Every time we walk away from something Jewish, we lose a little of ourselves, sometimes without realizing it. It doesn’t have to be that way. Just as many of us have chosen to walk further away, so can we come … Read More
Character
The Final Countdown
By Melissa Michaelson, Principal It’s the final countdown of the school year. With the end at arm’s reach, our children show signs of excitement, spring fever, “senioritis,” and even separation anxiety. No matter the emotion, it’s important for us as … Read More
Expecting Gold, Finding Silver
By Melissa Michaelson, Principal If we always expect gold out of our children, or from those who surround them, we will forever miss the opportunity to see the silver linings in life. As Steve Freedman stated in last week’s blog, … Read More
Closing Thoughts Part I- Place Some Trust in Your Children
We are living in a strange time for parenting. It seems every month another book comes out about over-parenting and its consequences. In short, over-parenting involves micro-managing your child’s life, hovering, and attempting to prevent your child from any physical … Read More
The Urgent Question: Who Am I?
Yogi Bera once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” That has not stopped innumerable people, from all walks of life, from predicting what the future will be for our children when they are grown. A day … Read More
Utopia or Dystopia?
Hardly a week goes by that I don’t come across an analysis that either warns of how automation and Artificial Intelligence are going to wreak havoc on humanity or how they will solve all of humanity’s problems. Either way, our … Read More
You’ve Got To be Carefully Taught 2.0
I originally wrote this blog in 2015, and feel it is necessary to update and share again within the context of the violence of these last several weeks in Pittsburgh, Tallahassee, Thousand Oaks, and this week in Israel. It is … Read More
The “Eulogy Virtues”
A current parent who has a sophomore in college shared with me that she and her husband received a Hillel tribute from their college-aged son. The tribute stated: “In honor of my parents for giving me an education beyond compare, … Read More
A Man Who Dared Greatly! (And What We Can Learn from Him)
This is not the blog I expected to write the first week of school. However, the death – and life – of Senator John McCain is so significant to me that I felt compelled to write about him; not about … Read More
It’s Called Growing Up
This is a story about a man who married his childhood sweetheart, and soon after the marriage began, a series of journeys influenced his world view. Soon after marriage, his mother-in–law became very ill, and four years later, at the … Read More