OeaCA INSIGHT 0011,/a _ t l ' 1 1 ;/ ( I f 1 4, \ I \ \.\ 7, introducing the „ High Tech ' SO SOLUTION to the Bathing Suit Blues i ■ Matter Of The Heart , 01'1* _,'"- ; -r- Continued from preceding page -.1/ Computerized swimwear custom made in a few days to fit and flatter your body Select just the right fabric from over 100 choices GIFT CERTIFICATES AVAILABLE Every Figure Can Wear A Flattering Swimsuit starting at $50 Hunters Square • Farmington Hills • On Orchard Lake at 14 Mile • 626-0254 DISCOVER WEST BLOOMFIELD "MY" The Country! Best Yogurt =N All The ® None Of The Capelli Colour Studio Cruises Only! Ltd & Corporation Cortina Elkin Travel Inc. Tres Chic Petites Hansel 'n' Gretel The Art Show Travelers World Best Bakery Body. Inc. Carmen's Tommy Schey Marilyn Brooks Colony Interiors Raphael Salon SNIP ILL West Bloomfield's Newest Fashion Center Orchard Lake Rd. North of Maple 88 FRIDAY, OCT. 16, 1987 T.C.B.Y. Yogurt Kidz Kloz Victoria's "Blessed art Thou who has formed the human being in wisdom and created in him a system of veins and arteries. It is well known before Thy glorious throne that if but one of these openings be closed, it would be impossible to exist in Thy presence." Once I thought this a primitive prayer — not of dreams or refined petitions but of openings and closings, orifices, apertures, cavities of my own flesh. How unseemly a prayer, how lacking in aesthetics, how out of place within the covers of our majestic liturgy. But now I read it with new amazement and respect for its penetrating candor and concreteness. Real prayer is with your body and your soul, with your bones and your flesh, and about your whole being. "The soul is Thine and the body is Thine. Blessed are Thou 0 Lord who healest all flesh and doest wonders." Doest wonders. That is what prayer is about, to dissolve the boredom that dulls our senses, to open our eyes to the miracles that are daily with us — evening, morn, and noon. Prayer is not boring. We are bor- ing. Prayer is the antidote to yawning. Prayer means to overcome the pedestrian perspective. Menachem Mendel of Kotzk chastised those who walk through life "with honey smeared on the soles of our shoes." Pay attention. The sand beneath our sandals is holy. We walk on sacred soil, this amazing earth on which we tread. I have been shaken by the shoulders of my being, awakened to life-and-death options. As one of T. S. Eliot's characters put it, "I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the Eter- nal Footman hold my coat and snicker — and, in short, I was afraid." But fear has its wisdom. Out of real fear, the fear of life and death, a thousand pet- ty anxieties and dangers evaporate. Out of fear comes lucidity and out of lucidity a different understanding. When I have seen the shadow of death, and have lived to remember its face, how am I so readily frustrated with the myriad irritations, brooding over imperfections, failures, flaws? "The Lord is my light and my healing; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strong- hold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27). Out of real fear, the glimpse of a new con- sciousness, a new gratitude is born. Knowing mortality, what ambitions do I seek, what achievements, what acquisi- tions, what thrills, what childish fantasies of the rich and the famous? Why so full of complaints, and demands, "I want, I want, I want . . . ." Do you want what you want? What do you crave with your insatiable neediness? And where do you look for tran- scendence? Is there not wonder enough in your world? Will you forget the ecstasies of life, those post-operative marvels, the wonders, the signs, the miracles — to turn freely in your own bed from side to side, to cough, to sneeze, to walk, to wash without pain and fatigue? Nissim, miracles — not in mountains moving or seas splitting, or people walk- ing on the surface of waters — but in the rapture of breathing and sighing, in understanding a word spoken or a paragraph read, in following an argument, in recognizing a face, in waking to the ecstasy of ordinariness, the extraordinary ordinariness: "A solitary stroll through the streets: windows, tastes, colors, a dark climb up the stairs, broken, crooked, a good shabbos greeting to uncle and aunt. Hallah dunked in red wine, pepper-sprinkled fish with white horseradish, green-red Sabbath fruit cherries, currants, gooseberries, the sourest of gooseberries between tart teeth." (Yaakov Glatstein). I wonder at the restless searchers, the voyagers for spirituality, looking for mystic signs, special mantras, seances, levitations, transmigration, trance-channeling corn- We pray wrong. To pray is not to pay off your debt to some celestial creditor. To pray is to overcome entitlement. munications with the dead, flirtations with extra-terrestrials. Not that I am unmoved by the yearning for the transcendent, by the hunger for communion with another dimension beyond the flat surface of a material world that might offer this planet greater meaning. But they seek for God and wonder and spirituality in outlandish places, climbing the mountains, plumbing the depths of oceans. Where else should they seek spirituality? Reb Eizek, son of Yekel of Cracow, dreamed that he was to look for a treasure beneath the bridge in Prague. He trusted the dream and set off to Prague. But the bridge was guarded by soldiers and he dared not dig. One day, the captain of the guard asked him what he was doing, stand- ing day after day at the bridge. Reb Eizek told him he was following the mandates of a dream. "And so to please a dream you have traveled from Cracow to Prague. I too had a dream, that there is a treasure beneath the oven of a Jew in Cracow. The Jew's name was Eizek, son of Yekel." The