS Model UN team made it New York in the nick of ퟣ�me for the opening ceremonies. The students studied in the airport and on the plane, grabbed a quick bagel at the hotel, changed into professional clothes and headed into commiៀ�ee. Ms. Kramer writes from New York, "Their enthusiasm, ingenuity and work ethic are outstanding. They work non‐stop from nine in the morning unퟣ�l midnight curfew solving the world's problems, and they can't wait to get up and do it
the next day! The future is in good hands with the RZJHS MUN team on the job." We owe the Travel House of Barrington and American Airlines a huge thank you for their superhuman efforts in geៀ�ng us to New York City before Wednesday night's opening bell. Todah rabbah!
Students in the News
JUF's 18 Under 18
Mazal tov to junior Daphne Budin on being named one of this year's 18 Under 18 by the JUF for her work in Jewish leadership and philanthropy! Daphne is a big macher with USY, BBYO, Ramah and Rochelle Zell's own Bikkur Gidwitz. She is also a varsity basketball player and senior editor of The Prints, the school literary magazine. Congratulaퟣ�ons to the enퟣ�re Budin family!
Pi Day
Tuesday, March 14 was Pi Day at Rochelle Zell. Defiant Model U.N. members joined the rest of the school to watch the floor show as Mike Byster, the Human Calculator, performed mathemaퟣ�cal wonders off the top of his head and taught our kids a few tricks of the trade as well. Thanks to Mr. Byster for coming by and thanks to the math department for sponsoring the pies a塪�erward!
STAND Food Drive In Support of Rohingya Refugees
For the next two weeks, STAND will be running a food drive for the Rohingya Cultural Center in Chicago. Chicago hosts 1,000 Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar due to horrific human rights abuses. Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are vicퟣ�ms of ethnic violence, placed in internment camps, and lack poliퟣ�cal rights. In order to assist these members of our community and to fulfill the mitzvah of loving the stranger, we encourage students, parents, and staff to bring in various necessiퟣ�es and food. Please bring:
10 pound bags of white rice Canola Cooking oil Condensed Milk Coconut milk Canned tomatoes Body wash Body scrubbers Dish soap (NOT dishwasher soap!) Shampoo and condiퟣ�oner
Bathroom cleanser Laundry soap (pods or powder) Toilet paper Face ퟣ�ssues Paper towels Target gi塪� cards Walmart Gi塪� Card Shopping bags Any toys in very good condiퟣ�on
Alumni Trivia
Before Michael Daughtery and Max Lava, who held the geek cosplay Purim costume award?
Save the Date P.O. Book Club
Alumni Trivia Jack Rubinstein (CJHS '16), alias Dread Pirate Roberts and the
Loch Ness Monster, is now a freshman at Brandeis. Jack writes, "I have been selected to represent (and captain!) the Brandeis slam poetry team this year at CUPSI, a naퟣ�onal compeퟣ�ퟣ�on for spoken word poetry. I'm raising funds for registraퟣ�on, housing, and flights for members of our team who can not afford to go otherwise. RZJHS is where I learned to love poetry, and I would love to actualize that love on a naퟣ�onal scale." See more about Jack's group here.
A Taste of Torah: Ki Tissa
Toward the end of this week’s parasha, Ki Tissa, Moses climbs down from Mount Sinai a second ퟣ�me. A塪�er smashing the first set of tablets in response to the people’s great sin of creaퟣ�ng the golden calf, he ascends again, this ퟣ�me to create tablets with his own hands.
In 34:29, he returns from the mountain, carrying the two tablets of the law, and the people see his face radiaퟣ�ng with light (ki karan or panav).
Dr. Aviva Zornberg brings a commentary from Hassidic thinker Rabbi Yaakov Leiner, who asks why was Moses given this divine glow only when he descended with the second set of tablets. A塪�er all, the first set were divinely inscribed and must have radiated outward to reflect off of the person carrying them. Rabbi Leiner explains that the original revelaퟣ�on could only be seen by Moses, but he did not actually absorb it. However, during this second revelaퟣ�on, a塪�er the great sin and subsequent forgiveness, God leaves Moses with this radiance when he is able to internalize the messages.
Rabbi Leiner suggests that this represents God contracퟣ�ng Godself (tzimtzum), leaving space for the human world. Interesퟣ�ngly, and perhaps ironically, Moses absorbs the relaퟣ�onship with God in a unique and even more intense way than when he had a direct contact with God’s presence. This lays the foundaퟣ�on for the relaퟣ�onship that God will have with humanity into the future.
This relaퟣ�onship between God and Moses echoes the teaching and learning we do at Rochelle Zell Jewish High School. We simultaneous seek to provide concrete instrucퟣ�ons to our community and also give space for students to absorb the informaퟣ�on and messages that texts provide. The best discussions in any class are those where teachers can sit back and give students the space to discuss with each other, each person sharpening the opinions of the next.
Our teachers and school community will not be physically with each student for more than four years, but the relaퟣ�onships that students foster with the Jewish worldview of our school and with our echoes for a lifeퟣ�me.
Rav Beit Sefer Zach Silver
Community News and Events
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