ב”ה

April 24, 2020
30 Nisan, 5780

Dear Parents,

This week has been a tough one to spend apart.

Yom Hashoah, perhaps the most solemn day of our calendar, was observed on Monday night. Many Associated families were personally touched by the Holocaust. Many of our students are great-grandchildren of Survivors who were able to build the foundations of a new Jewish life in North America, that we are all the beneficiaries of.

A few weeks ago, on Pesach, we were given the directive to incorporate memory into our identities: b’khol dor v’dor, chayav adam lir’ot et atzmo k’ilu hu yatza miMitzrayim. In every generation, each person must see themselves as if they personally exited Egypt.

Remembrance is a core Jewish value. But our remembering is not one of cold intellectual distance. It is a warm, personal, and experiential undertaking. And so we wish we could have held our assembly in person.

This coming Monday night marks Yom Hazikaron. Again, many of our students are descendants of those who personally took part in establishing and settling the State of Israel. And all of our students are taught to personally identify with our people’s national homeland.

This value of remembrance is a deceptively simple concept. We not only passively reflect on the past, but internalize the memory and associated values, to help us model our behaviour in the present and direct us toward action in the future.

We remember where we came from, in order that our actions in the present and the future be imbued with our identity, with an understanding of our heritage, and, most of all, with care for those around us.

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov,

Ora Shulman
Head of School