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September 25, 1987 - Image 5

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1987-09-25

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

FRONT

SUSAN WEINGARDEN

Special to The Jewish News

he key to feeling good about
your life is to share it with
other people. That is the
essence of happiness and fulfillment."
Speaking to members of the Na-
tional Council of Jewish Women at
Temple Israel, Rabbi Harold Kushner
recently shared this and other in-
sights from his latest book, When All
You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough.
Rabbi Kushner, who - also wrote
When Bad Things Happen To Good
People, expressed his concern about a
society suffering from a feeling of
senselessness and emptiness.
"Many of us feel our lives are
aimless and pointless," Rabbi
Kushner said. "Many of us attain all
of our goals and still have a sense that
something is missing. We all come to
a time when we ask 'What am I do-
ing with my life? When my time is up,
what will I have achieved?'
Rabbi Kushner said today's socie-
ty is to blame in part for making peo-
ple unhappy. "We define success as
winning. The ultimate goal is to come
in first.
"When you define success as winn-
ing, you brand 95 percent of the peo-
ple in America as losing. We brand
people as failures because they didn't
reach the top, causing them to be
unhappy with their lives.
"When people do reach the top, we
rob them of the satisfaction of winn-
ing and cause them to ask, 'Is that all
there is?' "
According to Rabbi Kushner,
defining success as winning turns life
into a competition. "As soon as it
becomes important to win, it isn't fun
anymore. Comrades become rivals
and all the joy goes out of life."
Is it lonely at the top? Rabbi

T

Kushner feels it is. "No one ever tells
us that if you come in ahead of
everyone else you won't be happy —
you'll be lonely. Who wants to get
ahead fast if the price you have to pay
is to leave everyone behind?
"The purpose of life is not to win.
The purpose of life is to share and to
grow?'
To feel good about our lives, Rab-
bi Kushner said our priorities have to
be in the right place. The first priori-
ty should be sharing with other peple:
"You don't find happiness in this life
by cutting yourself off from other peo-
ple and trying to go it alone. You find
happiness by maximizing your con-
nection to other people.
- "We have to learn that respon-
sibilities don't tie us down. Respon-
sibilities connect us to real life. The
more you share your life with others,
the fuller and richer your life
becomes?'
Rabbi Kushner said the second
priority should be making room in
your life for pain. ,"Too many people
run away from pain because we don't
teach people to accept it as part of life.
If you are afraid of pain, you wear a
suit of armor so that no one gets close
to you.
"People anesthetize themselves to
all feeling to make sure life will never
hurt. Then they wonder why life is so
dull?'
According to Rabbi Kushner, in-
ability to deal with pain is one reason
that the young people turn to drugs,
and is often the cause for suicide.
"When people look into the future
and see a life of pain, they feel the on-
ly way to escape from the pain is to
escape from life.
"We need to teach them about the
incredible capacity of the human soul
to endure pain. A broken heart is like
Continued on Page 12

Religious News Service

Best-Selling Rabbi Offers
A Prescription For Life

Demonstrators wearing concentration camp uniforms protested Jewish leaders' meeting
with the Pope on Sept. 11 in Miami.

Did Jewish Media Miss
Papal Meeting Message?

ALAN HITSKY

Associate Editor

Michigan delegate to the
Miami meeting this month
with Pope John Paul II
believes the media missed the
message of that meeting.
Mrs. Lillian Maltzer, a past presi-
dent of Temple Emanu-El and a vice

A

chairman of the Union of American
Hebrew Congregations, deplored this
week the negative attitudes she has
seen in the press. "It was naive to ex-
pect an apology" from the Pope over
his meeting with Austrian President
Kurt Waldheim, "and it was never ex-
pected," Mrs. Maltzer said. "But the
Waldheim affair was a precipitating
Continued on Page 12

ROUND UP

Israeli, Turkish
Envoys To Meet

countries only have consular
level representations between
them.

United Nations (JTA) — An
unprecedented meeting bet-
ween the foreign ministers of
Israel and Turkey will be held
in New York next week. This
will be the first-ever meeting
between Israel's and Turkey's
foreign ministers.
In the view of diplomats
here, the meeting between
the two officials is likely to
create a breakthrough in
Turkish-Israeli relations.
Turkey, a Moslem country,
does not have full diplomatic
ties with Israel. The two

The Turkish media
reported last week that
Ankara has agreed that some
30,000 Iranian Jews will go to
Israel from Iran through
Turkey. According to those
reports, negotiations between
the Turkish government and
Iranian and Israeli officials
have been taking place in re-
cent weeks regarding the
emigration of Iranian Jews.
Furthermore, the Turkish
media claimed that a high
level Iranian diplomat flew
secretly from Turkey to Israel

recently and met with govern-
ment officials in Israel on the
subject.

Grants Honor
Dr. Horwitz -

Dr. Jerome Horwitz of
Southfield, head of the
Department of Chemistry at
the Michigan Cancer Founda-
tion, has received a $60,000
grant from the American
Foundation for AIDS
Research. Dr. Horwitz syn-
thesized the drug AZT 20
years ago. AZT has now been
found useful against AIDS.

The Burrought Wellcome
Co. recently announced a
$100,000 grant to the
Michigan Cancer Foundation
to endow a research chair in
Dr. Horwitz's honor.

funds he has established over
the years. The funds will be
used by 294 Jewish schools in
New York's five boroughs, and
Nassau, Suffolk and
Westchester counties.

$30 Million
Education Gift

The
various
funds
established by Gruss and his
wife Lillian provide medical,
pension and insurance
benefits for teachers, $10,000
awards for gifted teachers,
and scholarships for students.
The United Jewish Appeal-
Federation of Jewish Philan-
thropies in New York describ-
ed the Gruss endowment as
the largest gift ever to Jewish
education in the U.S.

New York — Former invest-
ment banker Joseph S. Gruss
has donated a $30 million
fund to be used for Jewish
education in the metropolitan
New York area.
Gruss, 84, has designated
the money as an endowment
to support seven educational

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

5

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