Among the highlights of my week is the time I carve out to see what your children are doing in their classrooms. It reminds me how the holy work of our school has a daily impact on your child’s emotional and intellectual growth. A few things stand out:

School helps children develop a growth mindset. I stood at the doorway while second graders listened to a story about a butterfly whose struggle to fly ultimately made it stronger. The students then wrote blessings for themselves about how they hope to grow from their struggles this year. Mirowitz students know that learning is not about comfort. Like a butterfly, they will be encouraged to try new things, to take intellectual risks and to get out of their comfort zones.

School offers opportunities for self-expression. This week, your children launched their personal narratives. They chose just the right words and syntax to share powerful memories, exhilarating experiences, and even seemingly small moments that are important to them for reasons they will describe in their writing. The lessons of Writer’s Workshop are then applied to Hebrew class where your children are refreshing their ability to express themselves in Ivrit!

I spend most of my time focused on the big picture: fulfilling our responsibility to our community, to our parents and to our students. But the moments I see how that work directly impacts your children are the most rewarding of all, and make every moment worthwhile. 

4 things to know about Elul
 

It's Elul, the month immediately preceding the Jewish high holidays. Here are a few morsels that might give the month more meaning for your family.

 

1. The sound of the shofar is our daily “wake-up call.” At school, we listen to the sound of the shofar every Elul morning during tefillah, and prepare ourselves to make positive changes and to consider our resonsibility to fulfill mitzvot in the year to come. This year, that requires video recordings of shofar blowings made at home. 

 

2. Selichot (special penitential prayers) are recited during the month of Elul. Sephardi tradition involves integrating these prayers into the morning service. Ashkenazi congregations typically recite selichot in the evening – often by candlelight – on the Saturday night a week before Rosh HaShanah. This year, Selichot falls on Saturday, September 12th.

4. The Hebrew letters that comprise the word Elul (aleph, lamed, vav, lamed) are an acronym for “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li,” a verse from Song of Songs that means “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” Although this phrase is often interpreted as love poetry between a man and a woman, Rashi interprets this to be an allegory of the love between God and the Jewish people.

Shana tova u'metukah, a good and sweet year to you.

Reb Scott

Make sure your parents know about these upcoming events. Please also ask them if they are receiving Grandparent's Circle emails. If they are not, please let Lee'at know how to add them.

Rutie, Sam and Josh who led the lower school in Torah study this week.

Read their commentary about Parshat Ki Tavo here.

Read the Middle School commentary here.

Picture day will be outside this year! (That way, we can see entire smiling faces, and not just smiling eyes!)

Photographers will be here on September 9th. If it rains, we'll reschedule.

Download the order form here.