N EWS To All Our Relatives and Friends, Our wish for a year filled with happiness, health and prosperity. To All Our Relatives and Friends, Our wish for a year filled with happiness, health and prosperity. I Is This Life All There Is? DENNIS PRAGER Special to The Jewish News DR. WILLIAM & MAXINE STOLER To All Our Relatives and Friends, Our wish for a year filled with happiness, health and prosperity. NORMAN & KATHY STRICOF May the coming May the coming year be filled year be filled with health and with health and happiness. happiness for all our family and friends. GEORGE VINE & FAMILY IDELLE&ERNIE NENRTH,DEBBY &DENNIS SUSIE & CRAIG ROSENBERG May the coming May the coming year be filled year be filled with health and with health and happiness for happiness for all our family all our family We wish our family and friends a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year and friends. and friends. SHIRLEY & MAURICE NEEMAN PHILIP & RAE OLENDER BEN • SALLY PASMAN We wish our family and friends a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year vann 111115 Inv? 11I1DTt 111111 1] w' to all our friends and relatives. to all my friends and relatives. DR. & MRS. BERNARD TOFT MIKE, KEN, ALYSSA NAOMI TRAGER Best wishes for a happy, healthy New Year. Best wishes for a happy, healthy New Year. Plantation, Florida LENA RICHTER & FAMILY SHARIL, JEFF, AIMEE & SAMANTHA ROBY We wish our family and friends • a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year Best wishes for a happy, healthy New Year. Best wishes for a happy, healthy New Year. JOAN & JERRY PENFIL SIDNEY & SHIRLEY RIGER LEW & ANNE ROSE THE NESSELS - MARTIN, SANDRA, CARYN, DANA & ARI We wish our family and friends a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year RUTH & NATE OLESHANSKY We wish our family and friends a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year ROZ & SID PELTON 92 DANIEL t MURPHY Oakland County Executive FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1989 S ome time ago, I at- tended a funeral at which a prominent rabbi officiated. To probably everyone present, there was nothing unusual; the service was traditional Conservative and the rabbi's remarks about the deceased were moving. Then at the grave site, the rabbi spoke about Judaism's attitude toward death. "Judaism does not believe in a life after death," the rabbi said. "Rather, we live on in the good works we do and in the memories of those we leave behind!' As this is what most contemporary ' Jews believe, few people at the funeral would have found reason to take particular notice of these remarks. But "It defies logic to hold that the non- physical God would create a world whose only reality is physical." I was furious. The rabbi had told Jews, at a moment when they were most impres- sionable, a profound untruth. Any Jew who says that Judaism does not believe in reality beyond death is offer- ing his own, not Judaism's beliefs. Now there is nothing wrong with a rabbi or any Jew offer- ing his own views. Having some non-traditional views myself, I certainly can respect views that differ from the tradition. But simple intellec- tual honesty demands that whenever a Jew represents Judaism, he make it clear where the views he espouses differ from that of thousands of years of Jews and Judaism. As regards a 'hereafter, Judaism is not at all am- bivalent. (See the 11th chapter of the Talmudic Trac- tate Sanhedrin„ and Maimonides' Thirteen Prin- ciples of Faith.) As the entry under "Afterlife" in the En- cyclopedia Judaica begins: "Judaism has always main- tained a belief in an afterlife!" Now, it is certainly true that Judaism gives us no details about what happens after death. And it is equally true. that Judaism wants Jews to preoccupy themselves with this world; Judaism has always had contempt for