TORAH PORTION

ANTIQUE SHOW

THURSDAY, JULY 5

THROUGH

SUNDAY, JULY 15

Browse through an excellent selection of antiques and remember "yesteryear".
Over 50 antique dealers from six states will be
displaying and selling their wares throughout the mall.
Some of the antiques include: mahogany, Mission oak, primitive and Art Deco
furniture, rare books, glassware, costume as well as estate jewelry,
baseball cards, tools and much more!
Bead restringing, glass grinding and repairs will be available.

Criticism

Continued from preceding page

for the prophet and critic and
condemnation for the sooth-
sayer and propagandist.
What Moses was to his
generation, the Torah of
Moses must be to every
generation, including and
perhaps especially our own.
When religion begins to do
nothing more than compli-
ment us, pamper us and sanc-
tify our status quo, it is no
longer religion. It is Baalam's
trademark. It is when
religion fails to criticize that
it deserves to be criticized
itself.
What is true for religion is
true for democracy. A
democracy cannot survive if
there is no right of criticism.
The freedom to criticize the
government is what deter-
mines whether the govern-
ment is a democracy or a dic-
tatorship. This is what the
American statesman and
patriot Carl Schurz meant in
his classic statement: "My
country, may she always be in
the right. If right, to be kept
right, if wrong, to be set
right." No nation or people
can live on a high moral
plane if criticism is either ab-
sent or surpressed.
The same is true of Israel.
We American Jews should not
consider it an act of treachery
when one of us is critical of
the State of Israel, provided it
is done in the proper spirit
and especially in the proper
forum. Nor should we be of-
fended when Israelis level
justified criticism at their
own government. This is

what a good democracy is all
about and this is what
Judaism has preached for
generations. Our rabbis cor-
rectly declared that
Jerusalem was destroyed
because its citizens failed to
exercise their duty to criticize
one another.
Our rabbis even suggest
that criticism has a place in
our family lives. The Midrash

Shabbat Balak
Numbers 22:2-25:9,
Micah 5:6-6:8.

teaches: "A love which does
not contain the element of
criticism is not really love."
Love between a husband and
wife in which there is no
recognition of each other's
faults is static and must soon
fade away. When love is not
blind but critical, when there
is an attempt, in the spirit of
love, to improve each other,
then that love is dynamic and
leads to growth and
development.
The practice of constructive
criticism in the spirit of Torah
is a most difficult skill. It is
not easy to be a loving critic,
and it is painful to be criticiz-
ed especially when we realize
that the reproach is justified.
Great is the person who can
accept criticism. But greater
yet is the one who knows how
to administer it in a spirit of
love, sensitivity and compas-
sion. 0

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42

FRIDAY, JULY 6, 1990

ews for Judaism, a self-
described counter-
missionary group,
began publishing Russian
summaries of Torah
readings in June to combat
the outreach efforts of Jews
for Jesus toward recent
Soviet immigrants.
Mark Powers, director of
the Baltimore-based Jews
for Judaism, said the sum-
maries, which were to be
distributed to 18 synagogues
located mainly on the east
coast, will help Soviet Jews
learn more about Judaism.
Synagogues from cities
such as New York, Miami
Beach, and even Sioux City,
Iowa, will pay $48 for trans-
lated summaries of the an-
nual Torah cycle. No Mich-

j

igan synagogue has
subscribed to the service.
"Soviet Jews have been
unexposed to Judaism for
several generations,"
Powers said. "We are inter-
ested in maintaining people
as Jews."
Besides bolstering the re-
ligious education of the new
immigrants, Powers wants
to combat the proselytizing
efforts of Jews for Jesus, a
San Francisco-based mis-
sionary group which claims
that Jesus was the Messiah
for Jews as well as Chris-
tians. The group has been
distributing pamphlets in
Russian explaining Mes-
sianic Judaism to Soviet
Jews in the United States
and the USSR.
"The material produced by
the missionaries is extreme-
ly deceptive," Powers said.
"Especially for the Russians,

