Purely Commentary

A-1 imely Lesson tor Jewish I ransgressors, —Even—rne

Sanctimonious . . . Our Ethical Truths . . . Tetra-
grammaton Gets an Airing in Spendor of Notoriety

By Phut!)
Siomovitz

Tetragrammaton—the Shem Ha-Meforash

A Timely Lesson on Jewish Ethics From the Talmud

When, some 18 or 20 years ago, your commentator wrote in a
syndicated article about the Tetragrammaton (it was then in relation
to the use of Hebrew mottoes and maxims in their emblems by Ameri-
can universities of all faiths), the late W. K. (Bill) Kelsey, who was
perhaps th'e most distinguished columnist on the Detroit News staff,
called this writer to tell him that he had learned something: he had
never known about the Tetragrammaton term. Bill Kelsey, had he
known the full meaning of Jewish respect for the Shem Ha-Meforash-
the revered term for the Almighty, would no doubt have gotten a kick
out of the young fellow who is now on the staff of the newspaper on
which he had served and who, like him, had learned the word
Tetragrammaton.
But there is much more to the story: the young discoverer of the
Shem Ha-Meforash, having attained the goal of a bylined front page
sensationalism, was afraid to use the term Shema. (That's not pro-
scribed.) And he reached his readers with the full sense of his story:
it was about God ! But the saintly protectors of the Tetragrammaton
failed to alert him that wrien they write about the Almighty it is
G-D! Now: will the Orthodox alerters, their rabbi and the rabbi of a
semi-Conservative synagogue who guided the young discoverer of
reverence for G-D, start gathering the first pages of last Sunday's
Detroit News for a public burial, on a par with the interment of pages
from our humble product?
We stand in awe for Jewish scholarship and for reverence to
faith and Almighty. We spell out God and we are yet to see an order
that all the issues in which such spelling was used should be erased
(sic !) funereally.
What a large grave for our products and those of the over-
whelming number of periodicals in all of our communities ! We can
hear the irreverent shouting: pollution !
When an Orthodox writer submits something we choose to publish
and he used the G-dly term hyphenatedly, we respect him and his
view. For his writing we hyphenate. He does not change our policy.
In respect to the Tetragrammaton (Bill Kelsey would have known,
unlike his young successor on his paper's staff, that it is spelled with
a double—m), there is no debating established principles. It is Jewish
tradition that the quadriliteral nacre—the yud, heh, vav, heh—the
Tetragramnaton—must not be uttered disrespectfully or applied to
trivial use. That is why we say ha'd'shem, elokim, to avoid direct
usage of the term.
But if we are to bury printed texts that contain the quadriliteral
—the four-lettered term for God—we might have to put a halt to print-
ing of many books, to shipment of printed matter, to their being han-
dled by heathens !
(Rabbi Solomon Gruskin, certainly a man of learning
and unquestionably a strict observer of Jewish traditional
laws, offers his interpretation: since our art work that
has been subjected to - attack is not to be judged as
kedusha, it is forbidden to subject it to Geniza (burial);
that only material linked with sanctity merits Geniza. He
views the art work we had used as having been done by
an unbeliever; therefore Geniza, which is prescribed only
for sacred worxs, is ruled out for this form of printed
matter.)
The very sidurim we use in our services are shipped in the same
fashion as sugar and salt and canned goods. But the moment we lift
it in prayer. there is no one who can possibly reduce its sanctity!
Honestly, we do not want to be buried ! Please postpone it until
we have really been proclaimed guilty of irreverence ! How certain
can we be that the spiritual morticians,' while clipping a portion of our
page to prevent defilement, will overlook the section on the same page
with the Decalogue, the Ten Words, the Aseret Hadibrot? We must
protect the Commandments !
But since the revered protectors of the Shem Ha-Meforash found
it necessary to call for a cemetery visit in these delightful, God-given
warm days not too distant from Shavuot, let's atone for the scholars
who found notoriety in their burial plan but who did not fully define
the Tetragrammaton and the Shem Ha-Meforash.

The Detroit Jewish News was honored on Tuesday with a visit by bne of Detroit's
most distinguished Hebraists, a revered and observing Jew, a noted scholar whose role
as a pedagog has earned for him top rating in world Jewry. He came to present us with
quotations from the Talmud and to recall with us the rabbinic teachings on human conduct.
We share them anew, as a lesson in Jewish ethics, with our readers, so that they may be guid-
ed not to be misled by those who transgress:
"He who brings internal Jewish 'matters before non-Jewish authorities profanes the
name of God."—(Comment by Rashi on Gemara Gitin 88).
"He who brings shames in public on his fellow man will not have a share in the
world to come."—(Baba Metzia 59).
"He who brings shame in public on his fellow man will not have a share in the world
to come."—(Baba Metzia 59).

viniznri

T

:

••

We happen to like the definition of an eminent Jewish scholar,
Rabbi Philip Birnbaum, who described the quadriliteral term, thus:
"The distinctive name of God (shem ha-meforash), consisting of
four letters (yud, heh, vav, heh), is not read as written. The avoidance
of uttering the sublime name of God is due to apprehensive reverence.
An allusion to the rule that the tetragrammaton, the divine name of
four letters, should not be pronounced as written is found in Exodus
3:15, where the expression is ze shrni la-olam. (This is my name forever).
The word la-olam can be read l'allem (to conceal), that is, the word
adonai (Lord) should be substituted for the tetragrarrunaton, since the
Hebrew word adonai likewise has four letters (Kiddushim 71a)."
One of the great responsibilities of learners (lerner) is never to
stop learning. Even if you keep re-learning, that's a mitzva in itself.
That's why we keep re-reading the Torah from year to year. So, we
have re-learned about the revered Tetragrammaton, without destroying
the texts that contain them even if they were shipped like herring or
potatoes. And our respect is compulsory, otherwise we lose self-respect.
Therefore the Tetragrammaton, as the most revered in our conduct,
must not be treated like a corpse.

Strikers' Rights

—

Respect for Volunteers

There is no doubt about the right to strike, and labor's justifica-
tion in calling a halt to work when it becomes necessary to ask for
justified advancement in one's economic status. Employes of the Israel
Bond Organization are not different from other workers, as long as
the principles involved are discussed on a dignified basis. Dignity is
more vital in a matter involving Israel, philanthropy, causes in which
not only organized labor but volunteer workers as well are involved.
It is on this score that the Israel Bond strike causes concern.
Because the Israel Bond sales are now 50 per cent higher than those
of the previous year, the strikers make a to-do about it. Does the

2—Friday, June 11, 1971

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

volunteer worker cut any ice here? Does he count at all in considering
the successes of philanthropic efforts? Labor must be treated well,
but labor can't make its claims on the basis of greater philanthropic
attainments: let there be a modicum of respect for the volunteer
worker, without whom the paid staff member would not have an easy
time.
If labor unions have canceled Israel Bond drives because of the
strike, it is understandable: because other civic groups may be com-
pelled to postpone the sales until there is amity in the ranks. But
why did Emil Mazey, the highly respected secretary-treasurer of
UAW find it necessary to refer to his union's $785,000 Israel Bond
purchase in an appeal for support of the strikers? We hope it was
not resort to threatening pressure—Mazey is quoted as having
emphasized UAW's close relations with Histadrut, the Israel federated
labor movement—because pressures, threats, boasts about accomplish-
ments, in this instance, may seriously harm Israel. And the approach
degrades the noblest element in philanthropy and public service: the
volunteer workers' forces. This is not cricket.
We hope for a speedy and amicable settlement of the Israel Bond
strike.
*

A New Limelight for Bulgarian Jewry

The Zionist movement was discontinued in 1948 in Bulgaria. In this
single sentence is summarized a condition that so tragically describes
the position of genuine libertarianism behind the Iron Curtain.
It is because of the "Annual" (Volume V) issued by the central
board of the Social, Cultural and Educational Associations of the Jews
in the People's Republic of Bulgaria, which just reached us from
Sofia, that we now relate a fact about generally little known activities
in Bulgaria.
The "Annual" boasts about the accomplishments of the Commu-
nist regime. It portrays two photographs, of Friedrich Engels, on the
occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth, and of Vladimir Illych
Lenin, marking the 100th year of his birth. This 250-page book contains
interesting historical facts about the Bulgarian struggle against Na-
zism. But the deliberateness with which it accuses Zionism and Zion-
ists with trying to interfere with the struggle for freedom is appalling.
This is where the anti-Zionist trend in Communist countries be-
comes evident—the desire to degrade the inovement through which
most of Bulgaria's Jews had emigrated to Israel.
If the Zionists are mere bogeymen who scare the wits out of their
Communist fellow-Jews, while the Communists pose as the saintly
saviors of Jewry, how does one account for the overwhelming number
of Jews, who lived through the anti-Nazi struggles and had seen the
Communists in action, who embraced_ the nationalistic Jewish idea?
From 1948—and that's when the Zionist movement became illegal in
Bulgaria—until the end of 1955, 38,418 Jews left that country for Israel.
Now between 5,000 and 6,000 remain there.
But the Jewish Communists who have edited the "Annual" can't
forgive those who preferred the Jewish libertarian idea to their ideolo-
gies, and the volume now on hand is full of venom, distortions, mis-
representation of facts.
This annual is the only Jewish publication left in Bulgaria. The
facts that have been gathered by the World JeWish Congress' Institute
of Jewish Affairs show that there are no Jewish schools left in Bul-
garia, and only a few private courses are offered in Hebrew in Sofia;
that in the 12 synagogues in the country only two rabbis are left.
There was a chief rabbi who recently was dismissed.
The enigma in the latest Bulgarian Jewish report is the title of
the publishers of the annual—the Social, Cultural and Educational Asso-
ciation of the Jews in Bulgaria—while the Jewish Scientific Institute of
Sofia was closed by the government in 1953. We do not know whether
the two Jews in the government, Minister of Culture Reuben Levi and
Israel Meir, head of the department of cultural relations with foreign
countries—are still holding the Bulgarian government jobs. But we
know that many Jews were discharged from posts with the ministries
of the interior and foreign trade and from the militia.
But the Communist claims are alike everywhere: they are anti-
Zionist, they follow a line that condemns anti-Jewish practices while
they boast of outlawing anti-Semitism. That's on the boold; in prac-
tice they have yet to learn fairness for Jewry and Israel—and the
Jewish Communists are the worst offenders among all Communists.

'

Charles Schottland
to Be Installed as
Brandeis President.-

WALTHAM, MASS.—Charles I.
Schottland will be installed form-
ally as third president of Brandeis
University, honorary degrees will '\
be conferred upon 12 distinguished
persons, and 706 graduate and
undergraduate degrees will be a-
warded during Brandeis' com-
mencement festivities this week-
end.
The honorary degrees will be
awarded at the university's annual
commencement banquet Saturday
at the Statler Hilton Hotel, Boston.
Receiving honorary degrees at
the ceremonies, which are dedi-
cated to "Peace and Progress
Through Education," will be
Ell i o t L. Richardson, U.S.
secretary of health, educa-
tion and welfare; Cyrus R.
Vance, former secretary of the
Army and one-time U.S. nego-
tiator at the Paris Peace Confer-
ence; Nicholas deB. Katzenbach,
vice president and general coun-
sel of International Business
Machines Corp. and former U.S.
attorney general; Judge Philip
C. Jessup, Whitney H. Shepard.
son Fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations in New York
city and former judge of the
International Court of Justice in
The Hague.
Also, Harlan Cleveland, presi-
dent of the University of Hawaii;
Robert S. Benjamin, co-chairman
of the board of directors of United
Artists Corp. and vice-chairman
of the board of trustees of Brandeis
University; Dr. Edvard I. Hambro,
permanent representative of Nor-
way to the United Nations; David
A. Morse, former director-general
of the International Labor Office;
Max Jakobson, ambassador and
permanent representitive of Fin-
land to the United Nations; Ed-
ward Rose, industrialist and trus-
tee. emeritus of Brandeis; Charles
W. Duhig, registrar of Brandeis
since 1955; and • Angie Brooks-
Randolph, assistant secretary of
state of Liberia and permanent
representative to the United Na-
tions.

* :

Brandeis U. Acquires
Studies for BA Grads

WALTHAM, Mass. — Brandeis
University has acquired the entire
collection of the Riverside Museum
in New York.
The collection of this 50-year4
nonprofit museum includes son,..
750 pieces, with concentrations in
Oriental, ethnological and contem-
porary art and photography.

Sabbath Observer Rights Are Unchanged by Ruling in Michigan Case

NEW YORK—The American Jew-
ish Congress said that a recent U.S.
Supreme Court action limiting the
employment rights of Sabbath ob-
servers established no new prece-
dent and left the legal question
open. The case originated in Michi-
gan.
A spokesman for the AJCongress,
which filed a brief in the religious
freedom case as a friend-of-the-
court, noted that the Supreme
Court had divided by a 4-to-4 vote
on the issue, thereby letting a low-
er court ruling stand.

Robert K. Dewey, a member however, reversed and dismissed
of the Faith Reformed Church, the case, primarily on the grounds
claimed in the case that his em- that there was no evidence that
ployer, the Reynolds Metals Co., the Reynolds Metals Co. intended
had violated his rights under the to discriminate.
federal fair employment law by
The American Jewish Congress
discharging him when he re- brief, filed in Supreme Court . by
fused to work on Sunday or to Berger and by Joseph B. Robison,
find a substitute because it was director of the Congress' commis— .
against his religious principles.
sion on law and social action, ar-
The Federal Equal Employment gued that the Civil Rights Act
Opportunity Commission upheld protected the religious employe
Dewey's claim, as did a Federal against practices that had the ef-
District Court in Michigan. The fect of discrimination, regardless -
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, of intent.

