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Elul 5770 / Tishri 5771
This year, Hebrew School begins after Rosh Hashana & before Yom Kippur. There’s an old joke… it goes like this: “Rosh Hashana is early this year” – as it falls two days after Labor Day…. Actually, it arrives exactly when it is supposed to …on the 1st day of the Hebrew month of Tishri!
Our lunar calendar, with its 19 year cycle, has a way of making all of the holidays and festivals fall exactly when they are supposed to. Rosh Hashana always falls in the Fall, Sukkot, the festival of booths, always during the fall harvest time, Pesach in the Spring, and Tisha B’Av in the middle of the summer.
Rosh Hashana, literally the “head of the year” is one of four new years found in the Hebrew calendar. The first “new year” is the new year of the months – with Nisan (the month during which we celebrate Pesach) being the first month of the calendar. The second “new year” is the new year of the trees Tu B’Shevat (15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat). The third new year (the least known) takes place on the 1st day of the Hebrew month of Elul, and it is the new year for the tithing of cattle. (If you recall, in biblical times we were an agrarian people.) The fourth, and most well known new year is Rosh Hashana, which begins on the 1st day of the 7th calendar month Tishri.
At this time of year, it is customary to take stock and to look back at the year that has passed, and to look forward and plan for the year to come. We hear the shofar’s call to wake up, improve and to return to our best selves.
As we anticipate our Hebrew School year, we look forward to our best yet. In addition to our Hebrew School curriculum, which focuses on Tefillah (prayer), Hebrew, and Judaic Studies (Bible, History, Current Events, Customs and Ceremonies), we will have: a school-wide Chanukah concert; tzedakah projects; our annual Model Passover Seder; the great “Chai-Q” Championship at the beginning of May; and an amazing English-Hebrew musical theater production of Fiddler on the Roof, based upon the Tevye stories of Sholem Aleichem- to take place in mid-May, as our school year will be drawing to a close.
We will continue our successful mishpacha programming, inviting families to join their children in co-curricula learning with Phil and Rabbi Alder. All of these projects will serve to strengthen not only our Hebrew School and its families, but our entire Brotherhood community, as well.
On behalf of myself, our wonderful Hebrew school administrator Bunny Blei and the entire Hebrew School teaching staff, I wish you all a happy, healthy, and sweet New Year. Shanah Tovah u’Metukah! Leshana tovah tikatevu! May you be written for a good year.
L’Shalom,
Barbara Simon
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