Mr. Shmuel Silberman Learning Center Specialist Who is the greatest student in a school? Is it the person with the highest GPA or SAT score? The one who wins a coveted award? The student admitted to the most prestigious college? From a  Torah  perspective, the basis of determination is none of these. Consider this week’s  parsha, Vayikra.  It speaks about the different ways one can bring a voluntary offering. A poor person has the option to bring an offering of flour ( mincha ), whereas those with greater financial resources can bring birds, sheep, or cattle.   “When a  nefesh  will bring a flour offering…” (2:1) Why does the  pasuk  identify the poor person bringing the offering as a  nefesh ? Rashi says this is because “it’s as if he offered his  nefesh .” More expensive offerings are in no way superior to a flour offering brought with the proper intent. We find a similar idea in a  parsha  we read previously. According ...

Josh Wolff Maimonides Class of 1989 His Palace, Our Passion אֲדוֹן עוֹלָם  אֲשֶׁר מָלַךְ, בְּטֶֽרֶם כָּל יְצִיר נִבְרָא לְעֵת נַעֲשָׂה בְחֶפְצוֹ כֹּל, אֲזַי מֶֽלֶךְ שְׁמוֹ נִקְרָא וְאַחֲרֵי כִּכְלוֹת הַכֹּל, לְבַדּוֹ יִמְלֹךְ נוֹרָא We recite these words every morning (although we are usually still bleary-eyed when we start our  tefillah ), yet the storyline is worthy of inspection. Hashem  (1) ruled our world even before the creation of mankind, (2) engineered the planet however He desires and was all the while called the king, and yet (3) when it was all said and done – ככלות הכל – He alone remains the awesome ruler. This begs the question: What changed after humanity was created, enabled, and empowered to occupy the world? “After all was said and done, He alone will rule as the awesome king.” So to be fair, it doesn’t look like anything really changed from the before to the after. Let’s take a step back. As our  parsha  this week states: וַיְכַ֥ל מֹשֶׁ֖ה...

Rabbi Yaakov Green (’98) Head of School My children and my students know that I love stories. I collect them, tell and retell them, savoring the details and nuanced changes in inflection or illustration that occur in each retelling and new rendition. All our knowledge, and all our people’s heritage, exist in stories.   Jewish heritage and wisdom can, and often does, exist in untold stories and details as well. In this week’s  parsha,  the construction of the  mishkan  commences, led by Betzalel, a master craftsman. (As an aside, I have always enjoyed the fact that in naming the premiere graduate school of arts in Jerusalem, the name Betzalel was chosen.  Mi k’amcha Yisrael! )   We know precious little about Betzalel. However, we know even less about the often overlooked, if not completely forgotten, character of Oholiav. A master craftsman in his own right, he stood side-by-side with Betzalel, directing the wise artisans in the construction of all the ...

Rabbi Phillip Moskowitz (’99) Associate Rabbi, Boca Raton Synagogue Travis Freeman grew up in Corbin, Kentucky and lived a typical, all-American kind of life. But one morning in 1993, at the age of 12, Travis woke up with a severe migraine that lasted nine days. On the tenth day, he woke up with the headache gone but with a new problem: His left eye started to hurt. Then it started to swell.   The next day he went to the doctor and found out he had a massive infection. He went to the University of Kentucky hospital, where the doctors ran tests and found out he had a severe sinus infection, one that at the time was fatal for 70 percent of the people who contracted it. Of the 30 percent that survived, most lived in a vegetative state. He was the second person in the world to have it only affect his eyes.   The doctors were able to save his life, but he would never be able to see again. As Travis said, “In less than two days, in less than 48 hours, I had gone from perfect 20/20 v...

Rabbi Dov Huff (’00) Middle and Upper School Principal ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם The stated objective at the start of this week’s  parsha  seems straightforward on the surface. But the four  parshiyot  of painstaking detail dedicated to the construction of the  Mishkan  make us think about what it actually means to build a sanctuary so that  Hashem  can dwell among us. At the core of this undertaking is the  mitzvah  that launches this project : Terumah . There are two components of the  terumah , donations brought to the  Mishkan . They require two distinct types of participation from  Am Yisrael.  On the one hand,  Bnei Yisrael  were to bring donations  kol nediv lev , "each man as his heart desires." This contribution is about self-expression and self-direction. It is how each participant finds their own personal meaning and connection in the way they relate to  Hakadosh Baruch Hu . The opportun...

Morah Robin Meyerowitz Early Childhood Center Director In one classroom, an Early Childhood student is building  Har Sinai  with clay. In another, children are dancing to the song “I am a mountain, so very high.” And in yet another, the students are enthusiastically acting out the scene of  Matan Torah . As I walk down the hall from the Early Childhood Center to the Elementary School, I hear the teachers and students studying the  Aseret Hadibrot,  reading the text and discussing the ideas. In the Middle and Upper Schools, students are engaged in the learning of  Mishnah  and  Talmud . Everywhere you go within this building, you hear  tefillah . You hear  Torah . And if you listen carefully, you can hear the sounds of previous generations of our students, many now with children and grandchildren of their own. As we read  Parshat Yitro , we are reminded about the famous  Midrash  that the  neshamot , souls, of every Je...

Morah Michal Bessler Elementary School Principal Just last month, I had the privilege of joining a mission,  Chizuk V’Chibur , led by Rav Cutler from Yeshivat Hakotel. Together with students and other parents, we went to see the aftermath of the atrocities of October 7. After  davening   neitz  at the  Kotel , we left on a trip down to the Gaza border, visiting Netiv Ha’asara, S’derot, Sa’ad, and Nirim.  In Netiv Ha’asara we heard from a resident, Benny, who acted as our tour guide and told us the story of what occurred on the  yishuv  on October 7. Following the attacks the  yishuv  was deserted,  sukkot  were flipped over, windows were broken, and homes were completely burned to the ground. Many of the people in the  yishuv  are focused on peace, including an older couple who previously drove sick Palestinian children from the border to Israeli hospitals to get medical care and then back to Gaza. Their house was blo...