44
Friday, April 5, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
ANN PODOLSKY
is now associated with Ryke Travel Agency Inc. Please
contact her for your travel needs both for business or
pleasure. Remember your trip's success begins and ends
with the "RYKE TRAVEL AGENT."
INSIGHT
SPICK
DELUXE
CLEANERS Pesach Dramatizes Push
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now takes in shoes for repair
$1.00 off any repair with this ad
For Moral Excellence
BY RABBI IRWIN GRONER
Special to The Jewish News
557-1141
356-8400
CONGRATULATIONS MIGDAL 'TZ1ON!!
CHAPTER OF THE YEAR
CENTRAL REGION UNITED SYNAGOGUE YOUTH
Adat Shalom Synagogue
recognizes and congratulates its
youth on winning the USY
CHAPTER OF THE YEAR AWARD
for outstanding programming for
1984-85
CI MO CI
Reproduction of 17th Century Delft Seder plate from the Israel Museum
in Jerusalem.
t:1 C:1
WESLEY'S QUAKER MAID KOSHER ICE CREAM COMPANY
4.4ax,
are pleased to announce that this year, as in the past, under special
arrangements, we have produced and are marketing throughout
Michigan and Northern Ohio, the finest quality of
KOSHER FOR PASSOVER
MOI.1 17
CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM
VANILLA ICE CREAM
Certified Kosher by Rabbi Jack Goldman, Administrator of the Metropolitan
Kashruth Council of Michigan
We take this opportunity to extend to the entire Jewish community best wishes
for a Happy and Healthy Passover celebration. ,
b•
.0 .0
Our thoughts turn to Passover,
whose observance we inaugurate
tonight as we gather with our
families in joyful reunion at the
Seder table. Since the number
four is so prominent in the pattern
of Pesach observance, we consider
four categories of moral excel-
lence dramatized by our obser-
vance.
First, redemption requires
seder (order), a fixed or definite
plan. This word is used to describe
the arrangement which governs
the symbolic acts, prayers, food
and songs which take place at the
family observance. A fundamen-
tal truth is here underscored. The
first demand of freedom is sub-
mission to order, to discipline, in a
voluntary and responsible form. It
is false freedom to say "I shall do
what I like." It is true freedom to
do what I ought to do.
The second quality that free-
dom demands is imagination. In
every generation a person ought
to look at himself as though. he
were redeemed from Egypt. We
identify with our ancestors. We
eat the bread of affliction, the
taste of bitterness is in our
mouths. We feel the suffering of
the generations of the past. The
spark of imagination has been
kindled and it illuminates our
hearts, for we are joined not only
with our ancestors, we are associ-
ated with all who experience the
lash of the task master. Wherever
men suffer from cruelty, we are
with them. Wherever people are
enslaved, our freedom has been
diminished.
The third aspect is sacrifice.
Every family brought an offering
at this festival. On a Seder plate
the roasted bone is a reminder of
that paschal lamb. Freedom re-
quires sacrifice. Wherever men
have liberty they have fought for
it, there was struggle and combat
and travail. If you love freedom,
then be prepared to bring a sac-
rifice upon its altar. A philosopher
once drew a distinction between
an illusion and an ideal. An ideal
is a mental picture of what ought
to be; and illusion is a notion that
what ought to be can be realized
without effort or pain.
For us, freedom is no illusion, it
has a price. Sometimes the price is
specific indeed. It costs money to
take a Jew who has been plucked
out of Ethiopia or Eastern Europe
to bring him to the land of Israel
for settlement. Every UJA dollar
is an offering on the alter of
Jewish redemption. Each person
brought his own sacrifice, and
none can shirk the obligation of
the offering.
Finally, freedom is the story of
faith. The pages of the Haggadah
pulsate with faith. There are few
paragraphs which have no refer-
ence to Divine Providence which
has guided Israel's destiny and
brought triumphant realization
to its hopes, Pesach celebrates our
faith in God who has implanted
within us the desire to be free and
our faith in man who mirrors the
image of God. No tyrant or despot,
no Pharaoh or Hitler could rob Is-
rael of this faith, undimmed by his
tears and blood.
Even though the world enslaves
the Jew, with his faith, the Jew
sought to free the world. Even
though he was denied for cen-
turies that human liberty which
he craved, the Jew blessed the
world with his own moral passion
whose flame is still aglow in our
hearts.
May the ideals of this festival
bring new hope to our brethren
who live behind the Iron Curtain,
new determination to our breth-
ren in the land of Israel, and new
spirit into the Jewish com-
munities of the free world. Let the
dream of freedom be realized for
all men everywhere as we celeb-
rate with our families and friends
the events that gave birth to lib-
erty for the Jewish people.