Jacob Pinnolis Chiel Educator-in-Residence Jacob Pinnolis joined Maimonides in 2020 as Chiel Educator-in-Residence, named by Lisa Rosenbaum and Ron Fisher in honor of Judy and Jonathan Chiel. This position allows Jacob to serve in a high-level consultative leadership role that leverages his considerable expertise in systematic implementation of reflective teaching practice, with a focus on student-centered learning and mastery. He also served as Interim CEO during the 2021-22 academic year while we conducted a nationwide search for a new Head of School.   I want to focus on a single word in this week’s parsha and explore its meaning and relevance for what happens at Maimonides School. The word is ויסעו, vayisu . It and various forms of the root נסע appear in this parsha nineteen times. Its core meaning is similar to “to pull up tent pegs.” It shades naturally into meaning more broadly “to decamp” or “to set out.” Given that the narrative of Bechukotai concerns the movement of B’...

Rebbetzin Adina Morris ('95)   Rebbetzin Adina Morris ('95) is the Rabbinical Council of America’s Rebbetzins’ Circle Director of Rebbetzin Leadership and Engagement. As the director of this inaugural women’s division, she focuses on strengthening rebbetzins across North America. She also works part-time for Lee Hecht Harrison as a career coach and consultant; has a small private executive, career, dating, and life transition coaching practice; and is the rebbetzin of Young Israel of Southfield in Michigan. She has a blog called Insight Out, and is editing for publication her book on the women of Tanach and influential women leaders.   What a roller coaster of two months! Eight weeks ago we relived the ten plagues, the redemption from Mitzrayim, and the splitting of the sea on Pesach. The last seven weeks we counted Sefirat HaOmer, culminating with our recommitment to the Torah on Shavuot last week. Among the many mitzvot we were busy with over the last two months, counti...

Stephanie Samuels Middle School Limudei Kodesh Teacher   In addition to teaching Chumash and Navi, Stephanie Samuels serves as Sixth Grade Dean and is Director of the Maimonides Fellows program. She is the proud mother of a Maimo student and three alumni.   Parshat Bamidbar opens with the organization of Bnei Yisrael around the Mishkan — each shevet with its own place, banner, and identity. At first glance, the parsha seems primarily concerned with the technical: census numbers, camp formations, and travel protocols. However, shivim panim laTorah — there are seventy facets to Torah — and Chazal discern something deeper in the structure of Bnei Yisrael’ s encampment. Bamidbar Rabbah comments on the phrase “ ish al diglo be’otot le’veit avotam ” — “each with his standard, under the banners of their fathers’ house” ( Bamidbar 2:2). The Midrash explains that the arrangement of the tribes around the Mishkan was not a new organizational system at all. Rather, it reflecte...

Rabbi Dr. Marc Gopin (‘75)   Rabbi Dr. Marc Gopin (‘75) has held the James Laue Chair at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University since 2003.   There is a striking moral architecture embedded in Behar–Bechukotai , one that has increasingly spoken to me not just as an abstract system of law, but as a guide to how I try—and often struggle—to live. What appears at first as agricultural law or covenantal warning reveals, upon reflection, a carefully constructed vision of a just and sustainable society—one that anticipates human vulnerability, restrains excess, and builds pathways for repair. It is, in many ways, a model not only for society, but for the inner life of a person trying to act with integrity. The Sabbatical year, Shemitah , is perhaps the most disarming command. Every seventh year, the land must rest. No planting, no harvesting, no pursuit of productivity in the usual sense. What grows is shared. From a narrow economic perspective, ...

Rabbi Dani Rockoff ('95)   Rabbi Dani Rockoff ('95) is the Head of School at Westchester Day School in Mamaroneck, NY. He previously served as K-12 Judaic Studies Principal and School Rabbi of the Denver Academy of Torah; Dean of the Matmidim Judaic Studies Program at Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy in Overland Park, KS; and congregational rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel Abraham and Voliner in Overland Park.   This week’s parsha, Emor , has stayed with me since it was my own Bar Mitzvah parsha, and each year I find myself returning to it with a slightly different perspective.   I remember being puzzled by the narrative at the end of the parsha —the unnamed man whose father was an Egyptian and whose mother was an Israelite. It raises questions about identity and what it means to belong. As a thirteen-year-old, I tried to make sense of it the best way I...

Rabbi Shmuel Silberman Middle/Upper School Learning Center Specialist   Shmuel Silberman has worked at Maimonides since 1998. He is married to Sara Silberman , who works in the Maimonides Early Childhood Center.   Do you ever suspect that some people “have it” and some don’t? Do you worry that you belong to the “have nots”? Perhaps this thinking has even interfered with your religious life. Other people supposedly have a knack for spirituality, and you wish you did too.   This week 's parsha, Acharei Mot, uproots this paradigm. We read about a procedure on Yom Kippur where two goats are selected. One is offered on the mizbeach, and the other is sent to the wilderness. Which goat goes where is determined by lots.   “And Aharon will cast lots on the two male goats, one lot is for Hashem and one lot is for Azazel ( Vaykira 16:8).”   Whi...

Dr. Josh Levisohn ('85)   Dr. Josh Levisohn (’85) has spent most of the last 28 years in Jewish day school education, including 17 years as Head of School at Berman Hebrew Academy in Greater Washington, D.C. and Farber Hebrew Day School in Southfield, Michigan. Josh returned to the Boston area two years ago, and in July will begin serving as Head of School at Striar Hebrew Academy in Sharon. As someone involved in formal Jewish education for many years, I have often reflected on what sets our heritage apart from contemporary culture. Some differences are immediately apparent: a sense of kedushah , of obligation and personal responsibility, of peoplehood. But there is another aspect of Jewish life that is more subtle and, in its own way, deeply countercultural: the power, the almost tangible reality, of the words that come out of our mouths.   Words do not feel very real. They cannot be seen or touched; they are fleeting, easily misheard or misund...