December 7, 2012 / 23 Kislev 5773

Happy Chanukah!

In This Issue

Chanukah Adventures

Scavenger Hunt

DECA Wins Big at

Regionals

STAND Sleep-In

KCA's AIDS Awareness

Program

Egg Drop!

Susie Fishbein Comes

to CJHS

IFYC News

This Week in Sports

All-School Shabbaton

Refuah Shleimah

Maccabean Hijinks Come to CJHS

Students in the News

Alumni Trivia

A Taste of Torah

Save the Date

Sunday, Dec. 9 ACT Friday, Dec. 14 -

Saturday, Dec. 15 All School Shabbaton

Sunday, Dec. 23 -

Sunday, Jan. 6 Winter Break

Sunday, Jan. 6 -

Thursday, Jan. 24 Senior Israel Experience

Monday, Jan. 14 -

Friday, Jan. 18 Winter Exams Tuesday, Jan. 22 Second Semester Begins

P. O. Corner

Gelt Program The P.O. is pleased to once again introduce the gift card "Gelt program" to our families and we have made it much easier (look for upcoming email with details on how to register). Faculty and staff can also buy Gelt that will help to support programs provided for the school by the P.O. This program is designed to help families earn money toward their children's junior year Panim program and/or the Senior Israel Experience. The program is a passive earning system, in which you buy the things you ordinarily purchase anyway, and earn money which will be credited to your family for designated school trips. If you have any questions, contact Sheri Sandrof at ssandrof@cjhs.org or call her at

Tefillah on erev Chanukah was rudely interrupted by a posse of Greek gods, who ejected our duly appointed shaliach tzibbur from his place and attempted to set up a new reign of materialism,

image-consciousness, celebrity worship, and mass conformity. Fortunately for our community, the Maccabees were not too far away and banded together to oust the invaders in the name of spiritual life, social justice, gender equity, and the

freedom to answer to a higher power. Our brave Jewish lawyers hauled off Apollo for steroid use and Athena for election fraud, put Aphrodite in touch with her husband and his divorce attorney, and posted Zeus' address on the internet for all his ex-girlfriends to find. In the end, the golden sports trophies were cleaned out of our sanctuary and returned to their proper place in the hall, Steve Sacks located the Great Menorah in a supply closet when he went to practice the piano, the lights were kindled, and worship was restored to CJHS! Many thanks to our brave comedians Maya Behn, Alana Spellman, Melissa

Levin, Mira Sykes, Celia

Pivo, Jack Rubinstein, Yoni

Gabel, Gabe Wacks, Jordan

Jacobson, Ceren Maeir, and Daniel Fishbaum for the morning's hijinks, to our Greek gods and goddesses Aaron Zell, Maddy Mynatt, Rachel Rubinstein, Isaac Johnston, Rina Zell, and Jonathan Tupper, to our thunderous Mattityahu Nate Swetlitz, and to (who else?) Mrs. Eliaser for staging the show.

Hidden Lights

In hopes of a Chanukah miracle, students are searching high and low for the hidden candles which will illuminate our great menorah during the holiday week. Today's candle, the spark of gevurah, will hopefully light our hearts with the courage to assert our values in the face of overwhelming conformity. Keep an eye out next week for

847.324.3723.

Community News and Events

Hanukkah Party for Special Needs Families

Congregation Beth Shalom is hosting a Hanukkah party for children with special needs on Sunday, December 9 from 4:30 to 5:30. Everyone is welcome for an exciting afternoon filled with music, crafts, dreidel games, candle lighting, and storytelling. This fun filled celebration is free of charge to both CBS members and non members. To learn more about this special opportunity, click here. Contact Eli Castellano at 847.498.4100 to let us know if you can join us for this festive Hanukkah celebration.

Kivunim! Does an academic year spent studying, traveling and experiencing international Jewish cultures sound incredible? Do you know someone that would be interested in a gap year? Have you heard of Kivunim? Do you know Peter Geffen and the wonderful youth educational opportunities he has founded for the Jewish community? If any of these questions have sparked an interest in you or someone you know, we invite you to join us to learn more about Kivunim and meets its founder Peter Geffen. Tuesday, December 18, 7:00 p.m. The Spellman

sparks of tiferet, netzach, chesed, and tzedek!

Hail to the Champions

...No, not the Maccabees, but DECA, the CJHS business and entrepreneuring society, who returned victorious from the North Suburban DECA Regional meet on Tuesday! Over 1,100 students attended with 18 different local high schools represented. Our team of ten made quite an impression in their DECA debut: CJHS students took home 17 medals in all, with Benji Noy, Josh Aaronson, David Kosman, Joe Kupferberg, Adam Taitz, and Arthur

Sredni all earning medals (third place and higher) in one or more events. Josh Swatez, Larry Bender, Jacob

Erlichman, and Alon Spevak rounded out our strong showing, falling just shy of the podium in several events. DECA is a national organization whose mission is to develop

emerging business leaders and entrepreneurs in high schools. Many thanks to math teacher Mr. Jim Baumstark and social studies teacher Mr. Elliot Danko for leading our new DECA chapter on to victory!

Residence 4 Bridlewood Road Northbrook, IL 60062 RSVP to 847.370.6644 or Melissawspellman@gmail.com.

Sponsor Breakfast What's better than a birthday celebration with friends? Celebrate your student's birthday or other milestone with a special breakfast at CJHS. For a donation of $180 (10x chai), bagels, cream cheese, and orange juice will be served to everyone. An announcement will be made in Tefillah and in the dining hall, and the occasion will also be listed in our weekly E-News. If you have any questions, please call 847.324.3713 or email idrazin@cjhs.org. Order forms are available online here.

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STAND Sleep-In

This past Saturday night, CJHS STAND hosted our annual Sleep-In. STAND is an anti-genocide club which focuses on education, advocacy, and prevention. At the Sleep-In, we did just that over the course of the twelve hours we spent at school. We stayed up all night engaging in

powerful programs such as a UN Simulation where we rewrote the resolution from the 1946 Genocide Convention and participating in the One Million Bones project where we made clay bones

to be put on display in Washington D.C. to commemorate lives lost to

genocide in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia. We also heard the inspiring Malual Awak, a past Sud

anese refugee who now lives in Chicago working as a social worker, helping people like him adjust to life in America. Throughout the night we live-blogged, to allow people to keep up with what we were doing. Check it out at cjhsstand.blogspot.com! Thank you so much to everyone who attended the Sleep-In, helped plan programs, and participated. Thank you to our amazing teacher chaperones: Ms. Frankel, Rabbi Robkin, Mr. Marchenko, Señora Linda, Mr. Scher, and Coach Cogan, and a huge thank you to Dr. Schorsch for staying all night and helping with all of our logistics! Thank you to our security guards and to Mr. Kosarev and Mr. Burda for helping with all of the logistics of the event! And of course, thank you to the STAND president, Nate

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Swetlitz who truly allowed the program to be so successful. He put in countless hours of work to make sure that everything ran as smoothly as it did, and we cannot thank him enough.

KCA and AIDS Awareness Week

It's AIDS Awareness Week around the world, and CJHS's Keep a Child Alive group has been busily papering the school to keep us up to date on the epidemic that is sweeping the world. On Tuesday, KCA members welcomed all students at the door and handed out wristbands, bumper stickers, and other informative pamphlets about the crucial situation of AIDS. On Wednesday during lunch, they presented a documentary about the devastating effects that HIV/AIDS has on women, marriage, and the society as a whole. For more information, talk to Hillel Schwartz or Tali Shapiro.

Egg Drop!

"Is that the cheer of victory or the groan of defeat, or merely the sound of shouting in the halls?" It's the annual physics class egg drop, when Mrs. Eliaser's 40 students apply their knowledge of

collisions and impulse to protecting a raw egg in a 25-foot fall off the school balcony. Friends, siblings, and teachers amassed to see

the fun. David Kosman and Aaron Drexler showcased their rocket-shaped tripod, theorizing that astronauts know better than anyone the meaning of a "soft landing"; meanwhile, Alena Burda, Sara Splansky, and Naly Krishtal made a cubical frame to suspend the egg as far away from the impact zone as possible, hoping to shield it from damage.

In the spirit of the morning's events, several teams were seen praying before launching the results of two week's work. In the end, eight teams were successful and held up their undamaged eggs to the raucous cheers and the, "O-o-o-o-ohhh!" chant of supportive senior veterans.

The traditional conga-line of victory wove its way around the first floor rotunda as the victorious teams disassmebled their cases and displayed their uncracked eggs to curious underclassmen. "Cleanup in aisle five!" and a consolatory brunch of scrambled eggs consoled the six teams whos designs did not hold up as planned. Congratulations to all the juniors who participated in this year's phenomenal showcase!

Save the Date

The ever-popular Susie Fishbein is back at CJHS! Space is limited and the event is quickly filling up, so get your reservations in today. Email Melissa Spellman to register.

IFYC

On Thursday, CJHS students joined students from Loyola Academy at the Universal School for the second IFYC event of the year. Again, students left inspired by their peers, learning new perspectives about Islam and Christianity, and being pushed in their own faith as Jews. The conversation revolved around questions about God: Who God is to you; what does religion say about God; and the relationship between human beings and God. Everyone is quite excited for the joint service projects that will occur over Martin Luther King Weekend.

Alumni Trivia

Which Team Lifeline veteran and CJHS alumnus is now running the Interfaith Steering Group on his college campus? Can't guess? Dinnae fash yerself, yer given it laldy!

This Week in Sports

The Tigers are back on the court! The Lady Tigers took on Northtown Academy and Providence St. Mel, losing a heartbreaker to Ida Crown last night by one point! Meanwhile, men's varsity basketball lost a tough

game to Gordon Tech on Tuesday, but came back the next night to beat Christ the King 62-48 to improve to 2-0 in the Chicago Prep Conference standings. Josh Newlander had 20 points, 9 rebounds, and 9 assists. The sophomores were not far behind, also racking up a

win against Christ the King, while the freshman team tried their mettle against Gordon Tech and Northridge Prep. After you've lit candles, come watch varsity play motzei Shabbat at Westminster Christian!

Guest Physicist Comes to Speak

Over 40 students came to hear Mr. Aaron Kolom address QuarkNet and the combined physics classes this Monday about gravity, relativity, Doppler radiation, and the Big Bang, using his considerable knowledge of these subjects to make an argument in favor of the six days of creation--at least as viewed from a non-human frame of reference. Mr. Kolom came to us with over 50 years of experience in aerospace engineering, where he was a stress analyst for numerous military aircraft and assistant chief engineer of the space shuttle program. He is proud to daven at CJHS in the mornings when he is visiting his grandson, social studies teacher Mr. Elliot Danko. Thanks to Mr. Danko for bringing his Pop-Pop to speak!

Va'ad Vogue Guest Speaker

Va'ad Vogue welcomed Ms. Miriam Kaufman, aunt to CJ fashionista Becca Cohn, who came to talk to the Va'ad Vogue about the fashion business. Ms. Kaufman used to own a clothing line called Milu. She talked about what the industry was like and how she got started. She brought photos and actual garments as well. Thanks for coming, Ms. Kaufman!

All-School Shabbaton

Come to the CJHS Winter Shabbaton, on Dec. 14-15! Occurring over Chanukah, the theme for the Shabbaton will be "One Candle, Many Lights: Finding Your Individual Voice within the Community." The Shabbaton will include time to be with friends across all of the grades, celebrating Shabbat communally and also participating in the themed programming. We will spend Shabbat at camp Henry Horner and will then have a Saturday night activity at the roller skating rink in Mundelein, IL. The bus will return to school between 9:30 pm and 10 pm on Saturday night.

Submit to The Prints

It's not too late to submit to The Prints! We accept artwork, poetry, prose, photography, you name it! The submission deadline has been extended, as per request, to January 28-- a week later for seniors. Start creating and submitting now! Submittotheprints@gmail.com; if your handcrafted work needs to be photographed,

please contact Betty Shklover.

Bikkur Cholim

CJHS sends electronic hugs and wishes for a refuah shleimah to Sra. Lee Weisman, who is still ensconced at Whitehall Nursing Facilities of Deerfield. Sra. Weisman is not quite up to visitors yet, but cards sent to Whitehall at 300 Waukegan Road, Deerfield, IL 60015 will be most gratefully received. We miss you, señora!

Students in the News

Congratulations to pianist Natalie Nedvetsky, whose recent WFMT debut is now available here. We are very proud of Natalie and her many musical accomplishments and wish her continued success. We hope that our community enjoys her incredible interview and performance.

Alumni Trivia

Jeremy Hipps ('10) is now a junior majoring in psychology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He can tell you that "Dinnae fash yerself," means don't trouble yourself, "Given it laldy," means giving it your best, and if, "Your Jaket's on a skiggly peg," you're definitely on thin ice. He's the second team captain of the badminton team and the vice president of the Jewish Student Society, with whom he has worked to set up the Interfaith Steering Group, to host interfaith events and be the go-to group regarding equality and respecting religious diversity. Jeremy reports, "Saint Andrews continues to amaze me. Originally, I came to this school thinking there would be no Jewish students. However, there are and they are all great people. We have a close community, and all the Jews on campus know and recognize each other. It's great."

A Taste of Torah: Vayeshev

Amazingly enough, the lighting of the chanukiah is the only mitzvah that inherently requires it to be a public one. Essential to the festival is the publicity of the miracle (known in the Talmud as pirsumei nisa). We can focus on this reality by focusing on the second blessing over the chanukah lights: Blessed are You, Hashem our God, who performed miracles for our ancestors, in

those days, in our time. The Talmud explains the purpose of this blessing (Bavli Shabbat 21a):

R. Chiya b. Ashi said: He who lights the chanukah lamp must pronounce a blessing; R. Yermiah said he who sees the chanukah lamp must pronounce a blessing. Rav Yehuda said: On the first day, he who sees must pronounce two (blessings), and he who lights must pronounce three blessings; thereafter, he who lights pronounces two, and he who sees pronounces one.... Yet should the (blessing over the) 'miracle' (she'asah nisim) be omitted (for merely seeing, and not lighting)? No. The miracle occurred each day.

It is significant that the second blessing is not directly related to doing anything. One recites the blessing merely by passing by the lights. The Talmud continues that candles should be lit from sunset to when people are no longer walking in the marketplace. Thus, the essential role of the candles is for them to be seen - when people are no longer outside, their purpose is diminished. As we walk by the lights, we become further aware of the mitzvah, of the miracles, both for our ancestors in their days, and in our days, as well. Through the tangible, there is opportunity to grasp the existential. May our candles light up the night during

this darkest time of year, bringing light into the world, and publicizing the miracles both of the past and in our lives right now. --Rav Beit Sefer Zachary Silver

Shabbat Shalom

Candlelighting this Friday night will be at 4:03 p.m., and Saturday night will begin the Festival of Lights. Shabbat shalom, and happy Chanukah!