Mifrasim מפרשים : Navigating our Lives as Role Models, Educators, Parents and Jews

When We Feel LIke We’ve Been Counting Forever: The Chinuch, Rav Mirsky and the Omer in 2024 This year, we don’t have to remember to keep counting. Because it seems like we have never stopped.   For 31 plus weeks, with tears, frustration and broken hearts, we have taken out our sharpies and taped on a number representing the days since the dreadful day that changed us forever.  During this time after Pesach, we have always asked ourselves questions about the Omer. And yet, just like everything else since October 7, these questions look different for our people as we see things through a different lens.(1) Why count days and weeks?  The Torah points out two mitzvot related to the counting of the Omer. We are told to count days and also count weeks(2) : הַכָּתוּב אָמַר תִּסְפְּרוּ חֲמִשִּׁים יוֹם וְאָמַר גַּם כֵּן שִׁבְעָה שָׁבֻעֹת תִּסְפָּר לָך The Sefer HaChinuch quotes the Rambam who points out that one may think that these are two separate mitzvot. However, as we know, the mitzvah is

  We Are All One Human Embroidery: Message for Yom HaZikaron Aaron Frank-Ramaz Upper School 2024 When I die, something of mine will die in you כשאמות, משהו ממני, משהו ממני ימות בך. כשתמות, משהו ממך בי, משהו ממך בי ימות איתך, ימות איתך. When you’ll die, something of yours in me, will die with you כי כולנו, כן כולנו כולנו רקמה אנושית אחת חיה For we all are one living human embroidery, one human tissue. These words from the song by Moti Hammer and made famous by Chava Alberstein resonate now more than ever. People in this room have lost friends, relatives, and each year they cry, and each year they connect with that soul and remember. And they also connect with the part of them that died along with their loved ones.  This year, when we are all commemorating an unimaginatively, painful Yom HaZikaron we are all sort of lost. We are all numb a bit. And this year more than ever, maybe more than any Yom HaZikaron in history, we need each other, that huge human connection of which we are all a

  Elie Weisel and the Never of Today: A Meditation for Yom HaShoah v'HaGevurah Each year, we have always used Nevers. Our entire lives. Never forget. Never again. Elie Weisel, zichrono l’vracha in his famous work, Night, said it well, using Never so poetically and painfully.  Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke.  Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.  Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith for ever.  Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.  Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.  Never.* Today we are part of the legacy of Nevers–and it’s strange as we are told to never forget something we did not see. And to never again with something we did not experience. Sadly, this