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DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE

Friday, October 14, 1541

Page Three

SHEMINI ATZERETH SERMON:

Yizkor Prayer Implies a Belief in Afterlife

111

The following is an excerpt
from a sermon, "Two Worlds,"
preached by Rabbi Joshua Sper-
ka of Congregation Bnai David
on Shemini Atzereth:
TO SAY YIZKOR is to imply
a belief in two worlds—a world
of those who remember and a
world of those who are remem-
bered.
Our existence is a matter of
fact. Their existence a matter of
faith. We have our existence in
this world—which today we
would appropriately denote, a
Succah—like life. Those who arc
remembered have their exis-
tence, as the Yizkor service
teaches us, in the bond of eter-
nal life.
Immortality of the soul and
life in a world to come is a
cardinal principle of our re-
ligion. I therefore ask, Is Yiskor
a routine recitation, a residue
of our ancient ritual, a part of a
mechanical pattern of an estab-
lished service? Or is this service
a part of a mystical pattern
linking two worlds, a reminder
of the indestructible lives of the

past, refreshing our spirit with
golden moments of parental in-
fluence, believing not in the
skeleton but the structure of
eternal life?

• • •

Noroim we remain unrespon-1
sive to a call of loyalty; when
during the month of Jewish ed-
ucation we remain unmoved to-
ward our duty of religious

I ASK MYSELF why are we
preaching about Olom Haboh
(world to come) to a genera-
tion that can plan an atomic
war, a time that could produce
a Hitler; a human race that
would refuse aid to the sur-
vivors of the bloodiest catastro-
phe, when Jewish refugees are
returned from Palestine to' Ger-
many, is set on destroying this
world.
Nor have we as yet built this
world if we set up law denying
haven to strangers because they
are aliens and shelter to our
own because we have a "hous-
ing problem." As long as we
practice race hatred, perpetuate
poverty and produce inequality
our world is far from perfect.

• • •

WE AS A PEOPLE have also
failed in our Olom Hazeh. When
during the month of Yomim

Personal Problems

Why Some Children
Dislike School Sifted

Apathy to Class Work Is a Symptom
of Mental or Social Maladjustment

By W. A. GOLDBERG, Ph. D.

RABBI JOSHUA SPERKA

instruction of our children;
when during this month we re-
main untouched by a dire need
of our people, so disgracefully
so that we even failed in a fi-
nancial campaign. of the United
Jewish Appeal, then we too
have to set our house in order .

this universe.
Do you wonder why an indi-
vidual or a people with such
distorted philosophy will pur-
sue power, prestige and pleas-
ure? Why should such persons
share and sacrifice?
However, one who truly be-
lieves in a future life must ac-
cept the precept that there is
one God who created us all and
that all men are the children
of God. This implied divinity
and dignity of man must bring
a sense of regard for ones fel-
low man. The implied immor-
tality of man must bring ' to its
believer a sense of eternity. The
divine duty of man becomes
clear.

Why then talk about Olom
Haboh? For I am deeply con-
vinced that we failed in our
Olom Hazels because of our at-
titude towards Olom Halioh.
For the philosophy one holds
about a future life necessarily
colors and effects one's view
and way of this life. If one
holds to a one world concept
and that the grave is the end '
• • •
of man, he will live without re-
gard to hi• fellow man and
NOT GOLD NOR SILVER
without responsibility to give
an account of his deeds to God. nor precious goods of the
world accompany man to his
• • •
Creator but Mitzvoss U' Moosim
LIFE THEN IS robbed of its Tovim. . . .
divinity, its sanctity and dig-
It behooves us to defy dust
nity. There is no plan and no and death by a humble faith in
purpose. The world turns into God and by our deeds of kind-
a cosmic stupidity. There is ness, fairness and righteousness
neither worth nor wonder in to Man.

World to See Plain Talk
Better Days, Prophets Teach Us
Glueck Says Goodwill to All Races

CINCINNATI—In the first ad-
dress he has delivered at the
Hebrew Union College in his ca-
pacity as president of that Re-
form Jewish seminary, Dr. Nelson
Glueck last Saturday sounded a
note of optimism in a troubled
world.
Dr. Glueck, scholar, author and
archaeologist, spoke at the open-
ing of the college's 73rd academic
year.
"The recurrent crises of our
civilization have created and com-
pounded much of the prevailing
pessimism and spiritual confusion,
and many doubt the possibility of
avoiding ultimate disaster.
"Is there then no prospect of
man's surviving the present night
to witness a new dawn? We be-
lieve there is. Our very being
here today is an affirmation of
our confidence as Jews and Am-
erjcans that the calamities of
man's creating can be overcome,
that there is yet time to heal the
hurt, to quicken hearts with hope,
to fill the earth with the bless-
ing of ,peace and the beauty of
.brotherhood."

-YEAR-OLD son dislikes two subjects he is taking. His
“MY
masks
• are poor in the other two subjects also. He wants to
drop them. Last term his grades were, good. Should he be per-
mitted to drop the classes he dislikes, and if so, carry only two.
Should he substitute others for the two dropped?—J. H.
This is not a rare situation,
especially among adolescents. teacher failed to give sufficient
It is not uncommon among praise, there was a disagree-
younger chil-
ment between pupils, or some-
dren either.
one was not invited to a birth-
Neither of the
day party.
• • •
following h a s
been found to
CHILD IS IMMATURE
be of much
ALL THOSE "SkMPLE" things
us e: Permit-
point to a personality fault:
ting the child
An inability to make the best
to drop the
of a situation, to pass it off as
failing sub-
of no cons°quence.
jects or or-
In most families, physical ill-
dering him to
ness is an acceptable excuse; in
Dr.
Goldberg
take all four
some familiar, dislike of teach-
courses.
ers or "mean teachers" are very
Parents too often forget that
(Continued on Page 17).
adolescence is a difficult phys-
ical and mental period for the
child. (The strains on the par- Strictly Confidential
ents we will pass by!)
Physical growth is fast. Phys-
ical changes are sudden. Emo-
tionally, the youngster is part-
child, part-man. There is a
strong pull between self-asser-
tion (and rebellion) and depend-
ence.
Many children have not been
prepared for the natural phys-
By PHINEAS J. BIRON
ical changes. The youngster's THE SHA-SHA, POLICY of
effort often slows down, school
suppressing ants-Semitic news
work suffers, sometimes there
still is tops among Jewish de-
is bizarre dress and action.
This is the time for much fense agencies . . We have
here two re-
parental patience, unusual cau-
ports of inci-
tion, calmness and even for
dents that
‘11 keeping the eyes closed to
should have
nuch of the conduct.
been given
• • •
spotlight b u t
CLUE TO DISLIKE
were sha-
, shaed.
DISLIKE OF SCHOOL is to
In a crowded
be considered as a symptom,
hotel lobby a
a clue to some other explana-
few blocks
tion. The child who dislikes
from the cam-
piano playing develops a head-
pus of the
P. J. Biron
ache. It is foolish to treat the
head for what is often an emo- State University of Iowa a
young Rabbi was attacked by
tional upset.
There is no fixed formula for anti - Semitic hoodlums. T h e
discovering the und er 1 ying Rabbi was Elihu S. Cooper of
cause. That must be considered Iowa City, who suffered black
individually for each child. The eyes, cuts and bruises. First aid
action shown is merely a dan- was administered by a, doctor
ger signal, a warning of some- who said that the Rabbi's eyes
had escaped serious injury only
thing out of adjustment.
Many times this is related to by a miracle.
Well, so-called Jewish leaders
as unhappy event at school, the

Hebrew Union College Obeys Lessons,
Gets Negro Typist for Its Office

By ALFRED SEGAL

reported the matter to me as something new
T HE and GENTLEMAN
wonderful he had just discovered. He was beaming. He

had been at the Hebrew Union College, where they educate young
men to be Rabbis, and there had seen a certain young lady whose
presence caused him to feel that the Hebrew Union College was
really being prophetically Jewish.

"She is a colored girl," he
said. "She works for the He-
brew Union College as typist
and telephone --
operator."
I could go
along with him
in his pleasure
at this but 1
couldn't help
feel somehow
saddened to
consider t h a t
to discover a
Negro clerical
Al Segal
worker in an
office of white people is so rare

in 2 Anti-Semitic Outrages

oe

NEW

• • •

GOOD WORKER FIRST
“VES," SAID LYONS, "the
lady is a fine, intelligent
worker." He wasn't making
much, if anything, of the color
of her skin. He hadn't consid-
ered that at all when he hired
her. Only afterward, when she
was on the job, he thought it
was a lovely expression of Ju-
daism for a Rabbinical seminary
to have a member of an ex-
cluded race as a worker in its
office.
As business manager of the
Hebrew Union College, Lyons
had absorbed, you might say,
the prophetic spirit during the
years he had been there. The
college is of Reform Judaism
which is established on the so-
cial concepts of our prophets.
serious bruising of one eye. The
Reform sets great store by
third boy suffered painful knee
what prophets like Isaiah, Mi-
injuries.
cah and Malachi said. Their
The correspondent who sent
preaching had to do with
us this item adds, at the end
righteousness and justice and
of his report: "Is the Chris-
with the way by which. hu-
tian Front extending its work
man beings may get along
to the western regions of
compassionately in the world.
America? Heretofore they
• • •
confined their activities to the
GETS
INWARD
GLOW
eastern communities.
The culprits in this anti-Sem- SO LYONS COULD feel no
racial scruples at all when
itic assault have not been appre-
hended. What are the Jewish the colored girl was sent to him
defense agencies doing about in response to his desire for a
typist at the Hebrew Union Col-
such incidents?" . . .
• • •
lege. All he required was that
she could competently do the
ADVERTISING AMITY
WE GIVE YOU these two work.
Yet he was glowing inwardly
items, which are just two out
of many such incidents happen- to think that this Jewish school
ing in various communities, be- even in the routine matter of a
cause they are significant. Sig- clerk was doing in accordance
nificant especially because elab- with its teaching. (The local
prate preparations are being mores generally didn't approve
is‘ade for Brotherhood Week by of Negro help in offices.)
Lyons was even the more
our goodwill organizations.
New Brotherhood Week con- pleased to find the Jewish work-
(Continued on Page 4)
(Continued on Page 16)

Sha - Sha' Policy k Condemned

are said to have advised the
Rabbi not to press charges
against his assailants, Ed Thom-
as and Donald Eugene Leeney,
the former a student at the uni-
versity. Norman Cousins, editor
of the Saturday Review of
Literature, relayed those facts
to us. Thanks, Mr. Cousins.
• • •
ITEM NUMBER 2
THREE BOYS, ranging in age
from 14 to 17 years, were walk-
ing alongside the Avondale
.Public School in Rockdale Ave-
nue, just off Reading road, in
Cincinnati, when three uniden-
tified ruffians, each about 20
years old, stepped over from the
other side of Rockdale Avenue
and barred the way of the Jew-
ish lads . .
"Are you Jewish?" one of the
gangsters asked.
Without awaiting a reply, the
trio set upon the three boys,
beat them up and fled. One of
the boys suffered the loss of
Another received
two teeth.

that it is something to notice.
So rare that shortly I found my-
self speaking to Maxwell Lyons,
business manager of the He-
brew College, about it.