I TORAH PORTION I

Shelter

Continued from preceding page

Elfa wire basket systems. For
closet, pantry, laundry,
anywhere. Epoxy-coated frame
and drawers sized to fit any
storage need. At a fraction of
the cost of custom built-ins.
20% off for 7 days only.

Previous sales excluded.

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I TIEIO
BIRIgNGHALTE641E

AUCTION

28611 West 12 Mile Road, Farmington Hills, MI 48018
(313) 477-1410

Saturday Evening, March 24, 1990
Silent Auction Starting 7:00 p.m.
Followed by Live Auction

Including celebrity contacts, condo
vacations, trips, furs, jewelry, theater,
dining, sports, health and beauty and
MUCH more.

Door Prizes

Hors d'oeuvres, Champagne, Desserts
$10 Donation

OPERATION Ail

OVER 55?

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Project ABLE is a non-profit service of
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the Michigan Department of Labor, the C.S. Mott
Foundation, the Community Foundation for
Southeast Michigan, Vista and Corporate
contributions.

Putting Experience to Work

44

FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1990

SPRING
CLEANING?

call

LIBRARY BOOKSTORE
5454300

We Buy (and Sell)
Secondhand Books

Books Bought
In Your Home

M. Sempliner

"Where You Come First"

Kosins

Uptown
Southfield Rd. at
11 1/2 Mile • 559-3900

Big & Tall
Southfield at
101/2 Mile • 569-6930

had erected statues of their
gods all over their empire.
Joshua led the emperor out-
doors and said, "Sire, look up
into the sun."
"I can not look up directly
into the sun," the emperor
replied.
Then Joshua said, "If you
cannot look at a servant of
God, how much less would
you be able to see the
Shekinah, God Himself?"
(Hal 60A)
The Talmud defines the
Shekinah as the radiance of
God which makes its presence
manifest everywhere in
everything. The term
originated at the close of the
biblical canon and is derived
from the Hebrew word,
shachan, meaning "to dwell."
Philosophers through the
Middle ages debated over
what the Shekinah really
meant. To Philo, it was the
equivalent of logos, a sort of
divine emanation as an in-
termediary between God and
the world. Saadiah felt the
Shekinah was identical with
kevod hashem, the glory of
God, an intermediary bet-
ween God and man. Judah
Halevi thought it was God
Himself who appeared to the
prophets in their visions.
Maimonides associated
Shekinah with prophecy and
thought it was the light of
God. Hermann Cohen, like
Maimonides, believed the
Shekinah must be understood
meta-
phorically.
The radiance of God, which
makes its presence manifest
in everything, is like the sun
in the sky that illuminates
every corner of the earth with
its rays. It is the sense of the
sacred that you feel when you
enter a synagogue or temple.
It is the feeling of reverence
and majesty that you ex-
perience as you enter and
look up into the eternal light,
to the ark, to the menorah.
The word Shekinah is often
used in Judaism in place of
God, to avoid the suggestion
that God is a corporeal being.
Rabbis were troubled with
that problem and they used
the term Shekinah to express
their faith in a higher being
whose presence could be felt,
if not seen.
This idea of Shekinah is
what makes the traditional
priestly benediction the most
sacred in all of Judaism.
When the rabbi says, "May
the Lord let His countenance
shine upon you and be
gracious unto you," he really
means, "May the Shekinah
rest upon you. May the
presence of God go with you."
That is why tradition says you
must never look up when
receiving the priestly

benediction so that the
Shekinah, like the rays of the
sun, does not blind you. It is
irreverent to attempt to see
God face to face.
There is a legend that the
Israelites, particularly Moses,
were disturbed when building
the sanctuary. They
wondered: How could God
who fills all space, the creator
of heaven and earth, choose
an early dwelling place for
Himself as small as the
tabernacle?
The answer the rabbis give
is that God's presence, the
Shekinah, can be restricted

Shabbat
HaChodesh:
Exodus 35:1-40:38,
Exodus 12:1-20,
Ezekiel
45:16-46:18.

within the limits of the
smallest square inch. The
Shekinah goes with the per-
son wherever he goes; and
when a person violates the
moral law and seeks more for
himself than he has a right to
expect, the Shekinah departs
from him.
Perhaps that is why our
world today is suffering from
its present confusion. Many of
us have wandered far from
the higher moral law of God.
We are learning at tragic cost
that we cannot .break God's
moral law without the moral
law breaking us. And the task
of religion, all religions, is to
search and seek out the ways
of God. Perhaps the day will
come when the Shekinah will
rest not only on men and
women as individuals, but
upon all mankind.
Thus the Jewish connection
with God, as the Shekinah
goes on from generation to
generation, from the day
Abraham the first Jew walk-
ed with God. From all of the
sages and prophets and seers
down through the ages, the
Jewish connection, the con-
nection of the Jewish people,
was with God.
Is God removed from His
children or is He near to
them? When philosophers
reflected on the ineffable ma-
jesty of the creator of the
universe, they spoke of God as
a being immeasurably remov-
ed from the limitations of the
finite world.
But they were troubled.
Such a transcendent God was
of little use to the average
man grappling with the prob-
lems of livelihood and yearn-
ing for communion with a
helper, a comforter, a guide.
Judaism became through
sheer necessity a practical
religion. ❑