I FOCUS I the MICHIGAN - GROUP A Serious Jew Continued from preceding page REALTORS® 7499 Middlebelt Road West Bloomfield, Michigan 48322 04 41 1 (313) 851 4100 - RELO WORLD LEADER IN RELOCATION THE SIGN OF SUCCESS Best Wishes to all of our clients and friends for a Happy and Healthy NEW YEAR. from all of us at THE MICHIGAN GROUP BOB BEAUCHAMP DEBRA BERKE CHUCK BERKE MADELINE BLEIER BELLA BROOKENTHAL TERRI BROWN JOAN CHAR VALERIE CHODOROFF BETTY CONSTANT JOHN COURY GLENDA DIAMOND JOHN EMERSON YVONNE GIROUX DAWN GOTTLIEB JERRY HAYDEN LARRY HARWIN MARTIN HORWITZ RANNY HOWARD HOLLAND IZBICKI BETTY JOHNSON BEVERLY LANTOR KAY LAVAN STEVE LIEBHAN GAIL LINDEN JOANNE LYNCH FRED MADLEY RUTH MALACH BOB MASSARON PAM MORAN FRED MORRIS JESSIE MC FADDEN FRED MEDWAR SHIRLEY MEDVED BARB MEGERIAN BOBBIE MILLER BARB PLECAS CAROL RANKIN MARY ROBINER ANNA MARIE ROEDIGER SHEILA. ROSE GEORGE ROUKE DIANE ROWE REBEKAH SHAY SHARON SPINDLER FRANK SKRUMBELLOS SYLVIA STOTZKY RITA SUSSMAN DEDE WEINBERG NANCY WERMUTH BILL WOLDT ADELE ZIEMAN NADINE ZYWICKI Hearty Wishes To Our Customers and Friends For A Very Healthy and Happy NEW YEAR JEWELRY DESIGN & MFG. LTD. Morris Itednarsh Anthony Ferrari APPLEGATE SQUARE Northwestern & Inkster 356-7007 68 FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1989 rebuilt with stricter legal ob- servance of Kashrut. Finally, there are many Jews — today, probably most Jews — who are committed only to the peoplehood com- ponent of Judaism. Many of these Jews — who call them- selves cultural, nationalist, or secular Jews — have made great contributions to Jewish survival. The State of Israel, for example, was founded largely by Jews who dropped God and Torah and dedicated their lives to Jewish people- hood. But such Jews — as com- mitted to the Jewish people as they may be — are as Un- balanced in their Jewish com- mitment as Jews who study Talmud all day and do little or nothing for the Jewish people. Even in terms of what these Jews are most attached to — the Jewish people — their imbalanced commit- ment will eventually be no more constructive than that of Jews who neglect Jewish peoplehood. For most of their children will not even retain their parents' commitment to Jewish peoplehood. Secular Jews committed to the Jew- ish people do not produce secular Jews committed to the Jewish people. Their children either stay secular and have little or no commit- ment to the Jewish people or they become religious, i.e., committed to God and Torah, as well as to Israel. Just as society at large can tolerate, indeed may even need, a tiny number of people fanatically dedicated to art or to science as opposed to all other concerns, Jewish soc- iety can tolerate a few Jews who overemphasize God or Torah or Israel. But for most of us — for the serious Jew — a deep and equal commit- ment to each of Judaism's three components is neces- sary. Not Ends In Themselves Faith in God, observance of law, and identification with Jewish peoplehood are not ends in themselves, however. The serious Jew must at- tempt to implement the Jew- ish tasks associated with each component. It is not enough for a Jew to believe in God, or even to love and to pray to God. The Jewish people has the mis- sion to bring the world to God and to His ethics, speci- fically, to the Seven Noahide Laws. We are here to teach the world the terrible conse- quences of God without ethics (e.g., Crusaders and Khomeinis) and of ethics without God (e.g., Nazism and Communism). Unfortu- nately, however, few Jews of any persuasion take this task seriously. Secular Jews by Neither the Orthodox Jew who observes out of habit nor the Reform whose non- observance is out of habit meets our qualifications for a serious Jew. definition do not. Reform Judaism is now so identified with preaching social justice that it is becoming almost in- distinguishable from secular humanism. Conservative Judaism is primarily con- cerned with academic schol- arship and commitment to Israel. And Orthodoxy has by and large withdrawn from the world, having become too pre- occupied with Halacha to bother with the world. Bring- ing the world to God and His law strikes most Orthodox Jews as either naarishkeit (foolish nonsense), bitul Torah (wasteful neglect of rIbrah), or pointless until all Jews are brought back to Judaism. It is a great loss to the Jews and to the world that after the Nazi Holocaust and the Communist genocides, Reform, Conservative, Ortho- dox, and secular Jews contin- ue with these preoccupations as if nothing has changed. It is a world tragedy because Jews are neglecting to teach the Jewish solution to human evil — unlike humanism, Judaism teaches the necessi- ty of God for an ethical world; and unlike Christianity, Juda- ism, teaches the primacy of ethics over faith. And this neglect is a Jewish tragedy, for every day that Jews do not bring the world closer to God and His laws, the Jews are one day closer to another Holocaust. As regards the law compo- nent, the serious Jew acknow- ledges that just as faith in God is not an end in itself, so too, observance of Jewish law is not an end itself. The peoplehood compo- nent, too, has higher tasks associated with it. It is not