Dalia Shabatian Volume 24 Principal Issue 9 December 7, 2018 29 Kislev, 5779 Rabbi Yamin Levy LIHA Rabbi Shabbath, Rosh Chodesh & Chanukah Once lit, unlike the candles of Shabbath, the candles of Chanukah cannot be used for any practical purpose. The Halacha states they cannot be used for warmth or for light their purpose is simply to celebrate a great miracle that took place many years ago. In fact, we recite in the prayer of Chanukah: These candles are sacred and we are not permitted to put them to any use How impractical and yet how meaningful. The truth of the matter is that the Jews who rebelled against the Greek empire and their decrees were not very practical people. In fact they risked everything for their faith. They even had to resist other Jews who argued: why make waves the Greek are an educated people, let us be like them. Thankfully there were enough impractical people who joined Matityahu and his sons in the belief that security purchased at the cost of conscience is too costly. If we are still here, 2100 years later celebrating Chanukah it is because there have been countless Jewish mothers and fathers, most of them humble, and nameless who at THE VOICE OF OUR CHILDREN A WEEKLY PUBLICATION Please visit our website www.lihagn.org for the FULL newsletter in color! Message from Rabbi Yamin Levy LIHA, Rabbi great peril and in the most forbidding circumstances kindled the lights of Chanukah, looked at them and knew who they were and who their children were expected to be. This lesson runs deep in our spiritual makeup. Our sages teach us to worship Hashem for no practical reason other than our love of G- d. How impractical and yet how powerful. Our performance of Mitzvoth should be motivated solely by our love of G-d and not by any hope that we will be repaid by any material reward. The reward of a Mitzvah, teach our sages, is the Mitzvah itself! Come to think of it everything we do seems so impractical. Giving charity, tzedaka is quite impractical. Why should anyone part with his or her money that was acquired through hard work? Giving of one s time to the community is also quite impractical. I m sure there are many more things people can be doing with their time. Yet who can deny that it is precisely these impractical and heroic acts which humanize our lives and affords us meaning and purpose. After we light the Chanukah this year take a close look at the flame and reflect just how meaningful this impractical act actually is. Parashat Miketz Shabbat Candle Lighting time is at 4:12 p.m. Havdalah time is at 5:17 p.m.
Message from Mrs. Shabatian Chanukah is in the air! You should see the excitement on the kids faces! We had a lot going on this week. We kicked off the first day back from Chanukah vacation with a dreidel counting contest. The kids had to guess how many dreidels were in the jar! The kids were super excited about it. Today Mrs. Shabatian announced the winners: And the winners are: Agam Youssefia and Daniel Ghodsi. On Wednesday we had Naz Aziz from I Move with Naz. The kids danced away with prizes and glow toys. All the grades had a fabulous time! A big Thank you to Naz! Yesterday, Batman came in the Batmobile!! Our students were beyond thrilled!! They sang Chanukah songs outside, danced and were treated to donuts for the second time this week. Today, Morah Monica and Morah Simcha put on a short skit about Chanukah with music for grades T-5. The kids really seemed to enjoy it! From donuts, to latkes, to fun music, we have a lot more exciting things in store for next week. On Monday, please make sure that your children bring in their donuts that they made for our Donut contest. We will have judges and they will choose the most creative Donut that our very own students made. Stay tuned for the winner! Happy Chanukah and please become friends with us on our Facebook page, LIHA PTA, so that you can see all the fun going on in school.
MAY YOUR HOME LIGHT UP WITH JOY PTA for helping With LIHA s Book Fair Nancy Keypour Youdit Soufeh Elnaz Ghodsi Linda Sabzehroo Marina Mehdizadeh Ramona Sedaghat Pantea Aminian Farnoush Shakiban Batman & the Batmobile Visited LIHA 12/10 Pre-K Workshop World s Finest Chocolate Sell your chocolate to your family and friends during the holidays! Mazal Tov! Morah Karen Had a Baby Girl!
Toddler- Morah Karen Take A Look At LIHA This week the children continued learning the concept of numbers by counting the candle sticks of the menorah. Not only did we do a project featuring candlesticks (Popsicle sticks), but the children all got to light the menorah for each day of Chanukah! We also celebrated by eating sufganiyot, chocolate gelt, and spinning dreidels. It has been quite a celebratory week! Morah Naz came for Zumba on Wednesday and danced to Chanukah and Jewish dance music. This week we also learned about the color BLUE. We started our color projects and we can t wait to show it to our mommies and daddies! We wore Blue on Thursday to reinforce what we learned in school. Shabbat Abba is Oren and Shabbat Imma is Ella. Nursery It's been a wonderful, fun-filled week of Chanukah celebrations. The children enjoyed eating sufganiyots, singing and dancing with Morah Naz Aziz and Chanukah cookie making with Morah Monica's class. We wish everyone a wonderful Shabbat Chanukah. Our Shabbat Ima and Abba were Adina and Nathan. Pre K This week we discovered Chanukah through our five senses. We had a glow in the dark dance party where we heard music and danced with Imove with NAZ. We tasted and smelled the delicious latkes, sufganiyot and eatable dreidels too. We squeezed olives to make olive oil. We lit the candles in class each day and with our eyes we saw that the oil lasts longer then our wax, colorful candles. For a finale we are having our Chanukah Chagiga for our parents on Monday. What an amazing way to celebrate Chanukah with family and friends.
Kindergarten English "A Bed for Winter", is about a door mouse looking for a house for the winter. We learned about the kinds of homes that animals need. Our amazing words were best, stump, hive, meadow, tree trunk and den. The "K" class reviewed the initial and medial sound of i and letter k. We worked on classifying and categorizing and adjectives as opposites. In science we discussed the four seasons and what animals need. Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend. Kindergarten Hebrew Happy Chanukah and Rosh Chodesh! We have had a great week! We lit our own Chanukiah in our classroom and experienced lighting a Chanukah candle with olive oil and a normal candle. The class learned a new letter ZAYIN. ז and the words we learned were; Zahav = gold,(זהב) zooz = move (זוז) and Zeh= this.(זה) The children acted out Parashat Miketz. Please ask them to tell you the story! Our שבת אמא ואבא were Ariella Y. & Avichai 1 st Grade English The children are learning that addition and subtraction are related to each other. They are using many different strategies to help them add and subtract. In science they will learn how scientists use inquiry skills. The children will practice using the words compare, predict, observe, measure and classify just like real scientists do. They have been writing in their journals and adding details to their stories. The children enjoy sharing their stories with their classmates! 1st Grade Hebrew This week we learned about,חנוכה the mitzvot and חנוכה We have a reading booklet about.חג costumes of the that we practice reading from. In script, we are up to letter colors =צבעים and the kids have Our new vocabulary is.ל fun learning them. We learned in parashat וישב about Yosef. Wishing you Shabbat Shalom and happy Hanukkah!!
2 nd Grade English The second grade is almost done with their math book and we will be having a test at the end of the month. We are also almost finished with our unit 2 in social studies. Students are learning all about world geography. The students have been working very hard this week and enjoying all the fun Chanukah festivities. Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom! 2 nd Grade Hebrew This week the second grade loved the Hanukkah festivities. We danced and sang Hanukkah songs while eating yummy sufganiyot. Rabbi levy visited our class and I was so impressed with the student s knowledge of Hanukkah. Shabbat Shalom, Chag Sameach and Chodesh Tov 3 rd Grade English We have started our weekly multiplication facts quizzes. Please make sure you are supporting your child at home. 3 rd Grade Hebrew What a festive and wonderful week we had!!! We are enjoying Chanukah by singing and dancing and eating sufganiyot! The children will be tested on numbers on Monday please remind them to learn that not by order, I want them to be able to know all the numbers till one hundred without trying to count it. Shabbat Shalom and Chag Samech
4 th Grade English The 4th grade had a very exciting week. I don t know how the following weeks will be able to compete with Chanukah, beginning division, and learning the southern states. All I know is that it was a great week. Keep up the good work fourth grade! 4 th Grade Hebrew 4th grade is having a very exciting Chanukah! We celebrated with an ice cream party on Wednesday for the 4th grade's success on our midterm, along with other fun activities every day at school. We also had our second to last Taamim quiz and will soon complete the Taamim portion of our curriculum. 5 th Grade English In Social Studies, we are continuing our unit of study on America. This week we focused on rights and responsibilities of citizens. 5 th Grade Hebrew This week the 5 th grade had a blast! We had a lot of fun learning about Chanukah. The class has Hebrew conversations on different topics every day.