BH Kislev
12, 5774 / November 15, 2013
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 4:15 Shabbos Ends: produced by Rabbi Mendel & students in the TNT (Torah ‘n Technology) Program 5:17 Maimonides is accredited by the NYS Board of Regents & is a beneficiary of UJF-NENY
maimonidesschool@gmail.com
LETTER TO MENDEL BEILIS AND $20 FOR EACH STUDENT!
This newsletter is sponsored by
Mr. Chezky Wurzberger
A guest was in town for a Pleasantly surprised and impressed business conference and was so impressed with our older by the quality of Torah Learning boys studying Talmud that he of our Maimonides Talmud Class gave each one $20! Before while visiting Albany on Business coming up to Albany, he heard of our “Beilis 100” research and commemoration, and being AUCTION NOW ONLINE, TOO! www.maimonidesschool.org/auction is the link a Beilis enthusiast himself was eager to share for online purchases. Please share this link or what he knew about him, and that several the hard-copy auction with friends & family! times each year he makes a point of going to You can also call the school with a credit card the gravesite of Mendel Beilis in Queens. He asked our boys to write a letter that he would during office hours, or use the PDF form bring to Beilis’ grave, and the boys all signed. available via email for mail-in purchases. Thanks for supporting this important annual TOSEFOS FARBRENGEN school fundraiser. Less than 3 weeks left to the Raffle-Auction on Dec 4th. The Early Bird Rabbi Rubin’s Talmud class got BLACK IS COLORFUL special (free $10 ticket) expires on Nov 22. very involved in a Tosefos commentary (Shabbos 4a) which Mrs. Sanda’s 6th grade students learned about Chromatography (process to separate mixtures) addresses “Should a person WHAT DOES UR commit a (small) personal sin for by using marker to put colored designs on DREIDEL SAY? the (greater) merit (or saving from coffee filters, and then with a dropper put just Nursery students played a a bit of water over the designs. It’s amazing to greater sin) of someone else?” game matching up small see what colors bleed from black and brown… Rabbi Rubin shared with them Dreidels with different the story of “Better Be Coachman letters and colors to larger DAILY VOTE 4 A SAFER SCHOOL than a Rabbi” and how this step Dreidels with the same Daily vote at www.stanleyforsaferschools.com backward for Rabbi Yosef B. letters and colors. They or text “Maimonides Albany” to 99222 (phone drastically improved the spiritual first had to search around the room to find all charges may apply), once a day until Dec 13th. life of a certain Solomon G., for whom a path the small Dreidels, and then match them up to of Teshuva was prescribed by the Mitteler the big Dreidels spread out on the floor. BREISHIS FAIR Rebbe, whose yartzeit & birthday was on that very day of learning this Tosefos. It was a lively See page 3 for 2nd grade’s MAIMONIDES passionate discussion, and a memorable, “Breishis Fair” on Six Days TO MEET NYS unique approach to Tosefos study: blending of Creation & Shabbos REP PAT FAHY Talmud, Chassidism, ethical & moral which they finished studying questions, history & contemporary Jewish life. the Chumash on that. NYS Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy (our MAIMONIDES district representative) 404 Partridge Street will visit our school at Albany NY 12208 3pm (before pickup) on Wed Nov 20th (she will come 2:45 for a brief tour of the building) to meet our parent body and board. It is important that our legislators see our commitment to Jewish education and the need to support legislation that benefits parochial schools such as ours. We ask parents and board members to attend, to represent our school mission, and articulate the cost of Jewish education and the need for greater support.
COLOR BY DICE CHUMASH CHAVRUSA REVIEW Each spin of the dice is another opportunity to color in yet another circle on the sheet with that corresponding number.
BEHAVIOR SPECIALIST SPEAKS At a midday teacher luncheon on Veterans Day (between Parent-Teacher Conferences) Cheryl Silva, a Behavior Specialist (with a focus on autism) from Sage College spoke about 4 functions of behavior: tangible gain, attempt to escape, attention-seeking and automatic/natural behaviors. She spoke of breaking behaviors into parts, using various positive & negative reinforcers, and plans to put in place for individuals and classroom settings. Her expertise is autism, where systems of tangible reward & punishment are needed more for modifying and improving behavior, but there were many applicable lessons and possibilities to use in our classrooms as well. Interestingly, one teacher (& parent) made the point that when her family visits from out-oftown (from a school where constant incentives of reward & punishment are a much stronger focus) the visiting children frequently ask what they get for being good, whereas her own children (at Maimonides) are (often) happy to be “good for nothing!”
Rabbi Mathless’ 4th grade Chumash class reviewed chapter 26 of Toldos for a test, this time Chavrusa-style, studying in pairs.
SHARING & TAKING BAD NEWS 6th grade Navi learned about Shmuel getting a negative harsh prophecy to share with Eili the High Priest. Shmuel was reluctant to share it, for he was worried how Eili would take it. Remarkably, when Shmuel did tell him, Eili was calm and not upset, and accepted it as the will of Hashem. Even if this can’t be expected from all people, there’s still important Middos character lessons we can learn from how both Shmuel and Eili acted in this story.
THE G.E. CHEMISTRY SHOW
Last week Mrs. Maher and her husband took the 4/5 graders to the show (in honor of the 25th anniversary of Science Day) at the G.E. Global Research Labs. The picture above is from the “Times Union”. Mrs. Maher and a few of our students can be seen on the far left side of the picture. The show matched up a “magician” and a chemist, who did pretty neat things, and explained how it worked. They dipped a rubber bouncey-ball in liquid nitrogen, and afterwards instead of bouncing it cracked like glass would. He made instant jell-o by mixing two liquids together, without a refrigator. They used long strings to move fire to bowls across the table, and just by hitting the bowl the tall fire went out. The students also got to try out different things, including a machine that showed how hot or cold different parts of their body are. They saw models of how wind and solar electricity MY COLONY systems work. And the snacks provided were As part of a Social almost all Kosher! Our kids enjoyed healthy Studies project with apples, bananas, oranges, and grapes, with Mrs. Ramsay, 7th juice and water. Our students were proud to graders modeled their get compliments from the volunteers about own “colonies” using their behavior and eager participation. Thanks information about the again to Mr. Jeff LeMonds for helping arrange needs & natural our school’s participation. resources, population, transportation, size, geography, economics, & other key elements that they learned about the original Thirteen Colonies.
SOUP-OF-THE-WEEK THREE LETTER, TWO VOWELS Kindergarteners used color markers to highlight and differentiate different vowels under Hebrew letters in three letter words.
CAN’T IMPOSE UR STANDARDS 3rd grade Chumash class with Rabbi Yossi learned about the War of the Five Kings against the Four Kings, and how after it was over, Avraham Avinu personally refused the Sodom King’s offer of the spoils of war, but said that the men who fought alongside him could take the spoils. There’s an important life message: We can be strict and hold ourselves to a higher standard, but we can’t impose the same on others. That’s for them to choose.
It was especially cold during the first part of the week, so students really appreciated Mrs. Andrusier’s Mushroom-Barley Soup. Parents who would like to sign up for a week should please contact Mrs. Wildman. Thanks!
WHY DO I LOVE CHANUKAH? 2nd graders wrote and illustrated a few Hebrew sentences on what they liked best about Chanukah. This student (<) likes making doughnuts, lighting the Menorah and opening presents. These posters are at the old entrance.
CHANUKAH MATH CENTER Nursery students have a Chanukah Math Center in their classroom. They can count Dreidels or sort and count them by color, play around with the interchangeable wood-block Menorah, match-up colored Dreidel patterns, or color-in the Menorah according to number of candles (night number) listed.
BLESSINGS IN THIRD & SIXTH Both grades 3 and 6 happen to be learning about food blessings this week, 3rd grade in Mishna Brachos with Rabbi Shmuly and 6th grade in Halacha via Kitzur Shulchan Aruch with Morah Clara. We’re actually supposed to try to make 100 blessings each day (including the blessings in the prayers and before and after food etc).
DAYS OF CREATION BREISHIS FAIR BY SECOND GRADE Morah Devorah Leah’s 2nd grade Chumash students recently completed learning about the Six Days of Creation so they made this interactive fun fair for all many other classes to enjoy. Left: The Shabbos Booth had a variety of spices for students to smell and say what they enjoyed most. Above Far Left: Students prepare little puffs of cotton-candy on cones they rolled themselves, to resemble the clouds in the sky. Above Left: Yisroel is manning a booth of toy animals, created on the 6th day. Visitors had to separate the Kosher and non-Kosher Animals. Above Center: ???? Gives students toy pieces to shape into stars for the 2nd day. Above Right: Mara brought in these large pet frogs for the fish & sea creatures created on the 5th day. They were quite a hit. Above Far Right: ???????????? Shows school-grown grass for the 3rd day, plus there were vegetables to dip. There were a few other booths, too. The students were eager to share their learning, and all who came enjoyed! First of the season…Eat-in/Take-out
PIZZA NIGHT!
7pm this Sat Night at MHDS Medium Pizza $9 w/Toppings $10 Fries $2, Drink $1, Garlic Knots 3/$1 Advance orders by 6pm Sat Night To: bnoschayaprograms@gmail.com or just stop in and enjoy!
BLACK CATS COME TO TEACH Mrs. Carroll’s first graders made these cats to help teach the “short A” sound as in black, cat, hat, and sat (these types of words will soon fill up on these cats) vs. the “long A” sounds as in acorn, Asia, April, apron but that’s for a different class. The focus now is on short A.
A set of 4 Jewish older kids books from Feldheim Publishers in the Judaica Package, in addition to the 4 HaChai Books. The 4 “ThinkFun” Games shown above are part of the stack of games in this year’s Games Galore package. Saratoga Racing souvenirs from Marc Gronich in the Saratoga Getaway package.
The brightest lights on Chanukah are the reflections of the Menorah’s flames in our children’s eager interest and enthusiasm. In the Shabbos Chanukah Haftorah, the prophet compares the Jewish people to a Menorah.
7th graders are starting to learn about the multiple biological systems that keep us alive and functioning and make our bodies work. Whether skeletal, muscular, respiratory or circulatory, one students reported about it in TNT with a sense of awe, and with a new appreciation for the daily morning blessings in which we are thankful for our basic functions and take nothing for granted.
“VAYISHLACH”
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THESE KIDS ARE SHINING
BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS & THE MORNING BLESSINGS
5 INTERESTING POINTS & TIDBITS FROM PARSHA
UNLISTED AUCTION UPDATES
3 PEEL AWAY, FROM MANY - ONE! HS girls did this art project with grades 1-3. Each student worked on their own square, painting over some tape at various pre-planned points. Once everyone was done, and the paint dried, HS girls put together the puzzle of squares and peeled off the tape to reveal this MHDS Kislev masterpiece, a quilt collage of richly colored art patterns. Peel to Reveal!
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MULTI-MEANING SINGLE WORDS: Yaakov said:“Katonti” (I’ve become small, humbled, diminished) “Garti” (sojourned, temporary, #613 Mitzvot) about living w/ Lavan, &“Mamosh” (really actually, tangibly) in first Rashi. All have layers of meaning. HEAVY WORDS… “And he (Esav) kissed him” with dots above that word in the Torah; “And Dina went out” which started the story in Shechem; Jacob’s sons response in defense of their Shechem actions; & “And Israel heard” Jacob’s response to his son Ruvain’s interference after Rachel’s passing. SONGS FROM THE PARSHA: “Vayivoser Yaakov L’Vado” (Jacob remained alone) “Hatzilaynee Nah” (Please save me) “V’Atah Amartah” (You G-d promised) and of course 613 Torah Avenue’s kids song:“Vayishlach Yaakov!” (And Yaakov sent messengers) PICTURESQUE IMAGES: Jacob’s Wrestling with the Angel is a famous image, and Rochel Imenu’s roadside burial place in Beit-Lechem is one of the best-known and easily recognizable holy sites in Israel. KEY OBJECTS: The staff that was Jacob’s sole possession when he last crossed the Jordan, he went back for “little jugs” that fateful night, the hip sinew/tendon that Jews can’t eat because of his fight with the angel.
at Maimonides and in the Community 11/16: YARTZEIT KIDDUSH
11/22: EARLY BIRD DEADLINE
Levi Garbovich is having a Kiddush this Shabbos after Musaf at Shomray Torah for his father’s yartzeit: Eliyahu ben Baruch. His father came from the Ukraine in 1991, determined to seek out Yiddishkeit when coming to America. As he put it: “In Russia I couldn’t observe Judaism, now I want to take advantage of every opportunity!”
Get (some of) your raffle-auction entries submitted to school by this date to get a free $10 ticket.
11/23: YUD-TES KISLEV SAT NIGHT
12/4: MHDS RAFFLE-AUCTION
Communal Farbrengen Melava Malka, 7pm held at the Maimonides School. Guest speakers and storytellers are Rabbi Yitzchak Hecht and Rabbi AB Itkin of Kingston NY. As of this time, there is no separate children’s program planned, those attending can sit with their parents and enjoy the food, melodies, and stories.
Annual Chanukah Dinner (this year with Greek dairy foods) & School Raffle-Auction. This is an important annual fundraiser, and is also a nice annual communal event. Look for program details and schedule to be announced soon.
11/16: FIRST PIZZA NIGHT First pizza night of the season by Bnos Chaya HS. 7pm at Nathan’s Kitchen at Maimonides to enjoy medium-size homestyle pizza pies, French-fries etc. Menu: Pizza $9/pie w/veg-toppings $10/pie, Sushi $7/roll, Fries $2, Drink $1, Dessert 2/$1. Advance orders: bnoschayaprograms@gmail.com Screening new "Wonders of Hashem" video by Mitzvah Blvd.
11/16: BMC+BEYOND CLUB EVENT
11/27-12/1: THANKSGIVING AND CHANUKAH WEEKEND BREAK 11/27: Wednesday Erev Thanksgiving Half-Day AM Hebrew only until 11:30am. No School from Thurs 11/28 until Monday morning 12/2.
Topic: Rise to the Top! Craft: Decorate oil bottles 11/28: KOSHER THANKSGIVING 7:30-9pm at Maimonides. Fee is $5. Bring $ if you Annual communal tradition at Saratoga Chabad want to buy pizza &/or sushi from the Maimonides this year coincides with Chanukah. Call 526-0773. HS Pizza Night. Info? Call Mrs. Laber: 727-9581
11/16: RABBI REISMAN IS BACK Now with the time change and earlier Sat nights, Rabbi Reisman’s weekly Navi class is back on at 7:30pm, viewable live at CBAJ. Rabbi Frand’s class is on Thursdays at 9pm, also via satellite.
11/18: WOMENS BET MIDRASH This month’s topic is Chanukah, and the presenter is Morah Dini Gordon. Monday night, 8pm at Maimonides, open to all women (and all levels of learning) in the community. No charge.
11/20: JUDAISM & THANKSGIVING
7:45pm at CBAJ, an adult-education class by Rabbi Lehrfield on this topic, just before Thanksgiving!
11/21: CHINESE AT NCSY MISHMAR Chinese food will be served at this monthly Mishmar study program, 6:45pm at CBAJ for grades 5-12. Info? youth@CBAJ.org
Wed 11/27: Bethlehem Chabad 5:30pm at Four Corners in Delmar (Delaware & Kenwood) the Chanukah Wonderland (395 Kenwood) will be open 4pm on Wed, and 1pm on Sunday Dec 1st. Thurs 11/28: Annual Kosher Thanksgiving & Chanukah Dinner 4pm at Saratoga Chabad For Cost/RSVP call: 526-0773 Friday 11/29: Ice-Skating 12pm at Delmar YMCA Call Rabbi Simon 439-8280 for info. Sat 11/30: CBAJ Game Night, 6:15pm, $5pp. Sun 12/1: “The Giving Menorah” Celebration at Clifton Park Center -Mall, 4pm near Boscov’s Sunday 12/1: Chanukah in the Chocolate Factory w/ Gelt-Games, Golden Tickets, Oompa Latkes… 2-4pm at the East Greenbush Library Sunday 12/1: Menorah Lighting in the Park 5:30pm at Congress Park in Saratoga Mon 12/2: Last Menorah with Mayor Jennings, at Albany City Hall, completing 20 years in office Mon 12/2: Chanukah on Ice in Saratoga, 5pm at 40 Wiebel Ave, near 87 Exit 15. 526-0773. Mon 12/2: A “Major” (University Majors) Menorah Lighting 4:30pm at UAlbany’s Small Fountain outside Campus Center Mon 12/2: 6pm Festive music, magic show, raffle & Chanukah Dinner at Beth Israel Schenectady. Kids who bring Chanukah art come free w/ paying adults. Cost?/RSVP: 377-3700. Tues 12/3: Chanukah Bowling at “Spare Time” in Clifton Park 4pm. 495-0772/9 for info.
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!”
12/16: WOMENS BET MIDRASH This month’s topic is the “Tenth of Tevet” and the discussion will be led by Raizy Rubin, Monday night, 8pm at Maimonides.
12/25-29: JGR WINTER RETREAT Find out more at www.JewishGirlsRetreat.net. This year its based out of the Best Western in Albany.
12/23-1/1/2014: END OF DECEMBER & NEW YEARS MHDS SCHEDULE Mon 12/23 thru Wed 12/25: Half-Day Hebrew Only
CHANUKAH LIGHTS (UPDATED LIST) 8-11:30am. HS Girls are offering to host (for small
11/17: PRE-CHANUKAH ACTIVITY Pre-Chanukah Menorah Making at Home Depot, call Rabbi Yossi 495-0772/9. FC’s Sunday Circle with pre-Chanukah theme, call Liba at Friendship Circle: 438-4220. 1pm at Beth Tephilah, Reenactment of historical period before Chanukah Revolt. Ages 12+. Turkey Luncheon served. Call: 894-3491.
Tues 12/3: Menorah Lighting with the Mayor of Troy 5pm at the Atrium in downtown Troy. Wed 12/4: School Auction & Chanukah Dinner
charge TBD) an after-school (until 1:30pm) activity day. Stay tuned for details, be in touch if interested. Thurs 12/26 thru Mon 12/30: No School Tues 12/31 & Wed 1/1: Half-Day Hebrew Only Please note that there will be educational activities & experiences planned for some of these half-days.
1/26: JFED’S SUPERSUNDAY This annual phone-a-thon raises funds for the Federation’s allocations to local beneficiaries (including Maimonides) as well as overseas Jewish needs. Maimonides Parents are asked to please volunteer for one-shift as this supports our school!
Looking ahead… Save the Dates! 1/11: Chabad 40th Year Melava Malka @ SH (they’re looking for people to share 30 second to 1 minute video clips of what Chabad locally means to them, or a specific memory of an event, teaching, experience etc). 2/9: Annual Womens Spa for Body & Soul (Committee now underway, contact Clara Simon, DL or Leyee Rubin if you would like to be involved). 5/28: Annual MHDS Scholarship Tribute Dinner
CARDBOARD FUN DAY Do you have a few cardboard boxes at home that you were going to throw out? If its clean & dry, save them (and future boxes) for a special fun day at school at the end of December. Break-down the box so it is flat, and save them at home. There is a cardboard activity day planned at school for one of the December half-days, it will be used in an educational craft project and then picked up from school for recycling.