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PHIL JACOBS

Managing Editor

RoL Ex• 13 A4 117

Professionals seek a spiritual
satisfaction their money can't buy.

L,

arry Garon used to find spirit-
uality at the gut end of a ten-
- - nis racket. His Sabbath was
a set of doubles at the club.
But now at age 34, Mr. Garon
is a little more reluctant to hit a set of balls
on Saturday. And instead of talking the
design on his car's leather in-
terior, he'd rather- talk about
something he's learned from
the Talmud.
Neil Satovsky is a success in
life by almost anyone's stan-
dards:But he said he reached
a point where the real estate
business wasn't satisfying, so
he went looking elsewhere.
The same can be said for
Gary Schiffman, Rob Orley,
Ron Klein and some 50 others.
The elsewhere that they seek
is a place that for some of them
was beyond their wildest
dreams. These are men whose
comfort zones went as far as
their car phones could take
them. Usually the zen of their
universe stayed around
Franklin, Birmingham,
Bloomfield Hills and West
Bloomfield.
They seek here something
that's not material, a know-
ledge that doesn't come
necessarily from whom you
know. So in the neighborhood

22

FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1991

•

that their families probably built and left
behind years ago, the Orleys and Garons
leave behind the world most of us affec-
tionately call yuppie. And for a short time
each week or each month, they come to
Yeshiva Gedolah Oak Park. Yeshiva
Gedolah isn't the only Orthodox institu-
tion to offer learning programs
to the community, but it has,
perhaps, the largest group of
students. The yeshiva also of-
fers evening sessions for
women and for men.
Among the high school
students who have been
steeped in Torah not only as an
education but a way of life, the
businessmen learn about what
the Torah has to say on
business ethics. They ask ques-
tions about keeping Sabbath
and what it means to be a
learned Jew. Some regret out
loud that they have forgone so
much of this knowledge while
building their businesses.
Some wish they could start all
over again as children.
Rabbi Eric Krohner and Rab-
bi Menachem Greenfield aren't
out to make anyone Orthodox
with the learning sessions they
offer. Instead, they want to
make their new students
curious to learn more, taking•
them to whatever their next