A Word from the Director: 3/4/2011

This week has been rather challenging. One of our students whom we were close with for many years tragically passed away. Any death is difficult but he was young and had his whole life ahead of him. As you can imagine, the family is going through immense pain and grief. He was a very unhealthy kid. And we tried with in so many different avenues. And the hours we spent supporting the family all we can say was that we tried to be there for the kid and for his parents. At the end of the day, the mantra that rings through my head multiple times a day is that we cannot help somebody who is not ready to be helped. It is painful because naturally, we all want to help and fix problems but it is unfortunately not up to us. I would just like to add that when we see kids that we think are screwing up their lives, instead of us looking at them in a scornful way remember they are crying out to us and asking us to try to understand them and not to be scared of how they look and how they are behaving. I was at a seminar that discussed teenagers and they spoke about the girl that was acting out and all the teachers hating her for acting like a “slut”. Instead of hating her and blaming her find out why she is behaving that way and reach out to her, there is a reason why she is behaving accordingly.

In other news, we want to thank Brigitte Wintner for sponsoring a dinner for thirty-plus guys the other night. The boys were very touched and the food was awesome. If you would like to donate or sponsor a dinner, please let us know.

One of our boys who had taken an EMT course years ago took his test this week and passed. We are very excited about his accomplishment. After much nudging, he and I finally agreed to let him take my car to take the test.

The gym is looking awesome. The movers brought the machines this week and our dear Eliott Dolin stayed until after 8 pm last night to help the workers finish putting them together. We thank Eliott for his dedication.

We should hear only good news and simcha as Rosh Chodesh enters this week. Have a wonderful Shabbos!

Rabbi Gavriel Hershoff