It has always troubled me: how exactly do they calculate these lists? Can a person’s influence, impact, or inspiration truly be measured? While the lists purport to represent the level of impact, in truth, they are much more reflective of the level of profile, prominence, and notoriety of those who make it onto them.

I was reminded this week multiple times that our true heroes and stars are not necessarily those that have the highest public ranking or profile, or have the most followers on Twitter or friends on Facebook. There are individuals all around us who live extraordinary lives that shape not only their destiny, but also that of so many around them, and yet, they will never appear on a list or be included in a ranking.

On Sunday, I had the privilege of officiating at the funeral of one of the pioneers of our community, Paula Rath. Paula grew up in Sighet, Hungary, one of eleven children, and part of a successful, happy family. Her wonderful life, like those of so many others at the time, was unimaginably interrupted by the plans of evil men carrying out the greatest atrocity in human history. Paula was taken to a ghetto, from there to Auschwitz, and from there to multiple forced labor camps.

Paula survived and went back to her hometown where she was reunited with Yosef, whom she had known before the war. They married, and in an effort to fulfill Yosef’s dream, they boarded an illegal ship named “Geulah” and set sail to Israel. The ship was captured by the British and taken to Cyprus, where Paula and Yosef were forced to remain for a number of years.

After the State of Israel was declared, the gates of immigration were opened. Paula was pregnant at the time so she and Yosef had priority and they finally made it to Israel. They got a room in an abandoned Arab house in Haifa that they shared with two other families. Almost immediately after arriving, Yosef, a survivor himself, was drafted into the newly formed IDF to fight in the War of Independence. Later, Paula and Yosef would have two sons, Yehudah and Amir, who would serve in Israel’s army and risk their lives in multiple wars.

Paula will likely never appear on a list of prominent Jews, but can anybody on the list really compare their lives with hers? She lost her family, yet had the courage to survive and display remarkable faith as she and her husband contributed to the founding and protection of our beloved State of Israel.

Later in the week, unfortunately, I found myself officiating at another funeral. Our beloved member, Lian Sae Bloom, was scheduled to come home on Tuesday. Indeed, all she really wanted was to come back home. Nobody anticipated that she would go back to her true home, returning to her source and to her Creator that very same day.

Lian, like Paula, will likely never appear on a list or in a ranking. But, her life journey was remarkable and the number of people she touched positively along the way was incredible. Lian was all about bringing positive energy into the world, and making a positive impact on those around her.

When Lian saw something that she thought could positively influence her life, she pursued it relentlessly. The story of how she joined our community is just one incredible example. She was close with someone whose husband had passed away and came to BRS for the funeral. When she arrived on a weekday morning and saw the Shul packed with people who had come together as one community to mourn and grieve together, she decided that she needed to be here. She went directly from the funeral to see a house and moved a short time later.

There is a third individual who passed away recently, whose life touched me deeply, though I never met him or knew him. In 2009, Zach Sobiech was diagnosed with osteosarcoma at 14 years old. Since then, during his treatment, he underwent 10 surgeries and 20 rounds of chemotherapy. In May of 2012, Zach’s doctors informed him that he had only up to a year to live. When he realized that he had exhausted treatment options, he decided to just live every single day to it’s fullest. An amazing twenty-minute video called “My Last Days” was done following Zach and his family in his last few weeks of his life. Don’t watch it without a box of tissues handy.

In December, Zach released what would become a viral hit, “Clouds,” a song he wrote about confronting death. In the video he explains, “I only have a few months to live, but I have a lot of work to do. I want everyone to know, you don’t have to find out you’re dying to start living… Death is just another thing on the agenda. Yeah, it’s scary, but the only reason it’s scary is because you don’t know what’s next, or if there is a next. So, it’s kinda like sitting in the dark. And so, you can either choose to be freaking out in the dark… or you can just relax and fall asleep, and just be happy and content with everything.”

There was one thing in particular that Zach said on the video that moved me deeply. Though only a teenager, when asked about his outlook in life, he said something amazingly profound – “It’s just try and make people happy. Maybe you have to learn it over time, maybe you have to learn it the hard way, but as long as you learn it, you’re going to make the world a better place.”

Zach passed away on May 20 of complications from osteosarcoma. He was 17 years old, wasn’t famous, wealthy, or prominent. Yet, the remarkable way he lived his life, coupled with the extraordinary manner with which he confronted his death has impacted millions of people who have now seen the video – “My Last Days.”

Paula, Lian and Zach never lived their lives to make it onto a list or a ranking. But as far as I am concerned they are among the top people who have inspired me to live a more meaningful life. As Zach said, we don’t have to find out we are dying to start living. Let’s live our lives in a way that places us on the lists of those who matter most, our family, friends and community.

Clearly, the people who uttered those imprudent and thoughtless expressions meant no harm and indeed would be horrified to learn that they had compounded pain rather than relieved it. Rather than stemming from malice, I suspect that these comments are the result of an earnest desire to be comforting and yet feeling at a loss for the right thing to say.

Susan Silk, a clinical psychologist, recently wrote an op-ed for the LA Times in which she shared her fantastic “Ring Theory” for helping people in crisis:

“Draw a circle. This is the center ring. In it, put the name of the person at the center of the current trauma. Now draw a larger circle around the first one. In that ring put the name of the person next closest to the trauma. Repeat the process as many times as you need to. In each larger ring put the next closest people. Parents and children before more distant relatives. Intimate friends in smaller rings, less intimate friends in larger ones. When you are done you have a Kvetching Order. One of [my] patients found it useful to tape it to her refrigerator.

Here are the rules. The person in the center ring can say anything she wants to anyone, anywhere. She can kvetch and complain and whine and moan and curse the heavens and say, “Life is unfair” and “Why me?” That’s the one payoff for being in the center ring.

Everyone else can say those things too, but only to people in larger rings. When you are talking to a person in a ring smaller than yours, someone closer to the center of the crisis, the goal is to help. Listening is often more helpful than talking. But if you’re going to open your mouth, ask yourself if what you are about to say is likely to provide comfort and support. If it isn’t, don’t say it. Don’t, for example, give advice. People who are suffering from trauma don’t need advice. They need comfort and support. So say, “I’m sorry” or “This must really be hard for you” or “Can I bring you a pot roast?” Don’t say, “You should hear what happened to me” or “Here’s what I would do if I were you.” And don’t say, “This is really bringing me down.”

If you want to scream or cry or complain, if you want to tell someone how shocked you are or how icky you feel, or whine about how it reminds you of all the terrible things that have happened to you lately, that’s fine. It’s a perfectly normal response. Just do it to someone in a bigger ring.

Comfort IN, dump OUT.”

The Ring Theory is a brilliant prescription for how best to interact with someone going through a crisis. It captures something we intuitively know yet too often fail to practice. In fact, it probably should be posted on hospital room doors and entrances to shiva homes.

However, for all of its brilliance, the Ring Theory takes something for granted that, unfortunately, is not a given at all. The theory provides guidance for those choosing to engage. But ask anyone who has gone through a crisis and he will tell you, the majority of people in his life didn’t comfort or dump, neither in nor out. They simply disappeared.

Yes, at the moment of crisis, family, friends and community often rise to the occasion. True, funerals and shivas are often well-attended, hospital rooms and ICU’s get lots of visitors, and parties to divorce get invitations the first few weeks following the separation. But what happens when the acute crises passes? How present are we in the lives of those we claim to care deeply about when the urgency subsides and the catastrophe dissipates?

As time goes on, without consciously intending to, many take an “out of sight, out of mind” approach, leaving the afflicted person feeling forgotten, neglected, insignificant and alone. What the “Ring Theory” doesn’t account for is that doing nothing and staying silent towards someone struggling with illness, loss, divorce or unemployment can be more painful than saying or doing the wrong thing. An insensitive comment is hurtful, but at least it communicates an attempt to connect and comfort. Silence and neglect, however, leave a person feeling invisible, that she doesn’t matter, and that friends think that her problems are contagious and transmittable.

Nobody suffered more than Iyov (Job). The response of his friends is very instructive and in fact is codified in Jewish law. The book of Iyov describes that as he suffered profoundly, his friends silently comforted him. Isn’t that an oxymoron? If they remained silent, where was the comfort? The answer is simple: their mere presence communicated much more at a louder decibel level than anything they could have possibly said. In fact, Iyov’s suffering was so inexplicable and incomprehensible that there was nothing meaningful to offer at all. Had they opened their mouths, they likely would have provided great material for a YouTube video. It is for this reason that Jewish law requires us to remain silent until the mourner speaks first. Moreover, even once we speak, the Rambam cautions us not to be talkative or loquacious lest we say the wrong thing or set the wrong tone with our words.

Sadly, there are many in our community suffering from illness, loss and other sources of pain. Simply put – they rely on us, their friends and community to care enough to enter the Ring. Perhaps we will be towards the center of the circle, or maybe we will be in one of the outside concentric rings. But the worst thing we could do is to disappear from the picture all together.

Reach out, visit, send a text, spontaneously drop off flowers or a Challah, invite for a meal, or just let them know that you pray for them, think about them, and empathize with them. Find the important balance between showing up and providing them necessary space.

If you would like to find out more about how you could get involved with Bikur Cholim or Chesed in our community, don’t hesitate to be in touch with me, Rabbi Moskowitz or Linda in my office.

Let’s do all we can to make sure that these videos have no sequel because we have learned how to comfort IN, dump OUT and that sometimes our silent presence is the greatest comfort of all.

There are few things more challenging and uncomfortable than sitting at the bedside of a dying person and attempting to offer some sense of comfort and calm. What do you say to someone who is about to leave this world? How do you reassure him about where he is going or try to convince her that everything is going to be alright? What do you respond when they say, “I am scared and frightened,” or “I am not ready for this”?

We are very fortunate that Jewish tradition provides a script and a structure to help us guide someone as he is about to embark on this extraordinary transition and journey. In the last few weeks alone, I have found myself at three bedsides reciting viduy, the deathbed confession, with individuals who, soon after, left this world. In some cases, the terminally ill patient was not conscious or awake and I simply read it on his behalf. In other circumstances, the viduy was read at the end of a heartfelt, meaningful, and powerful conversation.

Viduy provides the opportunity to get our spiritual affairs in order. I have never sat at a bedside and heard anyone regret not working longer hours or give her family instructions about physical or material endeavors. However, almost every bedside I have sat at did include a conversation about the topic of regrets and how to make sure we don’t have any when it is time to say goodbye.

The text of viduy deals with our relationship with the Almighty and expresses our sincere apology and regret if or when we have failed Him in our lives. Viduy lets us pass from this world to the next feeling whole in our relationship with our Creator. But just as important is the unscripted part of viduy in which we reach out to anyone with whom we may have a rift and seek reconciliation and healing. Viduy provides an opportunity to both ask for forgiveness, as well as grant it, so that we can go on our journey without being weighed down by spiritual baggage.

As I reflected on the bedside viduy experiences I have had of late, I can’t help but think of my own mortality and the importance of not having regrets. Hearing about “what could have been,” or “what didn’t have to be,” is a stark reminder that we need not wait until our deathbed to get our affairs in order. There is no better time to heal, reconcile, and repair damaged relationships, than the present.

Consider the following contrasting stories from this week. One headline I read says, “Decades-old Family Rift Ends with a Phone Call – American Relatives No Longer Know Why a Prewar Dispute Divided Siblings Across Continents and Decades.” It is incredible to think that generations in a family didn’t speak to each other, and nobody can even remember why. If the subject of the dispute wasn’t even worth remembering, was it really worth dividing a family for generations?

In contrast, you have likely heard the tragic story of a young Chassidic couple, Nachman and Raizy Glauber, who were killed in a hit-and-run accident on Sunday in NY. Raizy was six months pregnant with their first son, who died Monday, a day after being delivered. Later this week, a letter emerged that Nachman had written to his parents on his wedding day to express his gratitude for all that they had done to bring him to that day. Here is the letter translated from Yiddish:

To my dear parents:

In these imminent joyous and highly spiritual moments of my life, when I’m heading to my chupa to begin my own family, I feel a sting in my heart that I’m already leaving your warm home.

I feel an obligation to thank you for everything you did for me since I was a small child. You did not spare time, energy and money, whether it was when I needed a private tutor to learn or an eye doctor or general encouragement. Also, later on, you helped me to succeed in my Torah studies, you sent me to yeshiva to learn your values, religious and worldly, until I reached to this current lucky moment.

Even though I’m leaving your home (actually I’m not leaving, I’m bringing in an additional family member) I want to tell you that all the education and values you taught me I’ll – with God’s help — take along with me in my new home, and continue to plant the same education in my home and kids that God will grant me.

But since kids do not grasp what parents are, and how much they do for them, and only when he matures and – with God’s help — have their own kids, they could realize it. And unfortunately I may have caused you a lot of pain; I am asking you to please forgive me.

I’m asking you, I’m dependent on your prayers, pray for me and my bride, and I will pray for you.

I pray to God that Daddy and Mommy should see lots of pride and delight from me and my special bride, until the final redemption of the Messiah.

From your son who admires and thanks you and will always love you.

Nachman.

One family inherited a decades-old fight while another was reminded of a precious letter filled with love, communicated during the prime of their son’s life, simply because he wanted them to know how he felt.

Let’s not wait until it is too late. You don’t need to be saying viduy on your deathbed to repair relationships, communicate with those you love, or get your spiritual affairs in order. Take a lesson from Nachman Glauber and do it today.

This past week, Yocheved and I had the honor of participating in the Bar Mitzvah of a fantastic young man, the son of one of our newest members. When I walked in to the simcha, the father came over to me and said, “What is the Rabbi’s schedule, when does the Rabbi need to leave and when should we have the Rabbi speak?”

To be honest, I had no clue what he was talking about or to whom he was addressing his questions. Which Rabbi, I thought to myself. I don’t know his schedule, ask him. And then I realized that he was talking about me, but was doing so in third person. I was taken aback and frankly was terribly uncomfortable being addressed in that fashion. Third person should be reserved for brilliant Torah scholars, truly righteous individuals, famous Roshei Yeshiva and Roshei Kollel, I thought to myself.

It was greatly tempting to correct him and to instruct him not to refer to me in that manner any further, but instead to speak to me directly in a casual and comfortable way. I stopped myself from correcting him, not because I enjoy the honor, but because I recognized that he was trying to practice and teach his children an important principle, kavod ha’Rav, honoring Rabbis, and who am I to deny him that opportunity.

Believe it or not, that conversation wasn’t the greatest display of kavod ha’Rav that I saw this week. On Wednesday, Rabbi Moskowitz and I had a meeting with someone from the community. Midway through the meeting, I noticed that he was wearing a suit and tie and I didn’t remember ever seeing him in such formal attire before. I asked him about it and his response blew me away. He said in anticipation of meeting with the Rabbis, he bought a suit and he is now excited because he will have it for Shabbos as well.

Deference, respect and honor for authority figures in general, and for Rabbis in particular, seems to be an increasingly lost art. I can already hear the responses: Rabbis need to earn respect and act in a way that deserves it. Today’s Rabbi is more like a friend than a Rabbi and that is why people are so casual with him. Why are Rabbis so egocentric and narcissistic that they need people’s honor?

Perhaps there is merit to all of these responses. To be clear, I love feeling close to the members of our community and feel no lack of kavod ha’Rav. As a Rabbi, I personally try to take what I do seriously, but never take myself too seriously. I share these reflections not because of anything my colleagues or I need, but because of something our children desperately need.

Imagine the difference between a child who observes his or her parent talk to the Rabbi in third person and one who hears their parent talk about the Rabbi in disparaging terms. Consider the impact on a child of watching their parent gravitate towards Rabbinic or Torah personalities instead of away from them.

One of the worst messages a parent can send is to learn from a sefer while a Rabbi is speaking, answer text messages during a dvar Torah, or walk out altogether because the Rabbis words are so useless that schmoozing in the lobby is a more valuable use of time.

In contrast, a great gift a parent can give a child, in my opinion, is the tradition of going to say good Shabbos to the Rabbi, a teacher from school or the principal at the end of davening on every Friday night. Model for and train children to stand when a Torah scholar, male or female, walks in the room. Never speak negatively about Rabbis and Jewish educators and indeed, always seek to defend their honor. Don’t casually call Rabbis and Jewish educators by their first names in front of them or in their absence. No matter how they may introduce themselves to you, always use their title and thereby honor what it stands for and represents.

Our community is blessed to have some incredible Torah personalities and role models. Some of them are in education, others in outreach, some work with youth, some teach, some write, and some are retired. Let’s bring back the art of kavod ha’Rav, honor, respect and deference for those associated with Torah learning and teaching. Let’s not do it for them. Let’s do it for the impact it will have on us, on our children and on our community.

I was leaving Shul after davening Shacharis one recent morning when an older gentleman in our community stopped me and asked if I had a minute to talk. The truth was, I barely had time to say hello let alone entertain an entire conversation.  I had intentionally “snuck” out of Shul so I could rush somewhere that I needed to be.  But, he seemed so happy to run into me in the parking lot that morning and so I couldn’t say no. At the time I felt somewhat annoyed being delayed, but by the end of the conversation I couldn’t help but feel incredibly fortunate and blessed to have run into him that morning.  He shared with me a most remarkable story that changed not only the way I see him as an individual, but also the way I relate to people in general.

A few days before this chance encounter between just the two of us, we had sat on the floor together with many others reading Kinnos, Lamentations commemorating the tragic suffering of our people throughout the ages.  In my introduction to the Kinah composed by Yirmiyahu HaNavi for Yoshiyahu, I shared an insight of Rav Soloveitchik.  Why, asked the Rav, do we pause in our mourning for millions of Jewish martyrs throughout the millennia, to focus on the story of a particular individual?   He explained that when we reflect on the magnitude of the loss of Jewish lives throughout our history, the sheer number is overwhelming and staggering.  Indeed, paradoxically, the greater the quantity of individuals lost, the more challenging the quality of our sense of grief for them. The Rav felt that we dedicate an entire Kinnah to Yoshiyahu, a single individual, to remember that the loss of millions is really the loss of one plus one plus one plus one.  Each person is unique and irreplaceable.  Each loss equals the loss of an entire world.

I continued by relaying a personal experience from leading March of the Living, a tour for teenagers of Poland and Israel.   One of the most powerful points of the trip is the visit to the death camp, Majdanek.  From the intact barracks to the enormous pit of human ash, touring Majdanek is simply devastating.  One of the most stirring images of the entire trip is a barrack in Majdanek filledwith shoes that were confiscated from Jewish prisoners.  When you enter the barracks, all you see are shoes everywhere.

We encouraged the students not to look at all of the shoes together.  Instead, we told them, pick out one shoe to focus on.  Gaze at it.  Who was its owner?  How did they feel when they bought those shoes and when they slipped them on for the first time?   Where did these shoes lead them?  Recognize that each shoe was worn by a person who had a mother and father and perhaps a spouse and children.  They had a personality, dreams, ambitions, and goals.  All of it was tragically cut down and all that is left to commemorate them is the shoe that is before you.

Standing in the parking lot a few mornings later, the elderly man reminded me of my remarks and told me that he must share a story.  He proceeded to say that when he was a young child he was taken, together with his family, to Auschwitz.   His brothers and father were taken one direction and he was ordered to go a different one. He found himself in a room with other children and elderly people.  The Nazis instructed them to take off their shoes and undress.  There was one older man who was wearing the most magnificent, fancy, expensive shoes.  He went up to the guard and said, “I won’t leave my shoes here, they are my prize possession.” The guard’s laughed and said, “do you think where you are going you are going to need shoes” and commanded him to undress.

Our member continued by telling me that even as a young child, when he heard the guard’s laugh and his unforgettable words, he thought to himself, dos iz nisht gut, this is not good, and instinctively ran, avoiding all of the guards, until he rejoined his brothers and father.   Looking back all these years later, he confessed, he doesn’t know how he made it from one barracks to another without being caught or seen or how he was able to blend in with the grown up men as a young boy.  But, he said, the only reason he survived is because of that man’s fancy pair of shoes and the fact that he wouldn’t part with them.

I walked away from the conversation that morning feeling so small, utterly insignificant, and frankly somewhat embarrassed.  Until that morning, this man, whom I have always tried to be friendly towards, was nothing more than ordinary to me.  True he had an accent and likely had a “story.”  But, he modestly blends in and quietly goes about his business as if he has led the most mundane, uneventful life when in truth his life, was anything but.

If you look around you on a regular basis, there are seemingly ordinary people who in fact have led the most extraordinary lives.  This shy, humble, quiet man had displayed unfathomable courage, tenacity and strength in his life.  His attendance at davening every day of the week is in truth an enormous expression of faith and devotion to the Almighty, despite the hardships, tragedy and loss that he has confronted.

All too often, we only learn the background of a person when it is too late to ask them questions.  We walk away from their funeral inspired, impressed, but also curious to learn more.   With their loss goes their story as only they could tell it, the answers to our questions and the solutions to that which peaks our curiosity.

Last week I learned that a man I had considered an “average Joe,” was indeed a mighty hero.   Let’s not wait until it is too late to learn other people’s stories.  Be inquisitive, ask questions, and most importantly recognize that behind most ordinary people are extraordinary experiences that we can all learn from, if only we take a moment to ask.

But there is another lesson that strikes me during this Olympic season and it too is applicable to our lives. Most of us tend to devalue time. Young people think that they will live forever and have endless amounts of time before them. Older people sometimes feel that the prime of their lives is over and spend the days trying to pass the time. Contemporary society has even developed an idiom “killing time.” Technology has made this task easier as we can pass the hours mindlessly surfing the web, playing on our smart phones or flipping the channels.

From a Jewish perspective killing time is a crime tantamount to murder, only when you do it, you are both the perpetrator and the victim simultaneously. Time is among the most precious commodities that we have. Once it has passed, it cannot be recovered. If it is wasted, it cannot be made up. There is a limited amount of it allocated to each one of us and with every passing second we come closer to emptying our account. As badly as we would like to slow it down sometimes, or speed it up at others, we cannot control time as it moves along at a steady pace entirely beyond our controller manipulation.

Each moment of our lives is precious and pregnant with possibility. We have the choice to fill our time with noble pursuits like helping others, improving ourselves, challenging our minds, developing our souls, caring for our bodies, or connecting with family and friends. Or, God forbid, we can allow time to pass without anything meaningful, squandered, wasted and unused.

As endless and limitless as time may seem in our lives, in truth every single moment counts. There is no place that we see the value of every second more poignantly than the Olympics. Athletes train their entire lives building up to this moment. Whether diving into a pool or pushing off the starting line of the track, everything they have worked for comes down to this. Races are often decided in the fraction of a second. The difference between qualifying or staying home, winning a medal or simply showing, being celebrated or a forgotten can be a millisecond.

Not only must we make every day in our lives count, every hour, every minute and as the Olympics teaches us, every millisecond matters, and can make or break us. If we combine all those milliseconds that we waste, we can find the time we think we don’t have, to pursue noble endeavors and to achieve our goals, aspirations and dreams.

A Jew once asked Rav Yisroel Salanter “if I only have fifteen minutes a day to learn, what should I learn, Chumash, Gemara, Navi or Halacha?” Rav Yisroel answered – “Learn Mussar, character development, and you will realize that you have much more than fifteen minutes a day to learn.”

Every Moment Is Precious (Author Anonymous) –

To realize the value of ONE YEAR

Ask a student who has failed his exam.

To realize the value of ONE MONTH

Ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of ONE WEEK

Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize the value of ONE DAY

Ask a daily wage laborer who has ten kids to feed.

To realize the value of ONE HOUR

Ask those waiting for a loved one in surgery

To realize the value of ONE MINUTE

Ask the person who missed the train.

To realize the value of ONE SECOND

Ask a person who has survived an accident.

To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND Ask the person who won a “silver” medal in the Olympics.

Take advantage of every moment and be a champion at whatever you aspire to do.

Last Shabbos, I began my sermon by quoting noted Psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen’s 18-40-60 rule. He says when you are 18, you worry about what everyone is thinking about you.  When you are 40, you could care less what everyone thinks about you.  And then you turn 60 and you realize that all along, nobody was thinking about you.

Well, perhaps that rule doesn’t apply to Rabbis. This past week alone I have heard of three separate rumors regarding my family and me. Firstly, I heard that I accepted a job in Washington D.C. and will be announcing it shortly.  False.  I love my job and have no interest in any other.  Secondly, I attended an ORB meeting that began by my colleagues asking me if the rumor that I am starting a new Kosher supervision is true.  After laughing, I told them of course it is not.  The most popular rumor going around is that I am leaving this week on a year Sabbatical to Israel.  Not true.  I am leaving for my annual summer vacation and I will be back before you or I know it.

Each year, like so many of you, I eagerly look forward to my summer vacation.  Used properly, a vacation is not only an opportunity to take a break from the rigors of work, but it provides tremendous learning and growing opportunities.  In fact, it can be said that how we use our vacation and what we do in our down time not only reveals much about our priorities, but has a huge impact on our children as well.

Every day in Shema we recite “v’sheenantam levanecha v’dibarta bam,” teach your children and speak about Torah, “b’shivtecha b’veisecha u’velechtecha ba’derach,” when you are sitting at home and when you are traveling on the way.    I once heard a very powerful interpretation.  We certainly teach our children Torah through the words we say and the messages we articulate.  But even more so, we teach them through our actions and behaviors b’shivtecha b’veisecha, what we do when we are at home, and b’lechtecha ba’derech, when we are out of our homes, traveling on the road, enjoying a vacation.

When we are on vacation with our families, do they still see us davening three times a day and making every effort to attend minyan?  Do they see us making time to learn, study and read?  Are we able to truly disconnect and spend quality time with those that we love in meaningful, memorable ways?

The summer is not only a time for us as adults to rejuvenate, revitalize and refresh.  The break represents an amazing, often neglected opportunity for our children to grow as well.  In fact, I would humbly submit to you that the 2 months in between school is as important and significant in molding and shaping a child as the 10 months they attend school.

For ten months a year, children that attend Yeshiva Day School are well versed and familiar with the weekly parsha from school.  Do we make sure that they study the parshios that fall between June and August as well?   For ten months a year, our children begin each day by Davening to Hashem.  Do we make sure that they realize that davening is part of a Jew’s daily routine, whether they are in school, working, or on vacation? For ten months of the year, many children wear uniforms that reinforce the value of modesty.  In the two months that they are off, are we vigilant to make sure that their choice of clothing and dress sends the right message?

For ten months of the year, our children are stimulated intellectually and challenged academically to think, read and study.  For the two months that they are off from school, do we allow them to be off from thinking and growing intellectually as well or do we challenge them to read for fun, explore their interests and expand their minds?  The down time and ability to have fun and be kids is critical to their development.  But, it doesn’t mean we should be indifferent to our kids spending their summer playing video games and watching tv and movies.

As I head off on my summer vacation, not Sabbatical, I want to wish all of you a healthy, happy, safe and super productive summer.