Dvar Torah Parshas Chayei Sarah
In this week’s Parsha, we find, Avraham ready to help find a wife for his son Yitzchok.
He sends his trusty servant Eliezer on this mission
Eliezer is described in the Torah as “Moishel b’chal asher lo” [ruling, in charge in all that is his].
Eliezer was given to be a proxy of ALL of Avraham’s money [which he had a tremendous amount of], all of his sheep, all of his cattle etc.
Avraham trusted him fully. Avraham was not worried in the slightest about his monetary possessions that were in Eliezer’s hands.
But, when it came to finding a wife for Yitzchok, the future of the Jewish nation, the continuity of all that Avraham worked for his whole life, he made sure that , before Eliezer was trusted in this mission, Eliezer;
A swore in the name of G-d
B the girl had to have certain pedigree
C she had to only come from a certain family
D she had to have the finest Middos
even though whatever Eliezer did was not binding.
We glean from this that to Avraham aveenu, our patriarch, spirituality , was way more important than physicality.
A story is told with Reb Yisroel Salanter, a great mussar personality.
The story goes as follows;
A town needed a shoichet [ritual slaughterer] to obtain kosher produce and fowl. A man presented himself as one. He was asked “are you fluent in the halachos [laws]”, to which he answered “yes”.
“Do you have experience”? He answered “yes”.
He was trusted for the position and hired.
He , the shochet then asked to borrow a hundred rubles [their currency]. NO ONE would lend him the $$$.
Let us all learn from our Patriarch Avraham, to keep our priorities in proper order.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Kuritsky
Judaic Studies Curriculum Coordinator
Special Announcement from the Judaics Programming Department:
Our upcoming theme for the month of Kislev is…. Electricity. That is the next step of our building process with the theme of Siha is our Home. Looking forward to coming into all the classrooms on Tuesday to give out the monthly prize and introduce next month’s contest.
Please enjoy a new edition of our weekly Podcast!
Kindergarten and First Grade Judaics
We had a terrific week in Kindergarten and First Grade Judaics! This week we learnt about the bracha of hamotzi. We know that hamotzi is made on bread types of foods like bagels and challah. We had so much fun making hamotzi-man magnets that we can’t wait to stick on our fridge at home! This week’s parsha is parshas Chayei Sara. We learnt how when Sara was alive there were 3 miracles. 1, there was a cloud of Hashem’s Holiness on her tent 2. The candles stayed lit from Friday to Friday, 3. Her dough/bread stayed fresh for the whole week. When Sara died these miracles stopped. In this week’s parsha Eliezer finds a wife for Yitzchok, Rivka. When Rivka came into the tent these three miracles came back. Thus, in connection to the miracle of the candles staying lit from Friday to Friday we made a parsha project of Shabbat Candlesticks and Shabbat Brachot Cards. We are so excited to bring them home so that our families can use them. Shabbat Shalom!
Second Grade Judaics
We had a busy week in 2nd grade learning all about the beauty of the special gift we cherish every Friday night as we celebrate Shabbat. We are learning the difference between the loud shva; shva-na and the sleeping shva; shva-noch. We learned about the trait of Chesed from our matriarch Rivka. When Eliezer came with 10 camels, Rivka demonstrated this trait of Chesed by not only giving water to Eliezer,but to all his camels as well. A very large ,time consuming undertaking for a young girl. We discussed different types of Chesed we do by helping around the house and the Chesed of all the devoted parents of the P.T.A. who volunteer their precious time without pay to help our school.
Shabbat Shalom,
Morah Spiegel
Third Grade Judaics
Believe it or not but this week we started talking about Chanukah. Students are excited to welcome this very happy and delightful Holiday and are eager to learn more about the History of chanukah. AS an introduction, we read the book Pini the Pitcher which tells the story of Chanukah in the eye of the small oil pitcher, teaching us many important details about the Beth Hamikdash and the struggles that went into restoring it after the Jews won the war against the Greeks.
We also continue with our Kriah skills, going over all the exception rules.
In Dikduk we already started building short sentences using our vocabulary and prefixes knowledge.
In Parsha, the story gets better each week. This week, we lived through the passing of Sarah and the marriage of her son Ytzchak to Rivka. What an interesting date they had! Be sure to ask your child about it at the Shabbat table!
Shabbat Shalom,
Mrs Ivry
Fourth Grade Judaics
This week we focused on review of the alef bet and the sounds that it makes. Each “OT” (letter) This week alef through dalet was taught with different modalities. songs, stories, and hints to help us remember the name, formation, and sound of each one. We even learned a Midda that starts or is connected to the OT . Example: Alef we sang a song for Emet. Gimmel we leaned about gam zu ltova – Everything Hashem does is good even if we don’t see it.
We leaned in detail the story of Parshat Chayei Sara, and how special Rivka Imeinu was that she not only offered Eliezer water to drink but also to his 10 camels.
We learned the 3 Brachot that were always found in Sara Imeinu and Rivka Imeinu’s tent.
One of them was that the challa dough remained fresh from week to week. This week we sent home Little challa rolls in conjunction with the above!
Tzizit Honorable Mention:
Izzy
Adiel
The following came after class,and gave up a little of their own recess to put on a (brand new) pair of Tzizit and make the Bracha! WOW!
Oren
Yehoushu
Ethan
Lenny
4B:
What a week we had again, here at the best place on earth, 4B. We are excited about our new subject: Brachot on food, yay! We are going through the 6 Brachot that we say before we eat, and analyzing their english translations. The overall kriah level in the class is picking up at lightning speed, by the way! Ofcourse, the highlight of everyone’s week is our blast of Shabbat spirit that we get on Fridays by singing songs and hearing stories and insights about Shabbat as we collect our Shabbat treat!
Middle School Judaics
5th and 6th grade girls
We had a wonderful week, thank God! We continued on with Chumash Shemot. We learned about Yachid, (singular, male) Yechida, (singular, female) Rabim, (plural, male) and Rabot (plural, female) – the four different kinds of hebrew words.
On Monday, we enjoyed playing in the gym for our half-hour Chumash period. The girls had earned it when they did a beautiful job in the Parsha skits for Parshat Lech Lecha. We had a great time!
We enjoyed learning the Halacha of Modeh Ani in our class on Jewish law (Halacha). The first thing we do when we wake up in the morning is – say Modeh Ani! We’re thanking Hashem for giving us another day of life. He gave us back our Neshama (soul) because he believes in us! We have so much potential to be great, to grow and to impact the world in our own way. So Hashem gave us life because He believes in our greatness and what we can accomplish today!
We learned a really fun Modeh Ani song. Ask the girls to sing it – it’s great!
Every morning that the girls say Modeh Ani, they fill out a card and place it in the envelope of our Halacha raffle. The weekly winner will receive a slurpee.
The girls asked intelligent and interesting questions during Q&A (Questions and Answers).
We learned about the weekly Parsha, Parshat Chayei Sarah. Sarah died and Avrohom Avinu sent Eliezer to look for a new wife for Yitzchok. Rivka offered to bring water to Eliezer and his 10 camels – what a hard job! Eliezer knew this kind girl was a match for Yitzchok. Mazel tov!
We see the Middah of Chesed in Rivka. That’s the Middah that we focused on this week in our Middot scrapbook and campaign. Chessed – looking out for others, helping others in need, not focusing on ourselves but what we can do for others. Let’s keep it up!
Have a great Shabbat and weekend!
Best regards,
Miss Dershowitz
5th and 6th grade Boys
What a great week! Davening was out of the park with the boys learning the first Beracha of the Amida. We also had our end of term mishna test.
Shabbat Shalom.
7th and 8th grade Girls:
Thank you Hashem for yet another wonderful week here in 7/8th grade! Our class got into the most special habit of verbalizing our acceptance of Hashem’s will even when things seem to not be going our way. We got into this because we were inspired by our forefather Avraham , who accepted all kinds of agonizing tests from Hashem,including the order to slaughter his son, with complete and total, 100 percent, solid, absolute: acceptance! It’s clear that we have his DNA, judging by how well we can and do internalize this vital concept.
We play our “I accept” song daily these days, before we start class
7th and 8th grade boys:
This week the 7th and 8th grades began, an introduction to, maseches Brachos. This is a Major Milestone!
Brachos is the first masechta in all of “Shas” [Sheesha Sidrei Mishna and Talmud, the Oral law].
We practiced putting on our Tefilin the “proper way”. We are learning about the Mitzva of Tefilin, as well.
Rabbi Kuritsky worked on putting up M’zuzos with some of the boys.
CHOLENT [a mixture] a major food icon in our rich Jewish heritage.
Rabbi Kuritsky came prepared with a cholent pot [crock pot] beans, barley,potatoes, MEAT, spices and utensils.
The Boys really enjoyed preparing this delicious meal.
Additionally:
We are very happy that the 7th and 8th grade boys have begun Davening Mincha with a Minyan daily. This was arranged by Rabbi Kuritsky and the staff. We are joined daily by Rabbi Uzhansky, Rabbi Levy, Rabbi Kuritsky and Mr. Kaufman. We are extremely proud of how will the boys behave and how sincerely they pray.
In Rabbi Kuritsky’s Judaics class, we have studied Parsha ‘Guard your tongue’ (laws of forbidden speech) and have heard inspiring stories from Rabbi Kuritsky.
The boys took their first Parsha test on Parsha Vayeira and did very well.
Elementary School
Kindergarten
This week the kindergarten students became pirates as they learned all about the ar sound. They picked their topic for their pattern books that they began to write and illustrate this week. They have a lot of great ideas and cannot wait to create their first book. In math they are becoming experts at making and labeling patterns. They did a lot of cutting and gluing to make patterns, played pattern games, and even painted their own pattern. In science they learned all about different types of severe weather and how to stay safe. They learned about tornadoes and they made a tornado in a bottle. Then they learned about blizzards and they made snow. In social studies we finished sharing our all about me books. We played a fun game to see how we all have some things in common with each other. We also talked about how even if we have differences we can still be friends and our differences are what make us unique. They also worked on trying to memorize their phone number and address.
First Grade
This week our first graders studied many things. We learned how to make inferences in Reading. We write a narrative about how we play outside. In Science we continue to discover characteristics of living and nonliving things.
This week the first graders made a project for Veterans Day. We learned that in Veteran’s Day we acknowledge those who serve in our nation’s military. Our first graders chose to honor them with autographs of the United States flag. I think these two-sided drawings are a great way to say “Thank you for your service!”
Second Grade
This week in ELA, the second graders have been comparing and contrasting different versions of stories. They have been having some really great discussions about why point of view is important. In math, the second graders have been hard at work adding and subtracting with renaming. In social studies, they learned about weather and climate. They also did an amazing job at acting out a play about how a weather forecast helped a family prepare for a snow storm. Thursday, November 12th was Lielle Garber’s birthday. Happy birthday Lielle!
In Science, Students learned the life cycle of plants and animals. During the science/art lesson 2nd graders drew amazing pictures of “Butterfly Life Cycle”.
Third Grade
This week 3rd grade students continued their geography lessons. They explored landforms and the resources they offer to both animals and humans. In Math class, they began to learn about mental math. In the weeks to come they will work on developing multiple methods to simplify equations and solve them more efficiently. In Grammar lessons, students were working on writing compound sentences using the conjunction and. They also practiced identifying nouns. During Russian lessons, students presented the poem they have worked hard on deciphering and learning. They all did a fantastic job!
In Science, Students learned and compared incomplete and complete metamorphosis using a venn diagram.
Miss Sasha
Fourth Grade
4A
This week in math we started to work on multiplication by two digits. And solved multistep words problems.
In ELA we are working on different writing that compares assignments. Identifying and forming plural possessive nouns, combining nouns, and abbreviations.
In Social Studies we are reading, discussing and answering questions about the resources, economy and people of the East.
In Science, 4th graders displayed beautiful work labeling the parts of a flower during science class.
4B
This week 4B learned some tricks and techniques for doing mental math. I challenged the students to answer addition problems with numbers in the thousands without writing anything down, and they only had 15 seconds to give their answers. Every student was able to give a correct answer within the 15 seconds provided, on the first try! In ELA we learned how to identify singular and plural nouns, and how to differentiate between common and proper nouns. We are also working on a video showing the importance of inclusion.
In Science, 4th graders displayed beautiful work labeling the parts of a flower during science class.
Fifth Grade
The 5th grade had a busy week. In ELA the 5th grade reviewed nouns and capitalization rules. They did a unit review of vocabulary for their Vocabulary Quiz at the end of the week.
In writing they practiced comparing and contrasting characters in a drama. The 5th graders had a blast reading the skits! In reading, we continued reading our class novel and began comparing Pippi to Jeffery “Maniac” Magee in preparation for our Compare and Contrast Essay.
In math the class spent the week reviewing for their Unit 2 test. I think everyone will do well!
Lastly in Social Studies the students continued to learn about North America. They finished their notes on Mexico and started taking notes on Central America. They practiced their map skills by filling in maps of Canada and Mexico.
In science, 5tth graders performed a mini-lab: “Celery experiment”. During the experiment observations students understood that a plant’s stem supports the plant and provides a pathway for water to move up the plant. A lab worksheet was provided to students to describe and conclude the experiment.
This week, Ms. Tatic would like to commend Alec Rudnin for his amazing work ethic!
Middle School
Middle School ELA
6th Grade
Sixth graders had an eventful week! In reading, the students are greatly enjoying The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. We are currently in the middle of a novel study unit, and we discussed characterization and foreshadowing. In grammar, students learned about independent and dependent clauses. Students also reviewed making inferences, and made some great inferences from fictional texts.
7th Grade
Seventh graders had a busy week! In reading, we wrapped up our novel study of Great Gilly Hopkins. Students wrote some beautiful journals. In grammar, students reviewed types of sentences, and in writing, we discussed the relationships between different story elements in fiction. Students wrote paragraphs examining the relationship of the setting to the conflict, plot, and characters of a story.
8th Grade
Eighth graders had a good week! In reading, we continued our novel study of Watsons go to Birmingham-1963. Students discussed characterization and wrote beautiful journals. In grammar, students reviewed for their unit test. Everyone did a phenomenal job!
Middle School Math
6th:
Started their unit on numbers. We completed module 1 on integers and are beginning module 2 on factors and multiples.
6th:
Started their unit on expression and equations. We completed module 1 which included algebraic expressions, one step equations with rational coefficients , writing two step equations, and solving two-step equations.
8th:
Started chapter 1 on elements of algebra. We completed lessons 1.1 to 1.4 on writing and translating algebraic expressions, equations, and inequalities. We are working on identifying and understanding algebraic properties.
Middle School Science
7th Graders are truly behaving like scientists! Students analyzed their experimental setup, read through the situation and created an investigative question along with a hypothesis to test their prediction. Students are investigating “which coin will hold the most drops of water”. Along with their investigation, students will be creating their own experiment and identifying steps necessary to explain the procedures to carry out their investigation, they will identify and list their materials. Great job to all of the 7th graders especially Yisroel, he is doing fantastic in class great job Yisroel, keep up the great work.
8th Graders are learning the importance of proteins. Proteins are the instructions of all biochemical processes that take place within our body. Students are learning how these proteins are made, how they function and what causes them to denature. They are analyzing how our body obtains the nutrients from these molecules and what steps our body needs to take so we can obtain what we need to carry out life processes.
6th graders learned about the earthquakes, as well as its epicenter and focus. Students explained the relationship between earthquakes and faults, the occurrence of earthquakes according to elastic rebound theory, described where (in a Plate Tectonic sense) different types of earthquakes are generated.
Middle School Social Studies
6th grade learned about the Persian Empire this week, including the founder of the Achaemenid Dynasty, Cyrus the Great, and his son-in-law, Darius the Great, who oversaw arguably the greatest empire in the ancient world.
7th grade continued its journey on the road towards creating America by discussing the original English colonies at Roanoke, James Town, and Plymouth. All of the students were interested in what happened to the “lost colony,” a mystery which has confounded historians since the 1590s
8th grade was introduced to the Reacting to the Past series and given their roles for the Impeachment of a President game. All of the students were tasked with doing research on their character in preparation for writing a biography essay and playing the game in earnest.
Jewish History
Seventh Grade moved on to learn about Yitzchok Avinu and how his life parallel’s our history.
8th grade had some fantastic discussions this week about various relevant topics. We all enjoyed them, especially me! We also concluded our study of the Jews under Babaloniayn rule and are moving on to the Perisan and Median exile.
Mrs. Rosskamm