Dear LGA Community,
Shana tova umetuka! May we all have a sweet and peaceful year of renewal and growth! I often find myself wishing that the whole world were more like LGA. As I process yesterday’s news, I feel that more than ever, and hope that some of our students’ kindness, sweetness, thoughtfulness, and joy radiate outward, far and wide, to all corners of the world. In this message, which I am recording as a video and also sending as an email for everyone’s convenience and accessibility, I would like to share a few reflections, some announcements, and an irresistible LGA nachas—or joyful humble-brag moment or two.
Last week, I was walking through our school’s hallways with a visiting alumni parent. As we stepped into the Gan/K classroom, we saw Morah Niamh teaching her students to write number “1”. There was even a rhyme that went along with it: “Top to bottom, then you’re done. You just wrote the number ‘1’”. The moment felt casual—because of course our school days are filled with occasions like these—and at the same time, it also felt immense because we were witnessing the very beginning of our youngest students’ journey into the world of mathematics. It doesn’t seem to get old, this awe of seeing children learn to do something for the first time ever.
Talmudic sages instituted a special blessing, shehechiyanu, for those occasions when we do something for the first time, or for the first time in a long while. It is, perhaps, the most direct and stark recognition of the present moment that you will find in the Jewish liturgy, and with good reason: nothing can bring you into a state of gratitude for the present moment quite like a new, moving experience. For an adult, to see a child experiencing a shehechiyanu moment, that feeling is multiplied manifold through the power of memory and connection.
Our mystics taught that every single moment, the world comes apart and is re-created anew. That may sound a bit esoteric—unless you spend a lot of time with children. With them, a quiet moment can, in a second, turn into a maelstrom of emotion, which, in turn, can give way to laughter. A whole new world can come into being with every new letter, number, game, or concept. It’s Rosh Hashanah every day around here.
The same is true for a community. With every new family that joins us, with every parent, grandparent, alumni or friend who steps up to help make our school better, we transform, grow, and renew ourselves. If you have not had a chance to fill out our volunteer form and tell us how you can help—please do so because, as Rabbi Hillel famously said, if not now, then when?
Rosh Hashanah is coming in late this year, and lots has happened at the school already. Students from every grade have participated in meaningful outdoor field trips, connecting with nature and each other. Our oldest students had their first of many forthcoming visits to the Loomis Village, a retirement community, forging meaningful intergenerational connections. Kitah Vav/fifth grade spent a day setting up an apartment for a refugee family from Syria, bringing more understanding and healing to the world. Our parents started the Hesed committee, aimed at supporting members of the community who need support.
The school theme for this year is “אוֹהֵב שָׁלוֹם וְרוֹדֵף שָׁלוֹם” – love peace and pursue peace, which was on my mind, when, in my own preparation for the holiday, I came across this poem by Marge Piercy, titled “The birthday of the world”:
On the birthday of the world
I begin to contemplate
what I have done and left
undone, but this year
not so much rebuilding
of my perennially damaged
psyche, shoring up eroding
friendships, digging out
stumps of old resentments
that refuse to rot on their own.
No, this year I want to call
myself to task for what
I have done and not done
for peace. How much have
I dared in opposition?
Midrash teaches that there is “no better vessel for a blessing than peace”–perhaps because peace, and even just the dream of peace, can hold within it our most precious hopes for the future. And that is my wish for the year: as the world comes anew, I hope that through kindness, deep learning, and acts of gratitude we, and our students, bring more peace into each other’s lives, and into our community, and the whole Jewish community worldwide, and the world at large.
Shanah Tova!
-Jake Marmer
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