Dedication to Thanks

Earlier this week, I was asked about the convergence of Chanukah and Thanksgiving, commonly being referred to as Thanksgivukah. My initial thought was that it was going to be easy to decide on what kind of potato side dish I was serving for Thanksgiving dinner. On the surface, the two holidays have very little in common, except perhaps for the recent popularity of deep fried turkey. However, if we dig a little deeper, the connection between the two holidays is stronger than one would think, even if this overlap is an oddity of the calendar.

Chanukah’s origins lie in either the military victory over the Syrian-Greeks or the miracle of the oil depending upon which sources you want to look at (which one is accurate is a whole other conversation for another time). Chanukah gained its name, which means dedication, from the need to re-dedicate the Temple after it had been defiled by the Syrian-Greek government. With the re-dedication, they were able to celebrate Sukkot (an eight day holiday) during which the Maccabees had been too busy fighting the enemy. Sukkot is the holiday that many people have thought that Thanksgiving is modeled after. Whether this is historically accurate is debatable, but the two holidays share the importance of giving thanks, praising God, and taking stock of what we have.

This synergy between these holidays is what made my experience with our middle school students on Monday so poignant. As part of our Tikkun Olam program, a group of students traveled with Mrs. Foley and Ms. Stone to the Kosher Food Bank to help pack grocery bags of food for those in need. The students reflections’ about how thankful they were that their needs for food, shelter, and clothing were met were incredibly powerful and have stuck with me throughout this week. Just prior to Chanukah and Thanksgiving, our students were discovering what it meant to be thankful.

The convergence of Thanksgiving and Chanukah is more than an opportunity to fry traditional Thanksgiving foods in oil or to create turkey-shaped chanukiyot (Chanukah menorahs). It is a chance to explore the deeper meaning of these holidays. Perhaps, Thanksgivukah is not a silly mash-up of the two holiday names, but rather is a signal for dedicating ourselves to giving thanks.

Use the opportunity that the calendar provides us this year to to re-dedicate yourself to living a life of gratitude. As you light each candle this Chanukah, give thanks for the blessings that grace our lives. Enjoy the warmth of family, friends, and community as you eat your Thanksgiving feast and watch the dancing flames of the Chanukah candles.

Shabbat Shalom,

Dr. Ari Yares

Building Community

So I have to admit, one of the things that I was nervous about was moving to Cleveland when we were expecting a child. It’s one thing to change jobs, move your family, and find a new home. It’s a whole other thing when you do this and your wife is five months pregnant. Some of the anxiety was logistical. How quickly could we find an OB? What hospital would we use? Who would take the kids if Ali went into labor in the middle of the night?

The rest of the anxiety was about community.

And I and my family are grateful that it is just not something that you have to worry about in Cleveland. I have written before how appreciative we are of the support that we received as we made the transition. With the birth of our son, Gilad Lev, the strength of this community is even more readily apparent. Whether offers of meals, playdates for the girls, or just checking in to see how we were doing, this is a community that understands what it means to be a part of a kehillah.

Judaism is not a religion that functions well in a vacuum. We require a quorum of ten, a minyan, for some of our most important prayers and rituals. Our ceremonies are often at their most meaningful when said as part of a community whether it is saying gomel (a prayer of thanksgiving after an illness, surgery, or long trip), welcoming a child into a community as part of a Brit Milah, or hosting Sheva Brachot (special meals for the bride and groom during the seven days following a wedding).

Keeping a community going takes work and you can see it in the hours of volunteer work that goes on here at school. You can see it in the speed with which the Schechter community mobilizes to support families experiencing life cycle events. And you can see it in the pride that we show when we talk about our community.

So, keep talking, keep volunteering, and keep strengthening Kehillat Schechter. Join us at the next Kehillat Schechter meeting (December 9, 7:30 PM), volunteer for the book fair, participate in the school’s annual campaign, and come sit with me and talk all things Schechter at a Bo N’Daber session (December 16, 8:15 AM). And as someone who has seen first hand just how powerful and impactful our community can be, thank you.

Shabbat Shalom,

Dr. Ari Yares

Power of Reading

With the school abuzz about our new enlarged reading week program, Read for Life – Go for the Gold, I have been thinking a lot about reading. Growing up, I was a voracious reader. I always had a book, sometimes several, that I was working my way through. I even recall getting in trouble a few times at school for discretely (or at least I thought I was being discrete) hiding a book under my desk. I still read constantly, both professionally and for pleasure. It is a habit that I don’t want to kick.

Reading with my children has been one of the joys of parenting for me. Even before we were sure that they could understand what they were hearing, we have been reading books. It started out simple with books like "But Not the Hippopotamus" by Sandra Boynton and as the girls have aged we have moved on to more sophisticated books. Recently, we have taken the plunge into chapter books. It has been an incredible experience to see my daughters sit enraptured by classics that I remember reading when I was young.

When we look at the benefits of reading, we talk about how reading at an early age helps brain development and generally promotes positive outcomes from children. More recently, I have read that reading has the power to shape our students into strong leaders. Reading can enhance abstract reasoning skills, broaden horizons, and increase vocabulary. In my own personal reading, I often find that reading outside of my professional field stimulates new thinking. Perhaps, most importantly, reading can reduce stress and increase our ability to be empathetic. All of these are vital to developing leadership skills.

If we know all of this, then the answer is simple – let’s get our kids (and ourselves reading). Our overall goal during Read for Life – Go for the Gold is to instill a love reading in our students. You will be hearing about grade level challenges to complete books, magazines, and basically read anything with print on it (yes, that includes comic books). Encourage your children to jump feet first into these challenges and find books that inspire them.

We want everyone to get involved in our Olympic-themed reading events. Come help out at the Scholastic Book Fair, November 21-December 5. Schlep your children to the library to feed their reading habit. And, perhaps most importantly, have them see you curl up with a good book and a cup of hot cocoa and share with them your experience of being instantly transported away to a different place or time.

Shabbat Shalom,
Dr. Ari Yares

Building A Better Mousetrap

Our students came to school on a recent Wednesday morning and were met with a strange sight. Jutting into the lobby from the Student Services hallway, were five colored cones, a glass bottle, several marbles, and a yellow plastic hedgehog in what looked like a lunchbox. The sign on one of the cones read, “What do you think this is?“ If the student looked a little further to the left, they saw tables with tubing and pipes, boxes and a scale, toy cars and marbles, and a host of other random objects.

Curiosity then took over.

What is this strange creation? It’s a Rube Goldberg machine. Named after Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg, these machines do a very simple task in a very complex manner through a series of chain reactions. Our Rube Goldberg machine is a very large, complicated mousetrap. (Ok, technically it is a hedgehog trap. Aren’t you relieved that we couldn’t find a mouse to trap?)

Since this strange assembly appeared in the building, students have been adjusting it, adding to it, modifying sections, and trying to make it work. They have asked teachers about it and proposed their own theories as to why something new is in the hallway and what to do with it. Some of them have even climbed up onto the tables to tinker.

Initially assembled as part of a faculty meeting, our Rube Goldberg machine is taking on a life of its own. It has become a magnet for students; often capturing their attention long after they should have wandered off. Students are exploring how the device works and proposing their own “hacks” to figure out how to get that ball to roll down and close the mousetrap better.

We are embracing learning from failure as these improvements work or don’t. Collaboration is a must as they explore new solutions. Our machine is so long and complex that no one person can do it all.

Gross Schechter Day School is a place where we want to engage our students’ creativity and curiosity even when they are walking in the hall. Don’t just take my word for it, watch our students as they first get to know our mouse trap and watch the video a student made for a friend's Bar Mitzvah.

Shabbat Shalom,
Dr. Ari Yares

Schechter Pays Dividends

Dear Shareholders,

As the school’s new chief executive officer, I wanted to share with you that Gross Schechter Day School is proud to announce that we will continue our practice of paying dividends on your investment in the school. Our forecasts predict that this investment will continue to grow in the future.

Just this week, we have seen our dividends pay out in the following ways:
Gabe, a seventh grader, was inspired by the Rube Goldberg machine in our hallway to build his own at home. His purpose, however, was not to catch a mouse, but rather to wish his classmate Jack mazal tov on his Bar Mitzvah in a unique and creative way.

At another Schechter Bar Mitzvah, David, an eighth grader, shared words of Torah and inspired the congregation to embrace the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim (welcoming guests). He spoke about his own family’s desire to elevate this mitzvah and how his experience as a student ambassador and member of Kehillat Schechter has pushed him to make this mitzvah his own.

On Sunday, a group of Schechter middle school students volunteered as solicitors for the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s Super Sunday. With confidence, poise, and energy, they called potential donors asking them to step up to the plate to support the Cleveland Jewish community. Josh, a sixth grader, so impressed a donor with his confidence and enthusiasm that the donor dramatically increased the donation!

A group of 5th graders wrote, starred, and produced their own video for their planet project and had the self-confidence to include their own blooper reel.

Several alumni have reached out to Middle School lead teacher Davida Amkraut asking to partner with her and counselor Dana Blocker in the transition to high school process for this year’s 8th graders.

Three Schechter alumnae at Laurel School recently scored in the top 2% of all participants in the Ohio Mathematics League competition in their first contest of the year.

And, of course, this week’s Super Mensches are part of the school’s dividends.

Gross Schechter Day School is excited to share with you these dividends and the return on your investment. We look forward to making similar reports in the future.

Shabbat Shalom,
Dr. Ari Yares

Listen, You'll Love It

Journeys begin in strange ways. Some of us are struck by wanderlust. Others have a burning desire to see something or have an experience. A few of us make a phone call and a journey begins.

This is what happened to me. About half a year ago, I picked up the phone and called Susan Siegal to wish her mazal tov on her appointment as Head of School of B’nai Shalom Day School. Susan was a colleague and a friend from the Day School Leaders Training Institute and I was happy and excited for her.

“Listen,” she said to me, “You need to come to Cleveland. You need to see the school. You’ll love it.”

A few hours later, I got a call from Seymour Kopelowitz, director of the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland. “Listen,” he said to me in his South African accent, “You need to come to Cleveland. You need to see the school. You’ll love it.”

Over Shabbat, I said to my wife, Ali, “They say that we will love it. Should I go?” Her response? You won’t know unless you go.

Sometimes you just have to pick yourself up and go someplace to truly know it. There is something frightening in taking those first few steps on a journey. I felt it last spring and I can only imagine that Abraham felt it when God commanded him to go to a strange land, as happens in this week’s Torah portion. Lech L’cha! Go forth!

There is something strangely compelling in that command. Abraham does not know what he will experience, but without listening, without taking that risk, his life would have never changed. He goes forth, journeys to a new land, and in doing so, enriches himself (and an entire people) in ways that he would have never imagined.

Each of us that has enrolled our children at Gross Schechter Day School has at some point answered a call to go and visit. Someone set our feet on a path to the school whether it was a friend, a colleague, or a relative. We did not know what to expect, but took a risk in the hope that we would find a find a school that would be a good partner as our children grow and develop, a second home for our family, and a community to share times of joy and sadness.

It is now your turn to find someone and give them that same message. Join us as we build our team of parent ambassadors who will set others on this journey. Please come to our Parent Ambassador training next week on Monday, Oct. 14 at 7:30 to help us spread the message ofLech L’cha.

Listen, you’ll love it.

Shabbat Shalom,
Dr. Ari Yares

Settled vs. Settling

Over the last few months, I have been frequently asked the same question. It usually goes something like this, “Are you feeling settled in Cleveland?” or “How are you settling in?” The truth is that we felt settled and adjusted to Cleveland pretty quickly. Much of that was due to the warmth of the welcome that we received over the summer and the offers of support.

Feeling settled feels good. We know where things are. The close proximity of the Jewish community and the larger communal resources makes life here just a little easier. Even at work, I’m feeling settled in. My office is almost completely set up, I’m getting to know the kids, and now that we’ve had a full week of school, a sense of routine is almost within my grasp.

Feeling settled and settling, however, are two separate things. The first is good for my home life and adds a level of ease for my professional life. The second is great for home as we get used to our new environment and enjoy all that Cleveland has to offer. But, it is not what I want to have happen at work.

Settling means accepting the status quo and not taking a stance that we can grow and improve. Building on our many strengths and taking the school to the next step is something that has been a topic of conversation among the staff since the school year began.

The staff started the year with broad “How Might We” questions and these have led us to develop seven new, more focused questions to tackle (in no particular order):

• How might we foster empathy, resilience, and social problem solving in our students?
• How might we be a greener school?
• How might we support and implement more cross-curricular collaboration?
• How might we promote student leadership?
• How might we create experiences that emphasize our students’ emotional and spiritual connections to Judaism?
• How might we design learning experiences that foster student creativity and curiosity?
• How might we better meet the needs of individual learners?

These are questions that do not have simple answers and ones that we do not expect to have answers for overnight. Instead, our initial goal has been to brainstorm as many possible answers to these questions as we can. No idea is off the table.

Eventually, we will narrow our choices to a few ways of addressing the questions and begin to develop prototypes that we will try out in our school. As we proceed, we may find that we need to change the question, narrow the focus, gather more information, or look at it in a different light.

It has been an incredible experience watching (and joining in) as the faculty grapples with these questions. The mantra of “go for quantity” has yielded some interesting ideas and I am curious to see where they go. In that spirit, I invite you to join in our conversation by adding your voice to our brainstorming. Partner with us as we seek to find even more answers to these big questions.

Shabbat Shalom,
Dr. Ari Yares

P.S. I’m looking forward to welcoming Shabbat with so many of our 3rd to 5th grade families this evening. Over 140 members of the Schechter community will gather together to celebrate Shabbat. Wow!