"Many people make it a habit to engage in no secular conversation from the beginning of the New Moon of Elul until after Yom Kippur, for there is nothing in the world better for the purification of the soul than the curbing of idle talk.

-          Tzvi Hirsch Kaidanover, Kav ha-Yashar, XII

With the first week of school behind us and with Rosh Hashanah and the rest of the new academic year ahead, we take these last few days of Elul to reflect on where we are as a school and the unique contribution we bring to Jewish education and the future of our people. In Kav ha'Yashar, Rabbi Kaidanover challenges us to cease to engage in the mundane, and to use our energies to purify ourselves through thoughtful and intentional speech - and by extension - action. 

It is therefore incumbent upon us to seize this Elul moment and the beginning of this New Year and focus on what is at the heart of this endeavor called Beit Rabban Day School. In partnership with parents, we strive to build an extraordinary learning community that prepares students from different backgrounds and with different points of view to collectively shape Jewish life for the 21st Century. We work tirelessly to ensure that our students will graduate from Beit Rabban fluent in Hebrew and Jewish texts; inspired by the arts and humanities; capable learners with mastery in general studies and experienced in critical analysis, collaborative problem solving, and integrative thinking. We hope to raise a cadre of young people who are articulate with ideas and opinions, respectful of divergent thinking, and willing and able to lead in partnership with others. This is a vision for education that is behind each interaction at school, underpinning the curriculum and palpable in the stories our graduates share with us as they look back and point to Beit Rabban as the place from which they learned how to learn and learned why to study what we place front and center.

However, Kaidanover makes an assumption about the binary nature of the world, suggesting that there is a stark difference between what is secular and what is sacred. Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, in 1932 in his inaugural speech at the Mizrachi Teachers Institute in Jerusalem, offers a different, more subtle approach:

"The Greek mind asserted that no holiness pervades the world of action. But Knesset Yisrael knows how to join heaven and earth, to unite sacred and profane, to sanctify ourselves with that which is permissible. This complete unification grows out of our maintaining the barriers, our knowledge of how to distinguish between the sacred and the secular. Eternal Israel is built on these complementary principles of unification and distinction."

Here at Beit Rabban, we respect the differences between disciplines and understand the importance of differentiation. However, we also look for ways to bring disparate things together, with a particular focus on finding ways to amalgamate the Jewish and general learning. Our integrated curriculum reinforces the idea that we are both committed Jews and citizens of the broader world. Our teachers - comfortable with math and Mishnah, literacy and liturgy - model a holistic way of being in the world. This distinctive approach is what makes the experiences of both children and adults in our community so powerful. It is organic, deep and, ultimately, reflective of a Torah of living that looks much like life.

So while I expect to be writing to you many times over this year about the wonderful growth in enrollment, the fact that we are outgrowing our space, and that new partnerships are flourishing as an outgrowth of our work, I take this moment to share with you that we are just as committed to inner growth and the ongoing maturational growth of the school as we pursue the compelling idea and potent reality known as Beit Rabban Day School.

On behalf of our wonderful team of faculty and staff, we thank you for choosing Beit Rabban for your children and for being a part of this vision. We also wish you and yours the sweetest of new years and an upcoming year of health and growth.

Rabbi Andrew Davids, Head of School

This year we are implementing a program called i-Ready Diagnostic, which will provide our students with an innovative diagnostic assessment. The focus of this online program is reading and math. i-Ready Diagnostic helps teachers to efficiently and effectively assess their students in order to figure out each student's unique strengths and weaknesses.

Created by a team of assessment, curriculum, and technology professionals, i-Ready Diagnostic assesses students in the following
skill areas:

READING:

• Phonological Awareness
• Phonics                     
• High-Frequency Words     
• Vocabulary                  
• Comprehension

MATH:

• Number and Operations  
• Algebra and Algebraic Thinking
• Measurement and Data
• Geometry 

The assessment is adaptive, which means that it automatically adjusts the difficulty of the questions according to each student's performance in order to determine his or her abilities in reading or math.

Once each child completes the assessment, teachers receive data about each student to help teachers make informed decisions about the instruction that is right for each child.

Should you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact our office or your child's teacher. For more information on i-Ready Diagnostic, please visit the Curriculum Associates website at www.CurriculumAssociates.com. 

Thank you for your ongoing support. 

- Carol Ribner

Meet the Beit Rabban Faculty: Miriam Lipsius

Miriam returned  to New York to pursue her undergraduate degree in philosophy and literature at Baruch College.  After graduating, she began teaching math at Beis Rivka, which she found to be very conventional. Miriam had been exposed to new ideas and expressions of Judaism through her involvement with Hillel while at college.  It was there that she met Jessica Lang, a Beit Rabban board member.  Miriam was intrigued by what Jessica told her about Beit Rabban, so when the opportunity to teach at the school arose, Miriam was eager to pursue it. 

In the short time she has been on staff, she has not been disappointed.  "I was eager to explore a more progressive path in education and work in a more dynamic environment.  Beit Rabban has certainly provided me with those opportunities," she says. Miriam teaches in Shtillim and Nitzanim, and relishes the challenge of transitioning between two grades, two subjects and two physical locations.  "The juggle really keeps me on my toes - literally and figuratively," she says.  Working with different age groups and diverse subject matter requires a rapid change in mindset, but the best part of the dual post is that it's given me a chance to get to know more students and feel more connected to the Beit Rabban community." When asked what she likes best about teaching, Miriam is quick to respond,  "The conversations that develop in the classroom. The students are really insightful. Sometimes they can point things out that I had not considered and this can springboard into its own discussion." 

When she's not at Beit Rabban, Miriam enjoys writing poetry.  She says that the poets she admires most are Yehuda Amichai, Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath, but her own poetry is drawn from Jewish themes.  "Recently, I built a metaphor out of the mythical story of the Maharal creating the Golem."  Hopefully, Miriam will share her poetry with us in an upcoming issue of Ta Shma.