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How many students disturb their teacher on the first day of school?
Not many.
How many forget their notebooks, ignore their homework, scribble irritably on the geometry book, in the first week of the school year?
Very few.
No child enjoys failing. Everyone starts out the year full of hope, with great expectations to succeed and excel.
This year, on the 1st of Elul, before the beginning of the year for school and yeshivah, Gadol Hador Harav Hatzaddik Gershon Edelstein Shlita is dedicating a special Tefilah to the success of the children of Vaad Harabbanim’s donors who are beginning a new year of school and yeshivah.
That their current excitement and motivation should continue unabated. That the shine in their eyes should always be there, that the drive to succeed should reap sweet fruits.
A pile of sandwiches is ready on the kitchen counter. Two big suitcases are standing at the door and caring mothers are pushing in another package of cookies of the kind that the child likes, and an additional bottle of shampoo, so there will be enough. They wipe away a tear without noticing it. The child is traveling to his yeshivah, and they already miss him.
The four-year-old girl asks for two braids in honor of the first day. The first grader already shouldered his school bag and is looking at himself in the mirror. An stiff line is ironed into the sleeve of the school uniform, Pencil cases are fully equipped with high-quality writing utensils. The books and notebooks are carefully wrapped, the scent of new paper wafts from them and fills the nostrils with sweet freshness.
Our children are beginning a new year of school and yeshiva. The kindergarteners and the primary school girls, the cheder boys, the seminary girls and the yeshivah bachurim.
We are breathing the fresh air of the new year and our heart is bursting with tefilos.
Please, Abba in Heaven, accompany our children throughout the coming year. Smooth out the way before them, grant them the best opportunities.
How our heart beats when we send them to school and yeshivah! We have very little control over what happens inside the walls of the school and yeshivah. Will our children understand what they are studying? Will they get along with the educational staff? Will they feel comfortable with their peers?
Our children will begin school and yeshivah for the year of 5783 with the Tefilos of Moreinu Harav Hagaon Gershon Edelstein Shlita! He will daven for them that they should leave happily in the morning and come back full, satisfied and fulfilled, that they should get good grades and develop midos tovos and yiras Shamayim.
We parents are so concerned about them. We yearn for things to be good for them and go right for them. That they should enjoy their learning, that their teacher should be pleased with them, that they should be pleased with their teacher. That they should make friends who treat them well and keep away from those who seek to do them harm.
We feel our children’s mood. We keep in contact with the educational staff, we pay a visit ourselves to make sure everything is okay with them. We keep track of their books and notebooks, we help them study for tests, we send them for supplementary lessons if the need arises…