V`ahavta 4-1-16

V'ahavta... ‫ואהבת‬
“Stellar Education for Every Jewish Child”
April 1, 2016
II Adar 22, 5776
· Od Yosef Chai
Campaign
1
· BINGO
2
· Mishloach Manot
2016
3
· Purim at RTA
4
· 3rd Grade PEP
8
· Art at RTA
10
· Passover Meat Order 11
· Parsha
16
Candle Lighting
Friday, April 1
7:15 p.m.
Saturday, April 2
Shabbat ends
8:19 p.m.
Od Yosef Chai Campaign
For over two decades Rabbi Baruch Sherman has spearheaded a campaign to collect money for the Od Yosef Chai organization, which distributes money to needy Jews on Purim Day in Israel. The 6th graders work
with great dedication during their lunch hour. They design posters to announce the campaign, and then at each lunch, the 6th graders collect
money and fill out raffle tickets.
It is always thrilling to hear how much money has been collected. This
year the grand total was over $1800! This generous amount was collected from our students and their families, as well as from RTA’s Student
Council. Many people sent in money to join in this special campaign and
fulfill the mitzvah of Matanos Laevyonim, gifts for the poor, which is even
mentioned in the Megillah.
Besides the thrill of hearing the grand total, it is
also exciting for all the
students to find out who
are the winners of the raffle prizes! This year’s
grand prize went to Noam
Cahana, who won the
$20.00 Target card. Congratulations to RTA for
another year of support
for this worthy charity.
(more photos on page 7 . . .)
Parent–Teacher Conferences are Monday,
April 11th.
Monday, April 4
7th/8th Grade Model Seder
11:30 a.m. @ WJCC
Tuesday, April 5
Passover Meat Orders Due
Wednesday, April 6
Board Meeting
Executive: 6:30 p.m.
Full Board: 7:30 p.m.
Reservations for Parent Teacher Conferences, on Monday, April 11th,
are being taken. Please call Mrs. Klosenberg at 353-1110 or email
[email protected] with your requests. Parents are encouraged
to sign up early to be able to schedule desired times. The deadline to
sign up is Thursday, April 7th at noon.
The 8th Grade will be offering babysitting services for RTA conference
day during the times of your appointments.
The weekly newsletter of the Rudlin Torah Academy - Richmond Hebrew Day School
V’ahavta
Page 2
BINGO
THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!
To our dedicated volunteers for their gracious time commitment in working bingo to help
our school!
Bingo is our single biggest fundraiser, and your assistance enables us to ensure that RTA
has the resources to give our children an outstanding and enriched dual curriculum education.
Every month in the V’ahavta we will be thanking those who have worked bingo for RTA either Saturday night (11:00 PM - 3:00 AM) or Sunday (11:30 AM - 3:30 PM). This week we
thank ALL who have volunteered for us since the beginning of the school year:
Ellen Renee Adams
Rabbi Drew Alexander
Rabbi & Devorah Aronowitz
Regise Asherman
Rabbi & Rivka Bart
Elliot Bender
Sarah Chandler
Bari Cohen
Huff Coon
Heather Dinkin
Zhanna Dolganski
Ben Ellis
Melanie Feldstein
Josh & Elly Goldberg
Rich & Diane Goldberg
Michele Goldenberg-Reinke
Brian Greene
Cmdr. Dana Griffin
Yehudis Gruber
Avi Gunzburg
Dr. Tino Habib
David Hecht
Dot Heffron
Shevy Holi
Emily Legano
Amy Beth Lehman
Chuck & Judy Lessin
Darryl Lowery
Jon Lusk
Ira Lutzky
Avery & Terry Lynn
John Minor
Shmuli Modes
Robin Odom
Eugheni Olihnenco
Andrew Pegalis
Stephen Pierce
Rabbi Elliot Plotnick
Bracha Poliakoff
Keith Rakofsky
Yosef Reinke
Yosef Saar
Heather Schneiderman
Shoshanna Shaffin
Yael Sheldon
Rabbi & Tehilla Sherman
Eric Shoenfeld
Nathan Shor
Alec Shull
Kat Sinclair
Dr. Bob Weisberger
Dr. Karen Wharton
David & Rebecca Winston
Barton Zedd
Dana Zedd
If you know you will have a free day, and want to do an RTA mitzvah while having a good time working
and bonding with other parents – please email Robin Odom ([email protected]) to volunteer, or just
sign up on the Sign-up Genius for any week with open slots.
Also remember that Bingo is the simplest way for parents to fulfill the “Give or Get” requirements.
And in bingo fundraising - Every person really does make a difference!
V’ahavta
Page 3
Mishloach Manot 2016
RTA's PVA spread Purim cheer around Richmond.
Our 50th anniversary themed Mishloach Manot family baskets, kids’ treats and greeting
cards were received by 950 recipients!
RTA students and staff got their Purim goodies along with a unique 50th anniversary shirt designed by our very own 3rd grader Amalya Weinberger.
This Purim project raised $6250 for school activities. $867 were given as gifts for the poor.
A huge shout-out to this year’s Mishloach Manot committee members: Naama Toker, Yali
Klestzick & Rivka Bart, and all our awesome volunteers: parents, grandparents, staff and
community members who helped make phone calls, and pack and deliver over 50 routes!
Special thanks to Rich Goldberg who tirelessly worked behind the scenes to get this whole
operation going for so many years!
Happy Purim RTA!
V’ahavta
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RTA Purim Celebration
(more photos on next page. . . )
V’ahavta
Page 5
(. . .continued from page 4)
RTA Purim Celebration
(more photos on next page . . . )
V’ahavta
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RTA Purim Celebration
(. . .continued from page 5 )
Purim Celebration at Beth Shalom Campus
V’ahavta
Page 7
Od Yosef Chai Campaign
(. . .continued from front page)
V’ahavta
Page 8
Third Grade PEP
The third grade had a wonderful time at a pre-Purim PEP. We started off the night
making delicious hamantaschen. We learned that one reason why we eat hamantaschen is because even though the filling is hidden, we still know it's inside. So too,
it may have seemed that Hashem was hidden during the time of the Purim story, but
as we know He was there all along.
After forming beautiful hamantaschen, we had an exciting game of bingo. The students wrote different Purim related words onto their boards. Instead of calling out
different words, Morah David gave hints. One could only cross out a word if they
knew the answer to the hint. Fun was had by all as we reviewed our Purim facts.
Thank you to Mrs. Adrienne Winkelmann for taking pictures, and to Malka Bart for
assisting with the baking.
(more photos on next page . . . )
V’ahavta
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Third Grade PEP
(. . .continued from page 8)
Page 10
V’ahavta
Winter on the Farm
by the Second Grade
The second grade art
class studied the
painting “Farm Scene
in Winter”, by William Williams, done in 1802.
In their artwork, they included houses, barns,
silos and animals. They showed how busy a
farm is, even in winter.
The students used oil pastels.
Alexander Klestzick
Jasmine Starnes
Akiva Yehuda Chandler
Miriam David
Nathaniel Rakofsky
Doniel Plotnick
Ezra Holi
Eliyahu Aronowitz
Avraham Gruber
Beckett Pegalis
Yehoshua Gunzburg
Maya Tudor
V’ahavta
Page 11
PASSOVER
MEAT ORDER
Order Deadline:
Pick Up Date:
Time:
Location:
Tuesday, April 5
Tuesday, April 12
4:00-6:00 pm
Shaarei Torah of Richmond
4811 Patterson Avenue
Richmond, VA 23226
Please email order to: [email protected]
Or phone Noa Klestzick 804-909-9090
Shalom’s is a full-service supermarket, and is well stocked for Pesach. As such
please specify any grocery or dairy products you wish to purchase. Unfortunately,
fresh deli will no be kosher for Passover at that point. For a full list of Shalom’s
home made prepared kosher for Passover foods, please email
[email protected]. Thank you for your patronage.
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Parsha Points
Each week we feature an article on the weekly Torah portion.
Shmini (Leviticus 9-11)
Parshas Parah (Numbers 19)
Acts of Human Kindness
This week's Parsha enumerates all the non-Kosher birds. One of the non-kosher birds listed is
the chasida bird (Leviticus 11:19). The Talmud says it's called "chasida" because it does
chesed, which in Hebrew means performing acts of kindness.
In Hebrew, the name of something reveals its essential characteristic. The Midrash (Genesis
Rabba 17:4) tells us that the first man, Adam, looked into the essence of every animal and
named it accordingly. The donkey, for example, is characterized by carrying heavy, physical
burdens. In Hebrew, the donkey is named chamor - from the same root as chomer, which
means physicality. Which means to say, the donkey (chamor) typifies physicality (chomer).
(Compare this to English, where the word "donkey" doesn't reveal much about the essence of
a donkey!)
Highest-Level Kindness
But if the bird is called chasida because it does chesed, then why does the Torah list it as a
NON-kosher bird?! It's understandable (as Maimonides writes) that the raven and vulture
should be classified as non-kosher: They're vicious birds of prey and it is spiritually unhealthy
to internalize these traits. But since the chasida bird seems to embody the desirable trait of
chesed, why isn't it kosher?!
Let's look closer: The Talmud explains that this bird does chesed "by giving food to its
friends." The Chidushei HaRim (19th century founder of the Ger Chassidim) explains: The
chasida's generosity is limited to its own circle of friends, to the exclusion of others. Such partisan kindness is not what the Torah wishes us to practice. Hence, the chasida bird is nonkosher.
Consider the following illustration:
About 100 years ago, a group of neighbors in Jerusalem wanted to form a Chesed Society
amongst themselves. Proposed activities included: inviting each other over for Shabbat meals,
collecting clothes for families who couldn't afford it, and providing interest-free loans for
someone wishing to start a business.
So the group went to the great sage, Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin, to get his blessing for their
new Chesed Society. The rabbi asked them, "What if someone outside your neighborhood
needs help?" To which they replied, "We would have to politely refuse, because we've limited
our activities to just amongst our own group of neighbors."
The rabbi replied: "It's very nice that you want to help your friends and family. In fact, the
(continued on next page. . .)
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Parsha Points
(. . .continued from page 16)
Talmud states that our obligation is to help those closest to us first – our family, our community – and only then the rest of the world."
The rabbi continued: "But real chesed is about caring for others – and since all the kindness
you're proposing comes back to you, you're essentially only caring for yourselves!"
Applying the Principle
Chesed cannot be predicated on an expectation of return. Did you ever have a relationship
where the other person was always keeping score? ("You drive this time because I drove last
time!") That's not friendship at all! A real friend sometimes gives and sometimes takes, but
never keeps score.
How can we apply this principle to our relationships? Let's say a colleague at the office comes
to me and says, "I'm taking care of some personal things on Wednesday, and I need someone
to handle my calls. Can you cover for me?" So I'm thinking, Bill sits at the desk right next to
me, I see him every day, and at some point I may need him to cover for me, so... "Of course,
Bill, sure, I'll be happy to help you out!"
But then imagine someone comes to me and says, "We've never actually met, and I work in a
different department, and in fact this is my last week with the company. I'm taking care of
some personal things on Wednesday, and I need someone to handle my calls. Can you do
that?" So I'm thinking, I'm never going to see this guy again!
Judaism says when someone requests a favor, I need to consider: Is my response based solely
on whether or not I perceive this as worth my own while? If so, then I'm serving no one but
myself.
The Torah describes one particular act as "chesed shel emet," the true ultimate chesed: Taking
care of funeral arrangements for someone who's died. This is true chesed because in this act
we have absolutely no expectation of return.
Rights & Responsibilities
Many of the wisest scholars of modern (and not so modern) times have discussed the fundamental principles of keeping a marriage – the bastion of the Jewish family – stable. The #1
principle? To be a giver. Because if you come into marriage asking, "What will he/she do for
me?" then you're pulling in the opposite direction, away from your spouse. But if you come in
asking, "What can I do to provide and contribute?" that builds a connection. And if both partners approach marriage with this same attitude, the relationship flows beautifully in both directions.
Today we live in a society where everyone seems concerned about his rights: "What's in it for
me? What do I get out of it?" The Torah perspective, on the other hand, is always from the
standpoint of responsibility. For example, when the Talmud discusses property damage, it
(continued on next page. . .)
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Parsha Points
(. . .continued from page 17)
always states the law in terms of "Shimon is responsible to pay Reuven," as opposed to
"Reuven has the right to collect from Shimon."
In the good ole days, the idea of civic responsibility was a standard feature of Western society.
Perhaps the tide began to shift in the 1960's with changing roles and liberation – prompting
John F. Kennedy to remind us all: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you
can do for your country."
A World Built on Kindness
The story is told of a tzaddik at home one day when he hears a knock at the door. The tzaddik
opens the door and finds a homeless man standing there. "Can I have a dollar for some food?"
he asks. So he does what any good tzaddik would do: Hurries to find his wallet, rushes to give
the beggar the dollar, and quickly sends him on his way.
The homeless man is already halfway down the street when he hears someone calling after
him, "Wait, wait!" He turns around to see the tzaddik waving, who then hands the beggar another dollar.
Upon returning home, the tzaddik's wife is standing in the doorway astonished.
"I'll explain," he says. "When I first opened the door and saw a smelly, raggedy, grimy man
standing in front of me, I felt uncomfortable. I ran to get the dollar because I wanted to get rid
of him as soon as possible. But after he'd left, I realized that I didn't give him the dollar for
him, I gave him the dollar for me – because I felt uncomfortable. So I wanted to give a second
dollar – this time for him!
Chesed means reaching out altruistically, with love and generosity to all. The Talmud says it
was baseless hatred amongst Jews which brought about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Thus it is only through unconditional love that our idyllic future will be built.
For in the words of King David (Psalms 89:3): Olam chesed yi-baneh – "the world is built on
kindness."
Adapted with permission from the award winning website, www.aish.com.