Meditating on Freedom

Early on Wednesday morning, I was working with a group of high school students on a meditation exercise in our alternative minyan. As we meditated together, I realized that the intentional and unintentional activities of the week had somehow aligned as the perfect preparation to spiritually enter Pesah. The meditation exercise that I had picked to use during the Amidah focused on reflecting on feelings of happiness, peace, and freedom. It was during this last portion of the exercise that, for me, the week began to click together and I realized that I was becoming ready to enter z’man matan cherutainu, the time of receiving our freedom.

On Monday, our 8th graders led an interfaith seder for the students of St. Aidan School, our neighbors around the corner. They eloquently explained the reasons behind each section of the seder and served as ambassadors of both our school and the Jewish people. Together, we celebrated the beauty of the seder and learned about its educational mission as the story of the exodus from Egypt is told. For two groups of students from different faiths to sit down and learn from one another brings to mind the incredible gift of our religious freedom.

Tuesday morning began with the delivery of the cots from New York Blood Services for our second blood drive of the school year. Blood, however, has a mixed relationship with Pesah. It can bring to mind the infamous blood libels of our past as Jews were accused of using the blood of Christian children to make matzot. It can also represent the first of the Ten Plagues that dip our fingers into at our seder. At school, however, it represented giving others the gift of life through 48 units of blood that students, staff, parents, and other members of the Schechter community contributed. This giving of ourselves provides others with the freedom to live their lives in health.

Even the fire alarm during high school lunch provided a sense of liberation. Yes, it was cold and wet outside. Yes, it was scary not knowing what was going on. But as an administrator, I found a sense of freedom from my own fears of what would happen if we did have an emergency in the building. Our preparations and practice with our own emergency procedures worked.

With the feeling that spring is actually arriving, our sixth grade students set out to engage in acts of maot chittim, pre-Pesah activities of chesed (community service). While our students did not gather wheat to provide others with the ability to celebrate Pesah, they did stock kosher for Pesah supplies at a food pantry. With the ever present fear of hunger among some in our community, our students worked to liberate them from this through their actions.

I was greeted early one morning by a student stating that she was so tired, but vacation is only a few days away. Clearly, our students are looking forward to the freedom from classwork that Pesah break will bring. Many of us among the faculty have joked about our own self-imposed slavery as we prepare for Pesah and are yearning to be set free.

My hope is that all of us will have a moment to truly reflect on what freedom means to us as we sit down at our own seder tables with friends and family to tell the story of our people’s exodus from Egypt. May you truly be able to feel a sense of freedom as we celebrate z’man matan cherutainu.

L’Shanah Ha’Ba’ah B’Yerushalayim (Next Year in Jerusalem)!

Powered by Chesed

Like most educators, actually, probably like most people, I dread the day that I return to work after vacation. It’s not that I don’t want to go back to school. As a principal, I truly enjoy what I do. It’s the shift from the routine of vacation to that of work that I find jarring. It is an awkward transition from a (hopefully) more relaxed pace to a more frenetic pace. This week was different. While, of course, there was a portion of me that would have loved to sleep a little later on Monday morning, I was excited to step foot back in the building.

For weeks, the anticipation of our Shushan Purim Chesed Day has been building among the staff. Rabbi Josh Rabin, our Rav Beit Sefer, kept us updated with each contact that he made for the various service projects that would be available for our students. Plans were set for a modified schedule and buses were ordered for the high school projects, while supplies were purchased for the middle school project.

But on Monday morning, it was finally here.

With a group of 9th and 10th graders, I excitedly boarded the bus to AHRC. We were eagerly greeted and we began to visit and play with a group of autistic preschool and elementary school students. The ice and awkwardness quickly melted as the Schechter students followed their new friends from station to station in a physical education activity in the AHRC gym. Everyone was smiling, laughing, and enjoying themselves.

Perhaps the most touching aspect of the experience was the reluctance of our students to leave AHRC. They had seen first hand how they could touch someone else’s life and, perhaps, this is the real purpose of giving matanot l’evyonim (gifts to the poor). Our students connected with people who they could have seen as the “other,” but instead saw them as fellow human beings.

This single event has kept me powered for an entire week.

While we work to plan other opportunities for our students to engage in tikkun olam, we encourage you to reach out to these agencies or others that we worked with and encourage your child to make volunteering part of their lives. As a school, we have a community service/hesed requirement because we strongly believe that tikkun olam needs to be an integral part of our lives as Jews and we lay the groundwork for what we hope will be lifelong habits here at Schechter.

Friday Letter - 10/5/2012

Sukkot is a holiday about thanksgiving. The American Thanksgiving is even modeled on it. From a historical perspective, the harvest is in and we are excited (hopefully) that the land has provided for us with sustenance for another season. We recite in the Amidah each day of the holiday that Sukkot is z’man simchateinu (our time of rejoicing).

Not everyone, however, has enough to eat and views the end of the growing season as a time of rejoicing. The fragility of our sukkot as we sit outside for our meals reminds us of this. Today, on our inaugural Hesed Day in the Upper School, we explored the role of hunger in the world with the help of American Jewish World Service. High School students further delved into the topic in small breakout groups while Middle School students explored a gallery of images of a typical meal in different parts of the world.

At its core, the message that students heard today that was that Ani V’atah N’shaneh Et Ha’Olam. Listen as a group of Schechter students brings this message to life through song. For more on the progra, please check out this post from Paw Print Now.

As I wandered through the halls during hol ha-moed Sukkot, these were the sounds of Schechter.

Shabbat Shalom V’Chag Same’ach!