I am in awe of our students.
And you should be, too.
On the first day of school, we celebrated a group of our students who spent their summer learning Daf Yomi.
They came from Brighton, Brookline, Malden, Newton, and Sharon.
They had just finished elementary school and middle school, ninth grade and eleventh grade.
They had studied with different teachers the year before.
Half were boys and half were girls.
And they spent their summer learning Daf Yomi.
Upper School chemistry teacher (and Daf Yomi enthuthiast) Dr. David Fischer noticed in June that the Daf Yomi cycle would begin its study of Avodah Zarah just before summer vacation and finish it on the day before school, which could allow our students to spend their summer learning and celebrate with a siyum on the first day of school. We shared the idea with our students, and they rose to the occasion.
How would you choose to spend your school vacation?
These students spent the summer learning Daf Yomi, and thereby had the opportunity to grow in their:
- Grit, resilience, and motivation, choosing to study every day no matter what distractions life might send their way;
- Love of Torah, which grows through prioritizing Torah learning over other pursuits;
- Talmud study skills, learning the rhythms and patterns of the Talmud through increased study;
- Knowledge of halacha, especially on the topic of interfaith relations, which is central to this Masechta;
- and even background in the classics, learning about Saturnalia, Aphrodite, Antoninous, and Mercury in this Gemara.
Our students signed up for this challenge, and they fulfilled it.
This story relates even to those who didn't study Daf Yomi, because it reflects the values that our students are learning in school and that our older students model for their younger peers. The idea of making the most of your summer, of making sure our Judaism speaks to our lives each day, applies to even more students – those who studied parsha, performed chesed, researched Hashem's creations in science, or lived their Zionism. Good student choices are informed by our educational process, and everyone in the building is animated by the same taught and modeled values.
Parshat Ki Tavo features numerous public declarations of Torah. The parsha begins with the public declaration upon the offering of the bikkurim, and describes the public engraving of Torah on rocks in the Jordan River Valley. We publicly broadcast the truths of the Torah so everyone will hear them, be inspired by them, and make their life choices based on its values.
Shabbat shalom and shanah tovah!
