Page 8 - Sinai_Season of SINAI Stories 2021-self cover.indd

My SINAI Education:

As someone who never attended SINAI

by Tzvi Solomon

My parents did not send From: Tzvi Solomon
me to Torah Academy of To: Dad; Mom
Bergen County (TABC) for
high school because TABC Subject: How I almost cried at Davening this morning
hosted a SINAI school. Brandon is in SINAI. His body shakes and when he talks the words come out
But the life lessons that I almost in a total blur. Today I walked into shul and Brandon's father and
learned from going to high brother were sitting with him. When it came time for Torah laining Brandon
school together with SINAI put on a Tallis and started laining. Instantly there was quiet, all you could
students were profound hear was this beautiful trup being read. Suddenly, Brandon’s identity as a
and had as much impact "SINAI" kid vanished. He was a "normal" kid reading from the Torah just like
on me as anything I learned kids do. Looking around the shul and watching the TABC Rabbis and
in class. students smile as he was reading the Torah was incredible.
Growing up, my parents Students were shaking Brandon’s hand and you could hear Yasher Koach
had instilled in my sisters being echoed throughout the shul.
and me that kindness Had to share this story with you this morning, couldn’t wait until tonight.
Tzvi with a painting made for him by a was always of paramount
SINAI student importance. They taught Have a great day,
by example, and we learned Tzvi
from their constant acts of chesed. A second value that we talked This email encapsulates my SINAI education. Initially, it may have
about at home is that people with disabilities have no less human seemed like an act of chesed to call Brandon up to the Torah. But he
worth—and deserve no less respect—than any other person. But belonged up there as much as any of us.
growing up I was never really friends with anyone who had a
noticeable disability. So this second value was mostly theoretical
to me—until I got to TABC.

Every day at TABC, I walked the halls with boys who had disabilities
that were pretty easy to spot. As a freshman I watched how the older
TABC students behaved around the SINAI students. They would high-
five the SINAI boys as they passed each other, or help a SINAI student
who was agitated over losing his backpack to look for it. The
atmosphere seemed to be filled with kindness.
So I figured, ok, this is an opportunity to do chesed, and I started to
strike up conversations with the SINAI boys, to be nice to them. But
then, slowly my perspective began to change. I realized that I
genuinely enjoyed hanging out with these boys, that they weren’t
really that different from me after all.
Max, one of the SINAI students, was on the basketball team with Tzvi's SINAI friends davening circa 2007
me. The significance of the message it sent to all of us to have a I learned a lot in high school, but so much of what really matters in
SINAI student on a competitive sports team was powerful. The life I learned from my high school friends at SINAI. They showed me
determination it took Max to make what so many would consider an what can be accomplished with hard work and determination, and
easy layup, trying once, twice, three times, and often times not what it means to go out of your comfort zone. Whenever I am feeling
making a single basket that night. Yet, unwilling to be deterred, challenged, I think back to the guys I knew in high school who worked
he would set out to try again. so hard to accomplish what might have been so simple for me,
The teaching moment for me came when I realized that having Max whether it was having an Aliyah at davening, or sinking a basket at a
on the team may have appeared like an act of chesed, but it was game, or just making eye contact and saying hi to a friend in the
actually an important part of Max’s education, and an even more hallway. The SINAI students I went to school with are my role models.
important part of mine. As I got to know Max, I came to understand They faced their challenges head on, and they never gave up. They
that he craved the same team comradery that all of us did, and changed how I look at the world, and I am so grateful that I had the
benefitted just as I did from the discipline and from learning about opportunity to spend my high school years with them.
team play. That’s when I realized that Max wasn’t an object of chesed,
and he was no longer the “other.” He was a high school student. I was Tzvi Solomon lives in New Milford, New Jersey with his wife Erica and sons Matthew
a high school student. He was my teammate. He was my friend. and Caleb. He is a Vice President at Goldman Sachs, and a member of SINAI’s
Executive Committee and Board of Directors. His dedication to SINAI is the direct
Purely by coincidence, my mom recently found this email which I result of his high school years at TABC, and the friendships he made with the SINAI
sent to my parents when I was a junior in 2007: students there.