No Pain,
No Gain
In a boom market with many stock funds rising
30 percent or more, the capital gains tax can be
a real pain in the pocketbook.
If you sell now before the end of the year, the tax
folks will want a third of the profits!
So, why not donate appreciated mutual fund
shares to your favorite cause? A cause that
comforts the aged, educates young people,
rescues people from danger and resettles them
in freedom? In short, how about creating an
endowment fund that will benefit your commu-
nity through the Jewish Federation of Metropoli-
tan Detroit?
You'll feel no pain, you'll avoid tax on the capi-
tal gain, and you'll reap a king-size mitzvah for
your community, your family and yourself.
For information about donating appreciated
mutual fund shares or stocks, call the Endow-
ment Department of the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit, 642-4260, ext. 206.
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Allied Jewish Campaign
PO Box 2030 • Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303-2030 • (810) 642-4260
Chanukah comes in
all shapes and sizes.
Choose from our large selection of
brass, silver and ceramic menorahs;
dreidels, collectible Judaica and corn-
missioned works of art.
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Our Inner Strength
Celebrates Life
RABBI IRWIN GRONER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
I
his week's sedrah begins
with the scene of a wan-
derer, Jacob, fleeing his
home to escape the wrath
of his brother, Esau. On the road
to his uncle's home in Haran, Ja-
cob had reason to be fearful. Be-
hind him, his brother Esau might
be closing in, eager to kill him for
the theft of his birthright. Ahead
was a strange land and unknown
circumstances. He was unsure of
whether God's Providence ex-
tended to the land where he -
would travel.
Jacob took a stone to use as a
pillow and went to sleep. That
night, he had a remarkable
dream of angels ascending and
descending on a ladder rising to
Heaven. God appears in his
dream and reassures him that
the land upon which he is now
resting will be given to him and
his descendants, and that all the
families of the world would see
his descendants as a source of
blessing.
Jacob went to sleep thinking
he was in a place of terror and
awoke the next morning know-
ing that he stood in a place of awe.
He said: "Surely the Lord is in
this place, and I did not know it."
At some point in every human
life, we find ourselves like Jacob,
living through a crisis of danger
and doubt. We take a short walk
into hospital's intensive care unit
to see a loved one gravely ill; each
step in fear, hoping as we walk,
and not knowing what to expect.
Others have themselves been in
that "place of terror" lying in a
hospital bed wondering, as did Ja-
cob, if they would survive.
There are other life crises, less
ominous but no less significant,
when we feel frightened and
alone. I think of the man or
woman whose marriage has
ended in divorce; the business-
man whose enterprise has failed;
the mourner who has lost a dear
one; the person in the "middle
years" who yearns to begin a new
career.
The dream of Jacob's ladder
can be a symbol for today: the
sign of God's presence.
How do we interpret this sym-
bol? The ladder might be seen
first as the potential of prayer.
Just as angels were ascending
and descending the ladder, so can
man join Heaven to earth with
the words of prayer. There are
people who can only pray in the
brightness of a sunlit day. They
can feel appreciation, but theirs
is not the assurance that remains
Irwin Groner is senior rabbi of
Congregation Shaarey Zedek.
when all is gone. An Austrian
playwright once noted: "We know
of some very religious people who
came to doubt God when a great
misfortune befell them, but we
have never yet seen anyone who
lost his faith because an unde-
served fortune fell to his lot."
To pray like Jacob means to
pray in the dark without being
discouraged and embittered; to
pray because we are saddened
but not broken, burdened but not
crushed. We can draw out of the
depth of our soul powers un-
tapped and sometimes even un-
known, for we are stronger than
we think. We can mobilize our
deepest reserves rather than sur-
render to the weakness of self-
pity. The nature of Jacob's prayer
is best described in modern terms
by the wise comments of Rabbi
Abraham Joshua Heschel: "God
is the center toward which all
forces tend. He is the Source, and
we are the flowing of His force,
the ebb and flow of His tides .. .
In crisis, in moments of despair,
a word of prayer is like a strap we
take hold of when tottering in a
rushing streetcar which seems to
be turning over."
Perhaps the ladder is a call to
man to discover the courage
which will enable him to move
higher and lift himself out of the
Shabbat Vayetze:
Genesis 28:10
10-32:3
Hosea 12:13-14:10.
depth of his despair. It is as
though God called ft im Heaven
and said: "Climb, Jacob, climb."
Jacob objects, `Tm tired. I just left
my parents. My brother is clear-
ly an enemy and if I should walk
the wrong road, he will kill me.
Who knows what dangers I will
yet face?" But the call persists:
"Jacob, I know how tired you are,
but climb, just climb." Because of
his ascent, Jacob received divine
blessing.
For most of us, courage con-
jures up images of soldiers going
over the top, firemen entering
burning buildings to save help-
less victims, or other feats of dar-
ing. This is one kind of courage,
but the word means more. -
Courage is the willingness to
risk failure in order to create a
new and better reality. Courage
is the ability to pick ourselves up
after loss and pain and to go
about the business of living.
Courage is the remarkable hu-