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Upcoming Events
November 11
Motzaei Shabbat Learning
Upper Gym
November 14
Parent-Teacher Conferences By Appointment
Pupil Free Day PN-8th
Parent & Me-Regular
November 15
Golf Tournament
November 18
PTA Bingo Night
November 20
Parent Teacher Conferences by Appointment
Early Dismissal P1-8th at 3:00pm
No HAS, HW Club or Stay & Play
November 22
Pre-1 through 5th grade Round Robin
2:00pm
No HAS, HW Club or Stay & Play
November 23 & 24
Thanksgiving Break
School Closed
November 28-30
PTA Book Fair
Wednesday December 6
70th Annual Scholarship Banquet
The Beverly Hilton Hotel
Reserve at
See Flyer in Happenings
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Magazine Drive!
By popular demand, we are bringing back our online Magazine Sales and Renewals program to help us raise needed funds for the Hillel PTA. Your help is appreciated and will make a huge difference in our success! Click here to
shop online now
.
Join us on Motzei Shabbat on Saturday, November 18th from 7:00pm to 9:30pm for Bingo Night for Pre-1 to 5th grades! Have fun with your friends and win fabulous prizes! Pizza and snacks also available for purchase.
Play for a chance to win the 2 DISNEYLAND TICKETS!!! and other fun prizes
Give your children the gift of healthy food. A fun and enjoyable treat! Fruit cart sign-up entitles your student to a bag of fresh fruit once a week during the entire school year. Fruit cart is available for Grades Pre-1 to 8 on Wednesday mornings. Sign up online here for the remainder of the year.
Co-Sponsor a Rosh Chodesh Breakfast for the teachers and staff in in honor of your child's bar mitzvah, birthday, or teacher; or in honor or memory of someone you love. The teachers
really appreciate
this gesture
! The next Rosh Chodesh teacher breakfast will be Monday, November 20th ,but you can sign up online in advance for any month. $100, or add multiple times to your cart to contribute $200 or $300 if desired.
Join The Birthday Book Club!
The next birthday celebration will be Monday November 27!
Your birthday child will get to choose a new book for the library with a dedication to him or her inside, check it out first, and have their picture proudly on display in the library.
Kids love to see their names in the books!
Excess funds will be used for recreational supplies like games, balls, hula hoops and jump ropes.
The next birthday celebration will be Monday, November 27th.
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Mazal Tov
11/08/17
Mazal Tov to Dani & Limor Halevi on the birth of a baby boy!
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Parnas Hayom
Parnas
HaYom
is a beautiful way to honor a yarzheit, merit a refuah shelemah, or celebrate a simcha. Dedicating the Torah learning of students at Hillel to mark an occasion helps us to imbue both a love of learning and appreciation for the value of Torah scholarship.
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ISSUE NO. 007
Friday, November 10, 2017
21 MarCheshvan 5778
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Devar Torah Chayei Sarah 5778
By Rabbi Sufrin, Head of School
At the beginning of this week's
parasha,
חיה שרה
Chayei Sarah,
we read of Avraham's elaborate negotiations with the בני חת
benai Chet
and his effort and determination to purchase the מערת המכפלה (cave of Machpelah) as the burial place for his beloved wife, שרה אמנו (Sarah.) Land had been offered to Avraham as a gift, yet he says " בכסף מלא יתננה לי - "Give it to me for the full price" (Bereishit 23:19). This purchase is a highly significant event, as is evident from the multiple times it is recorded in great detail throughout the Torah. What can we learn from the Torah's attention to Avraham's tireless efforts to purchase this land about the value placed on this event? An even more perplexing question is: why the repetition and emphasis on אברהם Avraham's procurement of this land at an inflated price when he could have acquired it for free?
The זהר (Zohar) teaches that in the world of holiness and positivity, all things have to be earned. Nothing comes for free. This serves as a metaphor for us in our lives. Hashem creates the space for human freedom and gives us the responsibility and strength to act. It is with this exertion of effort and our diligent work in fulfilling Gd's mitzvot that we reach our full stature as human beings.
Some things in life may come easily to us and may be achieved with little or no effort. The lesson from the saga of the purchase of Sarah's burial place in this week's parasha teaches us that toiling to accomplish something is integral to the value of its eventual outcome. People ascribe greater value to things that they have worked hard to attain. Effort and hard work in reaching a goal assure sustainability, connection and long-term success. Gd promised Avraham the land, but he had to earn it and pay for it in order to ensure that it would remain holy and special to all future generations.
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So proud of our Hillel Alumnus, David Mazouz, who was honored as an "Orthodox Jewish All Star" this past week!
#KiddushHashem
#hillel70
#hillelpride
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By Rabbi Zach Swigard, Director of Judaic Studies, Middle School
Student engagement. If I could sum up one of our main goals in the Judaic Studies program at Hillel, it is to engage our students in the learning process. Teachers are no longer facilitators of knowledge delivery, but rather, facilitators of learning experiences. At Hillel, our teachers constantly strive to achieve this goal and develop their lesson plans to engage students in the learning process. Throughout the year, the Judaic Studies staff will be blogging, highlighting the ways that we are engaging our students. Here are a few moments that have already occurred this year:
1) Rosh Chodesh Virtual Reality Tour
Rabbi Elgrably took his students on a tour of space using Google's Virtual Reality technology to learn about Rosh Chodesh and the moon cycle.
Rabbi Chustckie developed an intricate gamified approach to his 6th grade boys Navi class. Through XP, HP, Costume and Props, and movie-making, students make their way through 10 levels of Navi material to earn points for their Navi character. Rabbi Kenigsberg will be joining a cohort of teachers from around the US in coordination with The Institute of Play to investigate the benefits of game-based Learning and what it means in a Judaic Studies classroom.
3) Bava Metzia Scavenger Hunt
Rabbi Maza's class went on a school-wide scavenger hunt to find lost objects according to the standards set in the Mishna they were learning. After the hunt, students created digital presentations to showcase their findings and how they were connected to the text.
4) Learning coming to life:
As a component of a unit on hakarat hatov in Morah Leeat's class, students created handwritten notes and gave them to the IDF soldiers who visited with the FIDF last week.
These are just four small examples of how we make Torah come to life at Hillel. Please join us and follow our blog in the weeks to come!
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Why We Need Our HAT!
Rabbi Asher Rosen, 4th Grade Judaic Studies
The students in 4th grade are learning about the mitzvah of השבת אבידה- returning a lost object- through real-life experience. Inspired by Hillel parent Adam Lewis who genuinely wants to help students reconnect with their lost items, the 4th graders in Rabbi Rosen's class have joined HAT- Hashavat Avaida Team - named by Mr. Lewis. After Mr. Lewis and parent volunteers Mike Swarz and Dodie Herskovitz sift through the bins to remove labeled items and categorize them by grade, the 4th grade organizes the lost items based on item type. They then personally deliver these lost objects to their owners. The 4th grade already succeeded in their first mission this week and a received genuine thank you from grateful owners.
Much thanks to Adam Lewis for initiating and starting the HAT. We look forward in making a real, positive impact on our Hillel community. Any parents who would like to join Mr. Lewis in this endeavor as part of their parent volunteer hours are more than welcome.
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Middle School Running Springs Shabbaton
By Rabbi Swigard and Coach Chumie
For the third straight year, our Student Council and student leadership will take part in a one-of-a-kind "away Shabbaton" for Middle School students. The Shabbaton will take place at the beautiful Dovid Oved facility in Running Springs from November 17-19, 2017.
In the weeks and months leading up to the Shabbaton, we opened a powerful discussion with our student leaders and faculty to define our goals for the Shabbaton. We decided together that we wanted to continue to build our Middle School Kehilla through the platform of Shabbat, to generate
achdut
within each grade level, and to create an authentic Shabbat experience with many memorable moments for our students.
Throughout the Shabbaton, our students will take ownership of the weekend and lead each other with their
ruach
and
achdut
. From the pre-Shabbat kumzits before Shabbat candle lighting, to the
ruach
on the way to the Beit Midrash for Kabbalat Shabbat, to the Carlebach-style tefillah, to the special oneg Shabbat and Moshav style Havdalah, the
ruach
plans to be out of this world!
We can't wait to tell you more about it!
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HAS Session Two for N- 5th grade Registration is up online! Click here to register!
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