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 Greenfield at 10 Mile Rake Tpavel OR GI , IR G 26899 Northwestern Southfield, Mt 48034 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.