Community Views
Comment
Efforts At Outreach
Include Respect
Reach Into The Past
And Make It Real
HARLENE APPELMAN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
RABBI DAVID WOLPE SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
In the last several
months, I had two
experiences that
are worth sharing.
The first one
was in a Jewish
bookstore.
walked in looking
for an Art Scroll
siddur. It is a beautiful prayer-
book with commentaries, and I
wanted it to further my studies.
When I asked for the siddur,
the storekeeper responded, "Don't
you know there are more than
15 different ones? Which one
do you want?" The arro-
gance with which I was ad-
dressed left me almost
speechless.
I had no idea there -
were more than 15, and I
had only a small idea
which one I wanted. How-
ever, I knew what I didn't
want: I didn't want to be
embarrassed; I didn't want
the other customers standing
close by to know I was embar-
rassed.
What I did want was help. I
wanted the shopkeeper to say,
"There are many Art Scroll sid-
durim and here
- is where they are.
If you'd like, I can get someone to
help you."
I didn't want the shopkeeper
to assume that because I didn't
know, I wasn't worth serving.
My second experience was one
that involved a gift of candy for
my friend. I called the service that
I normally use and with which I
Harlene Appelman is director of
community outreach and
involvement for the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit.
have had a longstanding rela-
tionship. When I phoned and ex-
plained my order, the clerk asked,
"Do you want the kosher candy
or the good candy?" I had no re-
ply.
Two instances of tc tal insensi-
tivity; two instances in which the
words of someone else left me
speechless. Two instances that in
a small way highlight the insid-
is
iousness of not knowing fellow
Jews or Jewish customs and of
demonstrating a lack of tolerance
of others of which we are all
guilty.
I then had a flashback of when
my children were young; my fa-
ther, of blessed memory, was vis-
iting. The doorbell rang and my
father and the children opened
the door. There they were met by
some young Mormons serving
their ministry. The young people
began to explain their mission.
My father listened patiently un-
til they had finished.
When they were done, he
looked at them and said, "You
know, I'm Jewish and I love be-
ing Jewish; but if I were anything
else, I'd be a Mormon."
The young people smiled, got
the message and went on their
way. When the door closed, my
children asked my father, "Papa,
did you mean it?"
My father replied, "This is
what I meant: I would never em-
barrass anyone. I would listen to
what they had to say and I would
always treat them with respect."
My adult children still re-
member
that day and the re-
,
spect my father showed the
young people while remain-
ing firm to his own convic-
tions. It was an incredible
moment that he treated as
a matter of course. He
could have slammed the
door. He could have been
abrupt and intolerant. He
chose none of those behav-
iors.
We are each responsible for
outreach. We are each respon-
sible for one another. Why must
we treat each other with disre-
spect?
There are all kinds of books out
today under the rubric of "ran-
dom acts of lovingkindness." I be-
lieve that the larger air of
insensitivity, hatred and even vi-
olence is directly related to the
seemingly minor acts of shop-
keepers and candy salesmen as
well as to the example my father
set for my children.
Each of us needs to look at and
take responsibility for his/her role
and those acts. The behavior of
each person in that parade cre-
ates a climate in which we will
either stay together or disinte-
grate. ❑
Readers Send In
Jerusalem Memories
JEFF KAYE SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
M
any of you, in response
to my last column, sent
in stories about your
Jerusalem experiences.
We will try to relate as many of
them as possible.
Rachel Canaan-Kapen tells a
moving story of her first visit to
Jerusalem in 1945. Accompany-
ing her parents to the Hebrew
University campus on Mount Sco-
pus, of which they were staunch
supporters, she and her sister,
Shula, spent two hours on an old,
dilapidated bus on the old road to
Jerusalem.
Rachel writes, "...finally, we did
arrive at our destination and
while our parents joined the group
for a tour of the beautiful white
buildings housing Hebrew Uni-
versity and Hadassah Hospital,
we kids stayed behind at a small
pine grove across the road col-
lecting armsful of pine cones to
take them back with us to the city.
"We weren't sure what we were
going to do with them, but we had
few toys and a great deal of imag-
ination and these pine cones
seemed like a wonderful deal. Fol-
lowing a family picnic in the grove,
we returned to Tel Aviv, but the
fresh, invigorating mountain air
and the wonderful pine scent re-
mained with me for many years
to come."
For those of you who are World
Wide Web surfers, there are some
fantastic Jerusalem sights that
you can visit. Just imagine sitting
in your home in Michigan view-
ing on your computer screen pic-
tures of the most beautiful city in
the world.
Would you like a guided tour of
Jerusalem? Try http://wwwl.
ac.il/jeru/j erusaleml.htrnl. Or,
want to sing? Download Naomi
Shemer's Yerushalayim Shel Za-
hav at http://wwthuji.ac.ii/jeru/
songofjerusalem.htual.
In a city so rich in history, the
architecture in and around
Jerusalem reflects the myriad of
influences that have resided there.
JERUSALEM page 10
How important
is it to be re-
membered?
We make
great efforts to
advance memo-
ry: we name chil-
dren after those
who have died,
put plaques and
memorials on buildings, erect
gravestones, keep old letters
and photographs, light candles,
tell stories, read books and bi-
ographies about the dead.
This is but a small sampling
of the vast human effort to be
remembered. Who does not
identify with the lovely lines of
the 19th-century English poet
Flecker, addressed to one who
will read him 1,000 years
later? "0 friend unseen, un-
born, unknown/Student of our
sweet English tongue/Read out
my words at night, alone,/ I
was a poet, I was young." Do
not forget me. I passed this
way, too.
When children are young,
we tell them stories of those
they might have known: their
grandparents or aunts or un-
cles who have died. We recount
the stories of our own lives, be-
cause we want to remember
that former self. We hope to re-
visit an earlier time. Movies set
in the time of our childhood
and adolescence stir our own
memories, and awaken old
longings.
Memory grants us the glori-
ous chance of being in a place
long gone. The landscape of the
past may nestle in movies or
photographs, but its real home
is in memory. As the French
writer Voltaire said, "God gave
us memories so that we might
have roses in December."
Yet we acknowledge a
strange paradox of memory.
Often things we would rather
forget stay in our minds, and
things we wish to remember
are forgotten. We do not always
remember what we wish to
remember. Historians and
archaeologists face this dilem-
ma constantly. What is pre-
served by the past is random.
At times instead of unearthing
the great stories and legends
of ancient civilizations, the
archeologist's spade turns up
fragments of ledger sheets or
laundry lists.
Memory is capricious: The
most influential book on how
to remember things in West-
ern history, Ad Herennium,
was written in the first century
BCE. The author's name is lost
to us.
Scores of times the Bible ex-
horts us to remember. Re-
member so that you can do.
Remember so that you might
understand. Remember so that
you might teach those who fol-
low you. The gate of faith
swings on the hinge of memo-
ry. The enemy of faith is for-
getfulness.
No other people values
memory more than the Jewish
people. Our tradition insists
upon remembering — and in-
structs us on what we should
remember. In the Bible, whole
decades, even centuries, are
dismissed in a line. Other
times are explained and ex-
plored. Some passages of our
history are dark and forgotten.
Others are lit up and recount-
ed for the generations.
Remember
so that
you might
understand.
No Jew need walk alone in
this world. On Passover we are
asked to walk beside a ragged
band of slaves, newly emerg-
ing from the terrors of Egypt.
But we are also asked to walk
with the first proud settlers of
Joshua's time, with the Persian
exiles, the Rabbis, the students
in the academies of Babylonia,
the mothers who nurtured and
wept in all the lands of our dis-
persion, the hopeful voyagers
to new lands, the survivors and
the lost, the scholars, the fi-
nanciers, the dreamers, the
dairymen, the cobblers and the
children.
The long, glorious, haunted
scroll of Jewish history has
them all, and countless others.
But they are mute without
memory. Only by remember-
ing do we give them voice. The
book sits on the shelf, eager to
be opened. The witness waits,
impatient to be asked.
To reach into the past, re-
member it and make it real; to
tell one's children not only of
what is, but what was — this
is an obligation due every hu-
man being, and it is an obliga-
tion that falls upon every Jew.
The Scottish philosopher Car-
lyle said that "not to remember
the past is to remain always a
child." If we wish to move in
this world with maturity, grav-
ity and balance, we must recall
where we came from. "And you
shall teach your children." No
injunction in the whole histo-
ry of Judaism is more central
to preserving its mission and
message. Zachor.
Remember.
❑