We're expecting!

As you’ve probably heard, we’re “expecting” and not just one baby, but at least a dozen or so.

Our Schechter family is growing with the opening of our Infant Care Center in the B’nai Jeshurun facility. We will be welcoming infants and toddlers starting at six weeks of age into this warm, caring and nurturing environment.

We’re excited to be creating a program where parents will feel comfortable entrusting their children into our care. We want to be our parents’ partners as their children grow and develop from infants to toddlers to young children and as they move into their teen years. We want to share in your joy over developmental milestones and hold your hand through those more challenging moments of parenting.

Our Infant Care Center is about providing a Schechter experience at the earliest age and offering a much-needed resource to Jewish Cleveland. We’re putting the finishing touches on our new home next door and we’re grateful to our host, B’nai Jeshurun Congregation, for welcoming us in. These finishing touches will create an inviting environment for infants and toddlers filled with toys for a range of ages and spaces to explore for our crawlers and toddlers.

The Infant Care Center will deliver a low child-to-teacher ratio and a warm, welcoming environment supervised by Schechter’s well-trained and excellent Early Childhood Center (ECC) staff. The environment will promote healthy child development and flex with each child’s needs through careful observation of each child. It will foster growth towards independence, and we will partner with parents to meet their desires for their children’s care and well-being.

Not only do we care about providing warmth, education and support to our students, now starting at a VERY early age, but we are able to provide great resources for our parents, as well. We’re also excited that our brand new lunch and learn series, led by school counselor, Mandy DuBro, is kicking off soon. The sessions are focused on the book, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, written by two Jewish moms and child care experts. Each session will help us build our toolbox as parents. Join us for this engaging series of workshops during the last two Fridays of each month starting in February. You can find more information at www.grossschechter.org/lunchandlearn.

Please help us spread the word about our new program and all of the wonderful ways that Schechter is “growing”.

Shabbat Shalom,

Dr. Ari Yares

Strengthening Our Hearts

I’ll have to admit that I have not seen the new movie Exodus: Gods and Kings, but I understand why Ridley Scott was drawn to the story. The narrative of the Exodus is compelling filled with dramatic tension, flawed characters, and wondrous miracles. While I think my vision of the Exodus may be more Prince of Egypt or Charlton Heston, we can be enriched in our understanding of our sacred texts each time a new creative force attempts to interpret them into a new medium.

Over the last several weeks, the story of the Exodus has been unfolding from the bimah of our synagogues as we read the opening parshiyot of the book of Exodus. Like the movies, this story is keeping me engaged and curious as a I read along.

One thing that has caught my eye was the constant repetition of the Hebrew phrase which we translate as the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. It appears twenty times between Vaera and Bo as we witness the interaction between Pharaoh and Moses with the plagues occurring in the background.

Most of our traditional commentators look at this as the increasing development of Pharaoh’s stubborn nature. His resistance to changing his mind builds and eventually the hardening of his heart is attributed to God. Some interpretations of the text say that the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was done to demonstrate the incredible power of God. Others are troubled by the lack of free will that these passages seem to infer. Instead, they say that Pharaoh was given several chances to change his mind and repent. Each time that he refused, he backed himself further into a corner making it harder and harder for Pharaoh to change his mind and save face. God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was merely an example of human nature at work.

Somehow, these interpretations weren’t satisfying to me (like many people’s impressions of Ridley Scott’s movie). They don’t fully explain the divine intervention needed during the last five plagues. A chance reading of a more obscure commentator, Hizkuni, brought me new insight. Hizkuni writes that God wasn’t making Pharaoh stubborn; he was strengthening Pharaoh’s heart so that he did not die of fear!

Now, all of a sudden, this makes some sense.  The plagues are fear and awe inspiring. Nature is running awry as God is proving God’s supremacy over Egypt. Had Pharaoh’s heart not been strengthened, the events of the Exodus might have unfolded differently and the Egyptians might have not given the Israelites their full freedom.

Most of the time, we want our children to aspire to be like our heroes, but perhaps in this one case, we want our children to have a little Pharaoh in them. We want them to strengthen their hearts to be able to face the trials and tribulations that await them as they grow. We want them to have an inner strength that grants them resolve to forge forward in the face of adversity. We want them to have the strength to have convictions and take action to see those thoughts become reality around them.

So while I will wish that you live until 120 like Moses, I also wish for you to strengthen your hearts like God did for Pharaoh.

Shabbat Shalom,

Dr. Ari Yares
Head of School

Read for Life

It has been an incredibly busy week. We have had evening programs, step up nights, field trips and special programs throughout the week. These changes to our routine help deepen our students’ classroom experiences and connect them to the real world, the next steps in their education, and ignite their passion for learning.

At the risk of stealing the thunder of our faculty, I’m very excited that our expanded Reading Week program is continuing the excitement next week. This is an incredible celebration of reading and literacy that the faculty and staff have been hard at work on for weeks. Last year, our theme was “Go for the Gold: Read for Life,” and students experienced a series of  Olympic-themed programs that encouraged reading and promoted literacy.

This year, the theme is “Schechter Celebrates Reading,” and I’m delighted to announce that the program is now the Sveta Grinberg Read for Life Program.

Who is Sveta Grinberg?

Sveta is the daughter of Mikhail and Ida Grinberg, who, unfortunately, passed away as a young adult. Sveta is most remembered for her passionate love of reading. She was never without a book, or several, and enjoyed learning and exploring as she read. At work, Sveta encouraged others to read. She kept a box by her desk and placed her finished books in it for her colleagues to grab and read for themselves. In her memory, her parents created the Sveta Grinberg Memorial Literacy Endowment Fund at Schechter as an enduring way of celebrating this important aspect of Sveta’s life.

Over the last several years as the fund has grown, it has supported our Reading Week program and now supports the larger and longer Sveta Grinberg Read for Life Program. It is in Sveta’s memory that we dedicate this program and we hope that all of our students will share her love of reading as they grow.

Shabbat Shalom,

Dr. Ari Yares
Head of School

A Warm Blessing

As the song goes, “Baby, it’s cold outside,” but, despite that, it feels warm inside the walls of Gross Schechter. It’s more, though, than just the warm feeling we get from the heaters working overtime to beat back this week’s plummeting temperatures. There is an additional warmth that I’m feeling as I watch our staff settle back into teaching, coaching and nurturing our students.

That warmth comes from hearing from teachers who are so dedicated to creating incredible learning experiences that they constantly ask if we can open the building for them on Sundays or during vacations for them to get things ready in their classrooms.

It comes from sitting with a group of teachers who have volunteered to plan our Read for Life program and are meeting, not just after school, but after a faculty meeting, to put the final touches on our annual celebration of literacy and reading.

It’s seeing teachers jump up to cover for an absent colleague even though this means missing out on precious planning time or lunch.

I’m warmed by seeing staff working with students after school on projects, helping them catch up on missed assignments or re-teaching a concept to ensure that a student masters it.

The warmth comes when I hear about a teacher sitting with a child who was feeling down and eating lunch with them to help cheer them up.

I see it when our staff turns out for recitals, games and plays to watch our students shine on the field or stage.

It appears in the e-mails from staff sharing the accomplishments of our alumni in high school and beyond, and the pride that we take in seeing our graduates succeed.

This warmth is a blessing which was the focus on last week’s Torah reading, Vayechi. The text contains the source for our Friday night blessing of our sons to be like Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh. But let’s face it, we don’t know much about them (and while we bless our daughters to be like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, we don’t know much more about them).

This week, I’d like to bless all of our children to be like our teachers and grow to have their compassion, dedication, energy and initiative.

Shabbat Shalom,

Dr. Ari Yares
Head of School