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This weekend, Congregation Beth Shalom generously hosted an HBHA Shabbat to highlight our school and the students and staff that make it so special. This is the first time that a community synagogue has hosted us in such a way, and we are thrilled that it was a huge success! We are grateful to Beth Shalom for including us in their Saturday morning services, Rabbi Glickman for taking this initiative, Cantor Ben-Yehuda for helping pull it together, and everyone who joined us on Saturday morning.

In addition to Lower School and Middle School students helping to lead parts of t’fillah, Torah reading was completely done by HBHA students and staff, Rabbi Philmus read Haftarah and led Musaf, and Rabbi Bonney-Cohen gave a powerful D’var Torah about creating a cycle of holiness in our world. The D’var Torah, which featured some of the profound work being done in our 6th grade right now, began:

“In this week’s Torah reading, God commands us, ‘Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.’ Be holy. Wow. What a command. So powerful, so daunting, and also so abstract. What does it mean to be holy, anyway? And not only to be holy in and of itself, but to be holy as God is holy. How are we supposed to know how to emulate God’s holiness? What even is God’s holiness in the first place?...”

She continued the D’var Torah by talking about a lesson she taught in sixth grade. In discussing how to be holy as God is holy, Rabbi Bonney-Cohen asked the students, “What if, instead of calling out all the bad we see around us, we built a practice to lift up the good?” This is a Jewish practice called “Hakarat HaTov,” which literally means “acknowledging the good.” She challenged the students to write Hakarat HaTov about every student in their grade, including themselves.

“Some students had never heard particular kids say something kind about them until that day. Others said that they had never noticed within themselves the qualities that their classmates acknowledged in them. They all voiced how powerful it was not only to hear so many positive things about themselves, but also how good it felt to be asked to recognize the good in others.”

The moving D’Var Torah ended with a call to be holy.

“May we heed that sacred calling to tap into the Divine sparks within us, to use them as a source of goodness to seek out and elevate the sparks of those around us. And in doing so, may we tap into our power to bring kedushah into this world, lighting the way for a new cycle of holiness to emerge.”

We were grateful for the opportunity to showcase HBHA's exceptional Jewish education, and it was inspiring to see the pride our students take in Jewish life and ritual leadership. Kol Hakavod to our Torah readers–Ellie Glickman, Naftali Tilove, Ayla Williams, Elia Ellis, Molly Solomon, and Dani Glickman–and to all our students who lift up our whole community through their dedication to Jewish life and learning!

We hope that this special Shabbat is the first of many to come, and we are excited about the possibility of participating in similar events in other community synagogues. If any other congregations are interested in a special HBHA Shabbat, reach out and let HBHA know! Contact Rabbi Bonney-Cohen at [email protected]

Once again, thank you to everyone who helped to make this event a success. We look forward to more opportunities to come together as a community and celebrate our shared values and traditions.

This week we acknowledged Yom HaShoah, the memorial for the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust. We had a modest but beautiful ceremony for our entire school, grades K-12, in which our 4th graders sang historical pieces almost entirely in Yiddish- the culmination of a months-long project beginning with reading Number the Stars, moving on to recognizing upstanders, and ending with examining life in prewar Europe. The goal was to remember the vibrant language and culture that was almost entirely lost during the Holocaust, and to focus more on how Jews lived rather than how they died. After the concert, all of our students then engaged in peer-led group learning and discussion.

This is, of course, just a moment of community gathering, but our studies of the Shoah go much deeper in the classrooms, always in age-appropriate ways. But learning isn’t enough by itself- we also yearn for community gathering, reflection, processing, and mourning.

But this year was different in a very special way. First, Rabbi Philmus, with several of our Middle School students, attended a fair at Notre Dame De Sion focused on religion and the environment, in which they presented a Jewish perspective on environmentalism. The fair was attended by hundreds of participants from all over the world. Despite the fact that it was Yom HaShoah, our students attended and represented us beautifully, without publicly mentioning the importance of the day to the Jewish people.

They were surprised at the end of the day when the students and faculty of Notre Dame de Sion held a short but powerful memorial for Yom HaShoah, lighting six candles and holding a moment of silence.

Similarly, 4th graders took a trip to Rockhurst University (Catholic, Jesuit) to participate in their annual Yom HaShoah Holocaust Remembrance Day to sing during their ceremony. To quote their opening prayer:

Eternal God,
We gather today to mourn the deaths of our brothers and sisters stricken by the Nazis.
We gather to raise our voices against hatred, violence, and torture.
And to again profess our faith in You.
Hear our prayers, that we, the people of Your Covenant, utter in faith.

I am moved to my core to hear how these non-Jewish communities acknowledge and remember the tragedy that happened to our people. Too often, it feels like we are on our own, forgotten, or despised by the world. To be seen and acknowledged as brothers and sisters and have our pain recognized publicly is incredibly powerful and meaningful to me. I want to thank the leadership of Notre Dame de Sion and Rockhurst University for their moving and heartfelt ceremonies.

Feeling the power of being seen by others, especially in our moment of communal grief, I am reminded of our obligation to bear witness and acknowledge tragedy that befalls those around and among us. In light of this, I want to take a moment to publicly see and articulate the pain and trauma that our broader Kansas City community is holding in light of this week’s events. We are appalled and hurt by the shooting of Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old Kansas-Citian who was shot in the head and arm through a locked glass door simply for showing up at the wrong address. The shooter said he was “scared to death” of the boy on his doorstep, looking for his little brothers. We need to acknowledge the terror felt by every black child, mother, and father, that, God forbid, someone will be so “scared to death” by the color of their skin that their mere presence represents the threat of being killed. To the Black community, both part of and beyond the Jewish community, we see you, we acknowledge your pain, and we stand with you in your fear and anger.

There is no lack of trauma, fear, or pain in our world today. As Jews and people, we remain committed to working for a more just and righteous world, as our Torah says, “Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof” - “Justice, justice you shall pursue.” Just as we feel comfort in being seen, we commit ourselves to seeing the pain of others and working toward a more perfect world.

May The One who creates peace on high 
make peace for us 
for all Israel
and all inhabitants of the Earth.
 

The holidays are over and we made it through a full week at school! I absolutely love the Jewish holiday season, but it feels good to get back to work with more of a routine, doesn’t it? Now that we are returning to some semblance of normality, I am going to begin sending more weekly updates so you are aware of some of the things happening at HBHA outside of the classrooms.

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Sometimes in the midst of a journey it is good to check in and make sure you are still on the right path or you might just end up in the wrong place entirely. But it's a funny thing about being lost. If you are lost on the road, you know where you're going, but you don’t know where you are. If you are lost in life, you might know where you are, but not know where you are going. But to truly find one’s way, one must know where one is AND where they are going!

As Head of School, one of the most important roles I play is ensuring our school knows where it is, and knows where it’s going. We are currently embarking on the journey of developing and writing a new strategic plan. In order to do this work properly, we have hired NoTosh, an internationally recognized Design Thinking firm that specializes in working with schools. They have helped hundreds of schools from around the world find their new strategic visions, from the Nanjing International School, to the American School of Warsaw, to Ottawa Community Jewish School. 

Instead of simply setting pie-in-the-sky goals without understanding who we are or what is possible and desirable for our community, Design Thinking starts with empathy.

We all know HBHA is a special place. But what are HBHA’s core values that set it apart from all other schools? What is it that makes this place so unique and dear to so many people? The first stage of our strategic plan is to boil down our shared communal vision of HBHA into 5-6 core value statements... our North Star. 

This isn’t redefining our school or giving it a new mission statement; but rather it is taking the time to understand who we are already and articulate it in clear and concise terms. This will help us guide every aspect of our program, from academics to Jewish Studies; how we give assessments to how we manage our classrooms; from marketing to how we raise money. By articulating our core values, we will have inspiring shared language and goals to move our school forward, together, towards our desired result. 

Simmering down an entire community's values, passions, hopes and dreams into a set of widely agreed upon value statements is not work that is easy or clear cut, but with the help of No Tosh, we feel we are ready to work and up to the task.

No Tosh has helped us build a diverse Design Team, made up of teachers, parents, students, administrators, and community stakeholders. Each member of that team will be interviewing at least 10 people in their social network to hear the voices of our entire community. Just that interview process will bring together the voices of almost 200 people that love and care about HBHA.

Over the course of the next few months, we will continue to solicit feedback from the community. This is the community's school and we want to continue to support its growth and pursuit of excellence on our own terms. This is our chance to set that path for the next 5-10 years.

This is a year-long process, and more updates are sure to come. I am excited to share this process with you, and I hope you feel some of the same enthusiasm and energy we at HBHA feel about this process!
 

It has been a wonderful start to the school year! There is a palpable sense of joy and excitement coming from everyone - teachers, students, even (and maybe especially) parents! We are thrilled to have everyone back in person and looking forward to an awesome year!

It takes a lot of work to open the school in a way that looks effortless. The faculty and staff have spent the past two weeks working tirelessly to set up their classrooms and engage in teacher training. Over the past two weeks, our team has:

• engaged in training about safety and security with Chuck Green, the Jewish Community Director of Security;
• reviewed HBHA's COVID safety protocols with Nurse Elisa Pener; and
• done a deep dive into Project Based Learning, which you will hear more about in a future email. 

In addition, HBHA School Psychologist Sara Whelan has already brought together Middle and Upper School student leaders for a Sources of Strength training with Sondra Wallace, JFS Mental Health Coalition Coordinator. Sources of Strength is an evidence-based approach to preventing significant mental health needs among youth (including suicide) through harnessing the power of peer social networks to change unhealthy norms and culture. Our student leaders will work together this year to introduce the program, demystify mental health issues among their peers, and spread messages of hope, help, and strength throughout their school and community. We are very proud to introduce this program to HBHA.

I want to take a moment to thank the COVID Task Force for setting clear guidelines to keep our kids safely in school this year. We will be following the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment school guidelines - including universal mask wearing, physical distancing, frequent hand washing, and limiting the number of visitors into the building. Our Task Force will continue to meet periodically to keep abreast of the most current developments and make sure to maintain a safe environment.

There are many other things happening at HBHA this year - far too much for one email. But I wanted to start the year by telling you how excited we are as a whole team to be working with your children again. We love our work of helping your children learn, grow and thrive. And we are grateful for your trust and partnership. 

Here’s to a great year!

This week, I want to focus only on Joy!

Sure there is still plenty for us to worry about, but this has been a tremendous week for HBHA and for one glorious week, I think it's OK to block out the world and just feel proud of ourselves and our students.

On Wednesday night we celebrated graduation IN PERSON. And while we were all still physically distanced and wearing masks, it was incredible to see everyone together in one room. Our graduates spoke beautifully about their pride, resilience, camaraderie, and enthusiasm for HBHA and their eager anticipation to get out there and take on the world.  

Four of those seniors were the children of HBHA alumni - which give me such a sense of pride in our school. We are an institution whose roots run deep, and will continue to run deeper. Our school is teaching a living, loving Judaism from generation to generation.

Two of our graduates finished a tractate of Gemara and were able to reflect on the wisdom they had gained from the Talmud to the community before reciting a long and joyous Kaddish in honor of the work they had just completed.

This morning, the entire school was able to congregate outside to celebrate the first (in-person) and final Taste of Shabbat of the year. Rabbi Avi led us in a rousing rendition of our favorite niggun that made everyone - even the high school students - giggle.

This afternoon, the Lower School students performed in and watched the annual Talent Show, which we missed last year. I watched these amazing kids get awards from running over a hundred miles in the 100-Mile Club; I giggled as they told jokes and danced; and I was awed by their collective resilience and talents.

All and all, this was an amazing week of school, which highlighted our students' learning, creativity, courage, and joy. We were able to literally see the space between us diminish as our celebrations and rituals began to return to normal.

I wish you all a Shabbat Shalom - one in which you can take a moment to focus only on joy and pride in our children - and one in which you too can feel the distance between us shrink.