They've got the
Sofu
• •
and it's more than songs...
It's Folktales,
Humor and Music
from around the world.
An Afternoon for Everyone
SUNDAY,DECEMBER 12 3 PM
Congregation Beth Achim
21100 West Twelve Mile Road, Southfield
(Centrally located, just a "line drive" via all major freeways)
ENCORE: CHANUKAH CARNIVAL (following concert)
JOIN IN THE OVATION: CHANUKAH DINNER FOR THE FAMILY & FRIENDS - 5:30 PM
Advance Purchase for Concert & Dinner — Save $1.00 off combined price
PRICES: CONCERT — $5.00 in advance, $6.00 at the door (Children under 3 yrs. free)
DINNER — $8.00 Adults/$5.00 Children (members), $9.00/$6.00 (non-members)
Please make dinner reservations only by Dec. 7. For reservations 61 information, call 352 - 8670
Presented by the Beth Achim Youth Department, J.E.F.F. & Cultural Commission
Concert Co-Sponsors: Shirlee Bloom, Finest Jewish Cuisine and Stage Deli
A special event to benefit children with special needs
Akiva's Learning Resource Center &
Yachad - NCSY's division
for the developmentally disabled
Na'rY .Tv
P tesevtf . . .
Ticket prices:
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Sunday;
December 19th, 1993
2:00 P.M
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Southfield - Lathrup
High School Auditorium
12 Mile Rd., East of Evergreen
Advance purchase - $8.00
At the door - $10.00
Sponsors - $100
(five tickets included)
Tickets available at:
Akiva - 552-9690
NCSY - 557-NCSY
Borenstein's Hebrew Book Store
Spitzer's Hebrew Book & Gift
Presences In Us
Shape Our Character
RABBI IRWIN GRONER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
I
he biblical narration of
Joseph is one of the
most stirring success
stories ever told. It
traces the meteoric career of
a slave boy who rises from the
depths of degradation to the
throne of a monarch. The
greater drama, however, is
not in the outward achieve-
ments, but in the inner
growth and development of
Joseph. One of his most note-
worthy triumphs is his over-
coming the temptation to
betray his master, Potiphar,
by yielding to the advances of
his master's wife. Joseph re-
sists that attempted seduc-
tion. The sages sought to
account for Joseph's moral
standards.
What fortified Joseph's will
to overcome the most power-
ful of impulses, particularly
when he was virtually alone
in a strange land, cut off from
his family, friends, commu-
nity and country? Rashi
comments, basing his inter-
pretation on rabbinic sources,
that suddenly the image of
his father, Jacob, appeared to
Joseph in that moment of
testing. The remembrance of
his father gave Joseph the
strength to resist.
Jacob was present to
Joseph, in a spiritual sense,
even though they were sep-
arated by many hundreds of
miles, and at that time,
Joseph had no way of know-
ing whether he would ever
see his father again. What
does it mean to be present
and what does genuine pres-
ence imply?
Henri Bergson once wrote
"A body is present wherever
its influence is felt." Presence
means the power to influence,
penetrate and transform the
life of the other. It also means
a willingness to be open
enough, to be influenced by,
to be penetrated by, and even
to be changed by that experi-
ence. This is a description of
what takes place in the deep-
est levels of love, friendship
and human intimacy.
Sometimes we carry the
presence of men or women of
other generations with us.
We find our true contempo-
raries in figures out of the
past who are intensely pre-
sent to us, and we know them
to be our own. As we ap-
Irwin Groner is senior rabbi of
Congregation Shaarey Zedek.
proach the festival of
Chanukah, we remember the
courage of the Maccabees,
and their faith is renewed in
our own lives.
Sociologists and historians
have attempted to interpret
and explain the uniqueness
of the Jewish value system:
the emphasis on learning; the
sanctity of the family; the
moral passion that animates
Jewish participation in social
causes and liberal move-
ments. They generally over-
look the important, and I
believe, compelling reasons
for these traits. The Jew is
the classic illustration of the
fact that those who are truly
present to us shape our char-
acter. Jews have lived in
Shabbat Vayeshev:
Genesis 37:1-40:23
Amos 2:6-3:8.
thought and spirit (or at least
they did) with Moses, Elijah,
Amos, Judah Maccabee, Hil-
lel, Akiva, Maimonides and
the Gaon of Vilna. These
were the contemporaries of
the Jewish people wherever
they dwelt, no matter how
brutish their environment,
how squalid their surround-
ings, how barbaric their op-
pressors, how corrupt their
society.
Are we truly present to
those whose paths cross ours,
to those in whose midst we
live, to those who need our
care, our concern, our very ex-
istence? People sometimes
speak of a person who suffers
from a mental disease as be-
ing not "all there." It is a
strange expression, but an in-
sightful one. For true sanity,
authentic human dignity
might be defined positively as
the quality of being fully pre-
sent in any situation into
which one may be drawn. I
am most fully human when I
am "all there."
But to be really present has
a cost. It requires complete
involvement and total com-
mitment.
Jacob gave that commit-
ment to his son, Joseph. Con-
sequently, Joseph could draw
strength from the values of
his father. The question that
we should consider is: Are we