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VOLVO
Drive safely.
REGULAR.
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RABBI IRWIN GRONER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
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*Includes automatic transmission, all standard equipment Destination charge, option packages, tax, license are additional.
AMERICAN FRIENDS OF ARIEL
GREATER DETROIT CHAPTER
INVITES YOU TO MEET & HEAR
DINA SHALIT
Assistant to the Hon. Ron Nachman
Member of the Knesset & Mayor of Ariel
DISCUSS
THE DETRO IT J EWIS H NEWS
"ARIEL - A CITY OF GREAT PROMISE
FACING AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE"
32
WHEN: Thursday, October 13, 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Congregation Beth Achim, Southfield
The public is invited.
AMERICAN FRIENDS OF ARIEL
810-569-1516
18451 West 10 Mile, Southfield, Michigan 48075
COMMITTEE IN FORMATION:
Sidney Silverman
Dr. & Mrs. I. Walter Silver
Morris D. Baker
Ezekiel Leikin
Dooming Civilizatio
With Our Violence
Gerald Keller
Nathan Lipson
Sam Grand
Dr. Robert K. Brateman
James Hack
Jonathan Brateman
Dr. Jerome Kaufman
Rae Sharfman
Hymie Cutler
his week, we read in the
Torah the celebrated story
of an ancient catastrophe
that wiped away civiliza-
tion, leaving only one man, his
family, and the animals that he
had patiently and carefully gath-
ered into the safety of an ark. The
man was Noah, and his society
was known as the Generation of
the Flood. What transgression
did they commit that exacted
God's decree of total destruction?
The Torah, sparing in its de-
scription, says only that "the
earth was filled with violence."
The very beginning of civilization
was almost doomed by man's
propensity to injure and violate
the life of his fellow.
The text is as contemporary as
today's headlines. What is the
most serious problem confronting
modern man? Is it economics, the
impact of technology, concern
about the environment, over-
population, drug addiction? All
of these challenges can be met by
the insight, resources, and pro-
ductivity of highly advanced
Western civilization, if we could
but summon the will. But one
problem hangs like a sword of
Damocles over the world and has
in overt and covert ways affected
the quality of life in our time —
the scourge of violence.
Each day sees more killing in
the areas of conflict around the
world, murders, rapes and mug-
gings on our city streets, gang
wars, the brutality that takes
place in the inner city neighbor-
hoods, political assassinations,
and all the other forms by which
the human existence is attacked,
assaulted and disfigured.
We do not respond with suffi-
cient indignation to the preva-
lence of violence in American life.
The Congress of the United
States has yet to pass an effective
gun control law. We are indiffer-
ent to the affect of the mass
media on our lives and the lives
of our children. No generation
growing up in any epoch of his-
tory or any place has had to face
such a deluge of violence as
modern American youth. Many
youngsters play with toy guns be-
fore they can read. The mass me-
dia blur the distinction between
reality and fantasy, between right
and wrong. Movies have become
more explicitly violent, present-
ing a pornography of violence in
which every twitch, shriek, and
contortion of the victim is por-
trayed. This disregard for human
life, for human dignity, for
Irwin Groner is senior rabbi of
Congregation Shaarey Zedek.
human existence itself cannot,
but in some measure, affect the
attitudes, the fantasies, and per-
haps even the behavior of the
audience.
From a moral perspective, vi-
olence is not only a matter of
murder or grand larceny. It be-
gins with petty crime, a small in-
sult, a murder of a person by
degrees. In the eyes of God,
Mamas, the term for violence in
the Noah story, is not only the
violenti crime that makes the
headlinbs, but it is the thousand
little assaults that we perpetuate
every day against our neighbor's
sensitivity, a friend's ego, a maid's
peace of mind, parent's dignity,
a child's self-respect, a colleague's
self-worth, a competitor's equal
opportunity. Every time we sneer
at a human being, we spill a drop
of his blood. Every time we utter
a cutting and unkind remark, we
kill the victim a little bit. When-
ever we humiliate another per-
son, we do violence in his
self-image.
The plight of the poor and the
deprived represent another kind
of violence, subtle, hidden, but no
less powerful and destructive. It
is shocking that an affluent coun-
try perpetuates hunger, need and
misery in the slums of its cities.
Violence to the human spirit is
the daily portion of those who live
Shabbat Noach:
Genesis 6:9-11:32
Isaiah 54:1-55:5.
in urban slums, with their sub-
standard housing, filth, and in-
adequate education. The lack of
opportunity, the elimination of
hope and the growth of despair
are the products of this form of
covert, but no less real attack
upon the lives of the poor — the
victims of society's indifference.
The story of Noah is meant to
convey an eternal truth — that
violence is not natural to hu-
manity; it is a perversion of the
process and meaning of creation,
an aberration of what is really
means to be human.
May our generation be enabled
to replace violence with justice,
understanding, truth and love,
so that Isaiah's prophecy can be
fulfilled for us: "Violence shall no
longer be heard in thy land or des-
olation or destruction within thy
borders; for in the place of thy
defensive walls will be the deliv-
erance of the Lord, and in the
place of thy protective gates shall
be the praise of Almighty God." ❑