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Upcoming Events
Priority Re-registration is LIVE!
January 13
Motzaei Shabbat Learning
7:00pm
January 15
Martin Luther King Day- School in Session
January 19-26
Winter Break- School Closed
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Jewish Free Loan
Provides interest-free loans for emergencies, housing, education,
small business, healthcare and Jewish lifecycle events.
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The Hillel Hebrew PTA presents Bingo Night! Join us for the fun on Saturday, February 3rd, 2018 in the Lower Gym from 7 to 9PM. Pre-1st to 8th graders are all welcome. Volunteers are needed - click to sign up here. Prize donations graciously appreciated. Email [email protected].
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, February 26th.
Co-Sponsor a Rosh Chodesh Breakfast for the teachers and staff 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 breakfast is January 17. Sign up online in advance for any month. $100, or add multiple times to your cart to contribute $200 or $300 if desired.
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.
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Mazal Tov
Rabbi Shapiro and his wife on the birth of a grandson!
Camellia & Bijan Kohan 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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1/11/18
The Parnas Hayom is generously sponsored by Steve Wasserman in loving memory of his dear father, Moshe ben simcha. May the learning of Hillel's students be a zechut to his memory & may his neshama have an aliyah.
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ISSUE NO. 015
Erev Shabbat Parashat Va'era, 5778
Shabbat Mevarchim Chodesh Shevat
Friday, January 12, 2018
25 Tevet 5778
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ורעה אמונה
"A Shepherd of Faith"
By Rabbi Sufrin, Head of School
 This week's
parasha
of וארא - Va'era, begins with Gd responding to Moshe's complaint that Pharaoh was not heeding His request to free the Jews. Gd, rather than just rebuking Moshe, wants to use His response as a way to motivate and guide Moshe to move ahead with his mission. In order to do this He invokes the names of אברהם - Avraham, יצחק - Yitzchak and יעקב - Yaakov.
The commentaries teach us that Moshe's most distinguishable character traits are those of knowledge and intellect, hence the reason he was selected as the conduit to bring the Torah - Gd's infinite wisdom to the Jewish people. Each of our forefathers represent different emotional attributes. Avraham
חסד loving-
kindness, Yitzchak
גבורה strength and
justice, and Yaakov
תפארת/רחמים
compassion and beauty. When Moshe began his mission to help free the Jews, he depended upon his personal most predominant personality trait which was חכמה wisdom and knowledge to guide his actions. Moshe met his first challenges, i.e., Pharaoh denying his request and the Jews complaining to him why he is making their lives even worse under the Egyptian bondage. Moshe is compelled to return to Gd and complains. This is when Gd responds by invoking the forefathers. What is it about the power of the אבות - our forefathers - that will strengthen Moshe's resolve and inspire him to forge forward?
Emotions leave room for אמנה faith, whereas knowledge and intellect often do not. By calling upon the names of the forefathers in Gd's conversation with Moshe, He was encouraging him to learn from their ways. Gd beseeched Moshe to let go of his character as a man of knowledge alone and energize himself with emotions similar to our Forefathers. Following this conversation, Moshe does in fact return to his mission of setting the Jews free and despite the multitude of continued challenges, Moshe stays focused and leads the Jewish nation to the actualization of the exodus. He exceeds the forefathers in this regard. Our Sages now refer to Moshe as a רועה אמונה -- "a shepherd of faith."
When faced with challenges, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, did not complain to Gd. Rather, each in their own way, and relying on their individual emotional strengths they persisted in what they had set out to accomplish and each succeeded. Invoking the forefathers successfully changed Moshe's attitude and subsequently his effectiveness and ability to flourish in his life's purpose.
Knowledge and intellect are critical values but emotion and faith play just as essential a role in who we are as Jews, how we live our lives and how we positively affect the world around us. Gd wanted Moshe to become a role model that embodies a person of complete faith. Once Moshe was able to synthesize his breadth knowledge with our Forefathers scope of emotion, he was able to supercede the forefathers and instill faith in the Jewish people too. Once their faith was complete they would begin to believe in freedom and Gd's capacity to effect change beyond the paradigm a human could have previously imagined.
Our Rabbis teach that each of us has a spark of Moshe within. May we delve into our inner personal Moshe and may we all learn from this
parasha
to grow in faith as well as knowledge. This will enable us to improve our emotional development supporting our inner faith allowing us to believe and realize the ultimate redemption in our lifetimes.
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6th Grade Boys Kesher Tefillin Project!
Our 6th grade boys had a once-in-a-lifetime experience this past week. As part of a unique Project Based Learning unit, our boys participated in a special program called Kesher Tefillin, where they created and built their own pair of tefillin through learning about Hilchot Tefillin. We are so proud of our boys! If you would like to take part in sponsorship opportunities for next year, please reach out to Rabbi Swigard.
Please take a look at this highlight video to get a glimpse of this special project:
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| TEFILLIN SIXTH Grade 2018 |
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Mazal Tov to our Hillel Hawk Varsity Boys and Girls Basketball teams for winning the championship games! GO HAWKS!
Check out the highlight videos!
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Writer's Workshop in Second Grade
Ashley Barnett, 2nd Grade General Studies Teacher
At Hillel, our second grade
students write every day through our Writer's Workshop Curriculum.
Writer's Workshop
is an interdisciplinary writing technique that can build students' fluency in writing through continuous, repeated exposure to the process of writing. Recently, our students began a new unit of Persuasive Writing. Persuasive writing is an important part of the primary writing curriculum, as students learn to use their opinions and knowledge to influence others. Persuasive writing can be thought of as an extension of opinion writing and differs in that the author's opinion is followed not only by reasons to support the opinion, but also by persuasive text that attempts to sway the reader to feel or believe the same way.
Our students spent the beginning of the unit choosing their own topics to write about, but as they began to get a stronger grasp of the concept, we moved into writing persuasive pieces about books. Students wrote about their opinion on what the best book is, and then gave reasons why they believe that book is the best. Then, they used evidence from the book to share examples to back up their reasons. This gave the students the opportunity to dig deeper into persuasive writing, as well as study some of the great books they read as second graders. It has been wonderful to watch the students push themselves in this unit and show their love of books through writing. We now have a class full of second grade book critics!
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The Importance of Playdates in Pre-1
Jessica Resler, Pre-1 General Studies Teacher
 Pre-1 is an academic building block for future grade levels and a learning experience for current and future relationships. It is a time when children take the next step into a rich academic career. It is also a time in their educational experience when they are gaining a foundation in positive social skills.
A playdate is a great way to enhance a child's social skills. They can practice sharing, verbal skills, manners in another person's home, problem solving and using their imagination while playing with new and exciting toys and materials. These skills can be translated in and outside of the classroom environment. Who knows... your child just might surprise you by making their own sight word tic-tac-toe game or sight word bingo while on a playdate!
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Chessed Leadership Take-Over Day
By Mrs. Ilana Zadok, Director of Campus Life
The middle school Chessed Leadership group which meets each Friday, organized and led programming today for both the elementary and middle school students. The theme for the day was
ne'emanut
/trustworthiness with an emphasis on achdut as a foundation for
ne'emanut
.
The elementary schoolers walked around the yard looking for posters which had letters corresponding to their names and
chessed
opportunities they can do at school, with their peers and/or at home.
The middle schoolers had a student-led opening assembly and then two station rotations with a wrap-up session. One station was a team building game which required members of the group to trust the others in order to reach success and the other station was making bracelets to give out to another student in the middle school which they were assigned at random.
Today's program was students leading students promoting kindness and chessed. It was a win-win for all!
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Global Jewish Unity Day
From the Desk of Dalia Golan, Ivrit coordinator
In honor of Gilad Shaer's z"l birthday last Thursday, our 7th grade boys and the "Israeli club", המועדון הישראלי, took part in a special and yummy chessed program! Gilad loved to bake and cook, and in his memory, his family created this heartwarming initiative where everyone is invited to bake and give out the delicious goods as a random act of kindness אהבת חינם. Our students, with the Bat Ami, baked cookies and wrapped them. Then they walked to Pico Blvd. where they hung up their signs and spread the joy of giving. Our students felt proud to participate in this great program. Gilad's mother from Israel shared our post on Facebook!
#israel70 #hillelpride
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