February 1, 2008 Newsletter

Good Erev Shabbat to all!

All our classes in both the Boys Division and the Girls Division have been very busy gearing up for this coming week's Brachot Bee. We are looking forward to an exciting contest, but the real winner will all our students saying their Brachot better.

Our boys had intricate lessons in weaving as Rabbi Hecht began teaching about the Melacha of "weaving", as we learn Mesechet Shabbat in memory of Mr. Isidore Feld, a'h.

In the General Studies Department, we have embarked on a brand new program in our Gruss Successmaker Computer Lab. Under the guidance of Mrs. Mindy Levitz, our Gruss Computer Lab supervisor, we initiated for our younger students Painters Workshop, part of the innovative Writers Workshop Program. In this exciting program the children are assigned a topic and using colorful computer graphics create a beautiful picture related to the topic. Using their own picture as their guide, they write a paragraph about their topic. The computer then highlights their errors, and students make the proper corrections. It is a great way to inspire hesitant youngsters to express themselves in writing! Thank you, Mrs. Levitz.


In this week’s Parsha the Torah states that one should not take bribery because it "blinds the eyes of those who can see" Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser quotes the Avnei Nezer who differentiates between a actual blind person and one who is prejudiced by a bribe. A blind person knows they are blind and in need of others help. A biased person often doesn’t realize to what extent their sense of reality is distorted. He gives an example of a doctor who made his practice to examine each patient before looking at his files and payment history. He was afraid that his level of care would effected if he knew that the patient he was examining was late in payment or had poor insurance coverage. This is an important lesson for us in Chinuch as well. Very often a child becomes stigmatized at an early age with a learning problem or behavioral issues. This albatross remains with him from year to year from teacher to teacher, even from school to school. It is important for us to constantly view a student as a clean slate and to realize that if one approach was unsuccessful that does not brand him for life as a failure. We must always strive not to be blinded by past difficulties and to find new pathways to success for our children.


Shabbat Shalom!
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