TORAH PORTION 1°''''m•
ISRAEL KNOWLEDGE
QUIZ BOWL
(YEDIAT ISRAEL)
The Covenants Of
Fate And Of Choice
Fri h
Sunday, May 6, 1990 4:30 p.m.
SHLOMO RISKIN
Special to The Jewish News
Jewish Community Center
6600 West Maple Road
West Bloomfield, Michigan 48322
A
Thirteen teams from Metropolitan Detroit Religious/Hebrew schools will
meet at the Jewish Community Center to compete in a Quiz based on their
knowledge of the subject "Israel."
The audience will be asked to join us in winning prizes by identifying
landmarks, heroes and sights. Please join with us to make this very special
event a memorable experience.
Come with your whole family to watch your school's team compete against
other school's teams — share in this exciting event.
For further information please contact the Israel Program Center 661-5440.
PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS:
Akiva Day School
Beth Abraham-Hillel Moses
Temple Israel
Birmingham Temple
HiIle! Day School
Temple BethEl
Temple Kol-Ami
Congregation Shaarey Zedek
School
Adat Shalom, U.H.S.
Beth Achim, U.H.S.
B'nai Israel U.H.S.
Beth Shalom
4 ‘ . . .
Fifth Annual
MORRIS AND SARAH FRIEDMAN
LECTURE ON
YIDDISH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
PROF.
EUGENE
ORENSTEIN
Associate Professor of
Jewish Studies,
McGill University,
Montreal, Canada
ON
DIAMONDS
Quick, Confidential
Cash Loans
on Jewelry
LEW
SILVER
DIAMOND BROKER
9 Mile at Greenfield 559-5323
GM GI/adman in Diarnonslat adina & 'valuation
TREND
Applegate Square
"WOMEN'S VOICES IN YIDDISH POETRY"
SPRING
MERCHANDISE
ARRIVING DAILY
(A LECTURE IN ENGLISH WITH YIDDISH READINGS)
Men's & Boys'
Sunday, April 29, 1990
2:00 P.M.
Louis and Esther LaMed Auditorium
Agency for Jewish Education
21550 W 12 Mile, Southfield
PUBLIC WELCOME
50
FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 1990
lthough he wasn't
speaking about Yom
Ha'atzmaut, Israel In-
dependence Day, one of the
themes important in Rabbi
Joseph B. Soloveitchik's
theology sheds light on what
the day means to modern
Jewry and its significance as
a newborn festival.
The fundamental drama
played out by the earliest
Israelites was twofold: 210
years of slavery under the
Egyptian overseers and the
Exodus to the Promised Land.
And because of the
remarkable similarity to the
enslavement under the Nazi
overseers in our own age,
resulting in the eventual ex-
odus to the modern state of
Israel, the Passover seders
conducted since 1949 force us
to see how the Haggadah is
not just a historic text, but
very much a prophetic one.
That is particularly true
when we read how ". . . in
every generation there are
Pharaohs who stand up to
destroy us but the Holy One
Blessed be He saves us . . ." or
the important principle that
it's incumbent upon
every person in every genera-
tion to see himself as if he
personally were delivered
from Egypt . . ."
During that historic Pass-
over of 1949, both of the above
verses must have rever-
berated with a powerful in-
tensity given how we had just
seen the dramatic fall and
rise of the Jewish nation. Sud-
denly, we found ourselves
again in biblical times,
replete with miracles and the
hand of God to be discerned in
the events themselves.
In his essay, Kol Dodi Dofek
(`The Voice of My Beloved
Knocks') Rabbi Soloveitchik
speaks of the two covenants in
which God enters with the
Jewish people: the covenant
of coercion and the covenant
of choice.
The first covenant, com-
monly called the "Pact Be-
tween Halves" (Genesis XV),
was with Abraham when he's
overwhelmed with the fear
that his only heir will be
Eliezer, his servant. God
reassures him that his de-
scendants will be as numer-
ous as the stars, again
promising the land of Israel
352-4244
Breast
self-examination —
LEARN. Call us.
ti,
ANIERICAN
CANC.ER
SOCIETY'
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chief
rabbi of Efrat, Israel, and the
Dean of the Ohr Torah
Institutions.
as his possession. When Abra-
ham wants reassurance, God
commands that he bring a
heifer, a goat, a ram, a dove
and a young pigeon; the ani-
mals, except for the birds, are
then split in half (thus the
name of the covenant.) Abra-
ham falls into a deep trance
and is struck by a deep dread,
whereupon it is revealed to
him that his descendants will
be slaves in Egypt. When he
emerges from the trance, a
smoking furnace and a flam-
ing torch miraculously pass
between the halves and God
declares: "To your descend-
Tazria-Mezorah
Leviticus
12:1-15:33,
Kings II 7:3-20.
ants have I given this land,
from the Egyptian river, as
far as the great river of the
Euphrates." [Gen. 15:18]
Although Abraham has no
children when this promise is
made, the guarantee of de-
scendants means there will
always be Jews, even if they
themselves reject it. Indeed, if
we forget we are Jews, God
will send an anti-Semitic
leader who will remind us
that we are Jews, forcing us,
as it were, to remain part of
our nation. This is the cove-
nant of coercion, which Rab-
bi Soloveitchik calls a cove-
nant of fate. When you're
born a Jew, that's your fate.
You had no choice.
The second covenant is the
covenant of choice, and it
takes place at Sinai, in Par-
shat Mishpatim, the portion
dealing with civil legislation.
After Moses writes down all
the words of the Ten Cora-
mandments and receives
divine instruction, he builds
an altar at the foot of the
mountain, and he and the
young men offer oxen as
burnt offerings to God. Moses
takes half the blood and
places it into large bowls, and
the rest he sprinkles on the
altar. "He took the book of the
covenant, and read in the
hearing of the people, and
they said, 'All that the Lord
has spoken we will do and we
will obey.' " (Exodus 24:7].
The Jews are not coerced in-
to accepting the Tbrah. In-
stead, they voluntarily take it
upon themselves, crying out
with one voice, `We will do
and we will obey; meaning
that we will not be Jews
merely because we were born
Jews, Jews because we're