530 Washington Crossing Road • Newtown, PA 18940 • (215) 579-2200
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530 Washington Crossing Road • Newtown, PA 18940 • (215) 579-2200
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I want to wish each of you a Happy, healthy and wonderful New Year! It was wonderful to welcome our new and old families back to Religious school and to begin another year of learning all the joys of living Jewishly. Many thanks to the parents who so graciously volunteered to coordinate the many activities that enrich the religious learning experiences of our children and families. Special thanks to Jennifer and Frank Vistoso for agreeing to chair the PTO and to Jan Chack for continuing to serve as PTO treasurer. In this issue of the Voice is the list of planned events and the parents who have taken responsibility for them. If you did not get to volunteer, don’t be shy!! Please call me and let me know what you want to do! We depend on you!! By bringing your children to the synagogue and participating with them in all the activities and celebrations, you help add meaning to your child’s Jewish education. As you model your own positive participation in synagogue activities, your children will also respond with enthusiasm I am so thrilled with our staff. Each of them brings a talent for teaching, coupled with a love for Judaism. Each of them models what they teach. We are fortunate to have another new addition teaching on Sundays in Fourth Grade, Dana Segal. Dana shares with our students her many skills and knowledge of Judaica. We welcome her to our school and synagogue family!
Special holiday celebrations this month: (Check for details on other pages & flyers in book bags!)
Yom Kippur Children’s Services: 10:30 AM – 1 PM Sukkot Surprise: Tuesday Oct 14, 2008 @ 6:30 PM Sinchat Torah: Tuesday Oct 20, 2008 @ 5:30 PM
This is a great time to bring siblings, friends and neighbors not in ourReligious School to share in the fun! And remember…. Every Friday and Saturday in October is Shabbat!! The best way to help your child practice the skills they are learning is by coming with them to Shabbat Services! Please note that on the 2 mid- week Yom Tov celebrations (Oct. 15 & 22, 2008), all students are expected to attend. There are no religious school classes the Wednesday following each of these celebrations. At our school we work very hard to meet the needs of every one of our students to the best of our ability. Every child is unique and we want to enable every child to add their voice to the sounds of the Jewish people. I just read a beautiful article written by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University. I was truly touched by it and hope you are too. As someone who fell in love with God and Torah as a collegian, I dreamed I would have a child with whom I would share my newfound passion. At my rabbinical school, I would see professors and their children swaying together in prayer or over a text, and I would imagine the thrill of sharing that piety with my (as yet unborn) child. When my wife, Elana, and I were told she was expecting twins, my heart and my fantasies soared. Yet, my beloved daughter, Shira, is not drawn to religious services. My son, Jacob, diagnosed with autism at age three, has difficulty speaking or turning the pages of a book. I had dreamed of a child who would love the Torah as I do, and who could share that love with me. God, it seemed, had denied my dream. As Jacob prepared for his bar mitzvah, he mastered Facilitated Communication, an assisted typing technique that proved he had taught himself to read! Able to hear through walls, Jacob had achieved remarkable sophistication and depth by ruminating on the conversations of others. Jacob and I began to learn together. We studied the weekly Torah portion and the prophetic readings. We studied the prayer book, and Jacob composed a soulful commentary. After his bar mitzvah, I committed to learn how to facilitate Jacob’s typing, which meant we could embark on further learning and have real conversations, too. Every Sabbath, Jacob and I sit in my study, and we discuss, and we learn - Torah, Heschel, Jewish history or philosophy. His comments continually lure me, and with the purity I see sparkling in his eyes, he reminds me to love God and Torah. It turns out that it was not God who said “no” to my dreams. It was my rigid sense of what “yes” was supposed to look like that blinded me to God’s great, big, wonderful “YES” and almost blinded me to the miracle that is my son. I will try t learn from Rabbi Arson that the road to being Jewish has many paths; we just have to be open to say “yes” to the possibilities. Let’s make a pledge to work together to find a way to help every child understand how important they are to the Jewish future. B’shalom, Joan
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