|
Dear Shaar Families,
For many of us, there is still much uncertainty about what our summer will look like this year. Some have already heard that their child’s camp plans are cancelled and are scrambling to fill in, while others are holding out hope for day camp programs. Like so much of the past few months, we will pivot again and again, to find what works for our kids and our families. In Talmudic learning, there is a legal concept of l’chatchilah, which loosely translates as “the ideal” or “what one set out to do”. Then there is bedi’eved, which is Aramaic for “what actually happened in the end”. This will certainly be a summer of bedi’eved, doing the best we can under the circumstances. For better or worse, we have already been operating this way for quite some time throughout the pandemic. It is not an easy path, but we are witnessing creativity and resilience in parents and kids; we are finding new ways of parenting and of being in community.
At the Shaar, summer is a time to wind down our youth and young family programming and begin to ready ourselves for the high holidays. While we will be offering summer online Hebrew learning for kids (details will be coming soon), we will focus our energies on envisioning a different kind of holiday season this fall. In the coming weeks, I will be working closely with the parents on our youth committee, to create ways to engage children and their families on the holidays, within this "new normal" in which we find ourselves.
As the school year winds down, and children spend more time outdoors, I will move my Morning Gratitude program to two mornings per week. At Monday Morning Gratitude, we will start our week together, and at Tot Shabbat on Friday mornings, we will sing together in the sanctuary to welcome Shabbat. This newsletter will no longer arrive each week, but will now come periodically, to keep you informed about the Shaar’s programs and offerings.
Let’s count our blessings. The weather is beautiful, the summer is almost here, and the children are growing and learning each day.
Rabba Rachel
|
