Sarah Thumim (’23) Thank you to Rabbi Saul Wieder for assisting me with this  d'var Torah . The book of  Devarim  presents us with the last speeches of Moshe, preparing the nation to enter and conquer the land of Israel. If we were to imagine a similar situation in our generation, the leader would most likely rely on words of encouragement and positive affirmations to strengthen his followers. Because of our current attitude, Moshe's focus on warnings and rebukes seems perplexing. How was he expecting to encourage the nation when his speeches were so seemingly filled with negativity? While this might be an understandable thought without the full context of  Sefer Devarim, Chazal  make clear to us that the generation that heard these speeches was the most righteous generation in the history of  Am Yisrael . In other words, Moshe's strategy was effective. In order to understand this strategy, all we need to do is change our perspective. From the right angle,...

Rabbi Shimmy Trencher Executive Director of Community Engagement In the year 2054 in Washington, D.C., capital crime has been virtually eliminated. A specialized police unit uses methods that allow them to predict homicides before they occur. This unit, when notified that a crime will happen in the future, springs into action to arrest the future perpetrator and place them in an electrically-induced coma. This is the premise of the 2002 movie  Minority Report , which explores the themes of free will vs. determinism and the ethical implications of preemptive justice. In this week’s  parsha , we experience similar thematic questions in regard to the  ben sorer u’moreh , the wayward and rebellious son. According to the  Torah , this young man doesn’t listen to his parents and is a זוֹלֵל וְסֹבֵא, “a glutton and a drunkard.” They bring him to the elders, and he is put to death. Our sages grapple with the death penalty imposed for behavior that is certainly defiant and de...

Rabbi Yaakov Green (’98) Head of School “Lean on me when you’re not strong and I’ll be your friend I’ll help you carry on... for it won’t be long ’til I’m gonna need somebody to lean on.” – Bill Withers I want to share with all of you what I shared with our Middle and Upper School students on our first day of school. Many of my colleagues and friends in schools around the country had difficulty knowing how to strike the right note this week. We commiserated over how to lead a community through the joys and excitement of a new school year, while holding space for the sorrow and worry our nation feels after a weekend of funerals and through the anger of our people still at war. How do we create enough space for our own personal feelings? Balloons and new backpacks do not match the crying and  kriah  of the 48 hours that preceded the first day of school. What could we possibly say? The best way to create space for all these feelings, both in school and at home for ourselves and o...

Rabbi Yaakov Green (’98) Head of School I love the windows in my office. They face directly onto what I grew up calling the quad, but now is known as the Ezra Schwartz  zk”l  Field, and it is the heart of the Maimonides School campus. This is where so much learning and play (the very deepest form of learning) take place during a typical school day. Now that school is out for the summer, and camp here at school has begun, there is even more courtyard play and fun to behold.   As our students navigate through the rules of the various games they play, each moment is an opportunity to learn and test the values of fairness, truth, teamwork, winning, losing, grace, patience, and the list goes on. And one of the most important, most easily overlooked moments and values is that of the “do-over.”   Whether it is the sweetness and swiftness of children moving past a disagreement into “let’s just do it over,” or the deepest learning that takes place in failing and losing with g...

Rabbi Asher Lopatin (’82) Many years ago, in the 1970’s, our class (Maimonides ’82) was privileged to learn  Sefer Bamidbar  with a real genius, Rabbi Harold Rabinowitz. If you have any doubts about his brilliance, see the Rav  zt”l ’s introductory note in  The Halakhic Mind  (a very difficult and profound work of the Rav) where he effusively thanks Rabbi Rabinowitz for his help with the book.   Rabbi Rabinowitz wanted to bring to life  Parshat Bamidbar , which deals with counting  B’nai Yisrael  and describing how they camped around the  Mishkan , by infusing the class with  Talmudic  teachings. So he moved tables and chairs around to demonstrate how the tribes and clusters of tribes would move, according to the two  Talmudic  paradigms,  k’koreh  – like a beam – or  k’teiva  – like an ark (or a table). Truth is, I don’t remember much else from that class on  Parshat Bamidbar , but I remember...

Shalhevet Cahana (’10) There's a story about Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, on Parshat Bechukotai. He was traveling that shabbos, away from his family. Upon his return, when his family shared their respective shabbos experiences with each other, his son shared that he fainted during  Kriyat HaTorah !“What happened?” asked his father. His son replied, “It was the  Tochechah ! It was so bitter!”  His father was puzzled. “I don’t understand – you hear me read it every year. Why did you experience it differently with the other  Ba’al Koreh ? Dov Ber replied, “Indeed, you read it every year. But when you read it, Abba, I hear blessings.” How is this possible? No matter how one  Ba’al Koreh  might sing the words – the curses are clear and explicit. What was Dov Ber saying?  Though the Parsha begins with 11  Psukim  of blessing-rewards for performing  Mitzvot , the portion is dominated by 49 curses of  Tochecha ...

Dr. Yardaena Osband (’93) This week we will be celebrating  Lag BaOmer  right after  Shabbat Parshat Behar , from  motzei Shabbat  until Sunday. So what exactly is  Lag BaOmer?   Rabbi Yosef Karo writes in the  Shulchan Aruch  ( Orah Hayim  493: 1-2) that during the period before  Lag BaOmer,  one does not make a wedding or cut hair because the students of Rabbi Akiva died between  Pesach  and  Shavuot.  The well-known passage in  Yevamot  (62b) teaches us that 12,000 pairs of Rabbi Akiva’s students died at one time, between  Pesach  and  Shavuot,  because they did not treat each other with respect, מִפְּנֵי שֶׁלֹּא נָהֲגוּ כָּבוֹד זֶה לָזֶה. Less well known is the  midrash  in  Kohelet Rabba  (11:6:1) which provides a slightly different explanation for the deaths of the 12,000 pairs – because the students were begrudging to each other in regards to their...